Roman Palestine
The Roman Palestine consisted of 63 v. It went through various degrees of dependence on the Roman Empire during these seven centuries . Although the Levant was added to Roman and Palestine to the province of Syria , there was initially a rule of the high priest of Jerusalem , then a client kingdom that worked between the great powers and the adversaries of the late phase of the Roman civil wars . Its most famous ruler was the Idumean Herod , especially since Jesus of Nazareth was born towards the end of his reign. The power struggles within the dynasty prompted Rome to intervene again and again. The last Hasmonean king also became the religious head of all Jews in Palestine as well as in the Jewish diaspora . The kingdom of the Nabataeans around the city of Petra , which today belongs to Jordan , was also founded in 62 BC. BC Roman, but was able to maintain relative independence until 106 AD.
The uprising against the Roman Empire, which began in AD 66, failed in 70 and ended with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple of Herod . After the suppression of the uprising, Judea became a province, the capital of which was now Caesarea . The Sanhedrin , until then the highest Jewish religious and political authority and at the same time the highest court, was re-established as a priestly body, to which now only scholars could get. The diaspora uprising (115–118) and the uprising under Simon Bar Kochba (132–135) were also suppressed. Around 166 the Sanhedrin finally took its seat in Tiberias , where most of the Jews now lived, as they were forbidden from entering Jerusalem - a condition that lasted until the Islamic conquest and only allowed from 425 to 460 for mourning the destruction of the temple was. The chairman remained the most important spiritual authority of the Jews in Palestine and in the diaspora before the office of patriarch, which had become hereditary in a dynasty, was abolished by Rome. The Jews mainly lived in Galilee , but there were also settlements in Hauran , on the Golan and in the area between Ashkalon and Ein Gedi .
During the imperial crisis of the 3rd century , the Levant made itself largely independent under the leadership of the large trading city Palmyra , but Emperor Aurelian recaptured the empire of Palmyra for Rome by 273. There were riots in Palestine against Palmyra, about which there is almost no tradition. With the relocation of the imperial capital from Rome to Byzantium , which was soon to be called Constantinople , Christianity gradually became the dominant religion in the empire, and even the state religion . With the establishment of the state religion at the latest, not only the pagan cults, but also Palestine Judaism came on the defensive. Legal obstruction and local persecution resulted in surveys in 351/352 and around 440.
Christian Jerusalem was given priority of honor in 325 and jurisdiction over Palestine in 451 . In the 6th century the Jerusalem Patriarchate was on a par with those of Constantinople and Rome , Antioch and Alexandria . At the same time, the battles between Jews and Christians, as well as those within Christianity, came to a head again and again. The Samaritans also rose up in the years 484 and 529/30 as well as 555. The cause lay in the imperial policy, which was increasingly hostile to religious minorities. In 578 both Jews and Samaritans rose again. The emperors were also unable to reach a compromise between groups that were at odds over Christological reasons and the nature of God. On the other hand, both Christians and Jews achieved mission successes with the Arabs who lived in the outskirts of Palestine and on the Arabian Peninsula.
Until around 300 the municipal system , which had been extended to the entire empire since 212, spread over the entire province, apart from the Upper Galilee, the Golan and the imperial possessions in Jericho and the northern Negev . The cities were now heavily Romanized , the majority spoke Greek . On the other hand, the majority of the peasants became colonists , who were bound to the land they worked with severe penalties, while their master increasingly gained legal power over them. The total population almost returned to the number it had before the great uprisings.
The first long collapse of Roman rule in late late antiquity was caused by the Persians under the Sassanids , who ruled Jerusalem from 614 to 630 and extended their territory far into North Africa and Asia Minor . A few years after they had been repulsed, supporters of Islam , which dates back to Mohammed and whose main bearers were initially predominantly Arabs, advanced to Palestine from 632/634 and conquered the province up to 640. The population losses in these wars were apparently very high. The new masters allowed the Jews back into Jerusalem and put the non-Islamic religions on a par. The Muslims, on the other hand, remained tax-free, with the leading positions almost exclusively open to the Arabs.
Expansion of Rome into the Eastern Mediterranean
From the third century onwards, Rome interfered more and more in the conditions in the eastern Mediterranean. With the victory over Pyrrhus , the Hellenistic king of Epirus in 275 BC. Rome began to break the purely Italian framework and expand its power. It defeated Carthage and waged wars against the Hellenistic empires (200 to 146 BC), 167 BC. The kingdom of Macedonia disappeared , finally the expansion to Asia Minor followed (from 133 BC) and at the end there was the annexation of the remaining empire of the Seleucids (64 BC) and the Ptolemies (30 BC).
Connection to the Roman province of Syria, ethnarchy under the high priest Hyrcanus (63 - 40 BC)
In 66 BC BC Pompey conquered Asia Minor for the expanding Roman Empire . In the following year he ended the Seleucid rule in Syria, 63 BC. Those of the Hasmoneans in Jerusalem. He took Aristobulus II and his sons captive to Rome. But he left the priest John Hyrcanus II in office and granted him religious autonomy over Judea , Idumea , Galilee and Perea , but without the Hellenistic cities of the East Bank ( Decapolis ) and Samaria . Hyrcanus was high priest of Israel from 76 to about 40 BC. And ruler (ethnarch) in Judea from 63 to approx. 40 BC Chr.
Palestine and Syria were united to form the Roman province of Syria and placed under the governor Scaurus . His successor, Aulus Gabinius , put down a revolt of the Hasmonean supporters , destroyed their fortresses and strengthened the rights of the high priest as head of the Sanhedrin , who was responsible for religious and, in some cases, secular jurisdiction.
Parthian War and Roman Civil War, client kingdom (until 30 BC)
54 BC Chr. Was Marcus Licinius Crassus , next to Julius Caesar and Pompey member of the first triumvirate , as the successor of Gabinius governor of the province of Syria. However, his interest was not in Syria, but in preparing a campaign against the Parthians . In order to raise the necessary funds, he accessed the temple treasures and removed all gold implements and ornaments found in the temple. According to Josephus' report, it was a total of 10,000 talents (about 300–400 tons of gold). But in the battle of Carrhae 20,000 soldiers were killed in a devastating defeat, including Crassus himself and his son, 10,000 were taken prisoner. In Judea this defeat was viewed as God's vengeance for the temple robbery.
Gaius Cassius Longinus and his troops were able to save themselves from the battle . When he returned to Syria, he succeeded Crassus. After he had secured the borders of Syria against invading Parthians and had committed Alexander , son of Aristobulus, to peace, he defeated another uprising of followers of Aristobulus near Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee in Judea, sold 30,000 rebellious Jews into slavery and left Peitholaos , execute one of their leaders on the advice of Antipater , the father of Herod the Great .
The tensions, which had grown sharply in Rome, led in 49 BC to At the outbreak of the civil war between Pompey and Caesar. The Jewish parties rivaled in the power struggle between Caesar and Pompey with changing alliances. Caesar released Aristobulus from Roman captivity to weaken Pompey in Syria. But when his followers poisoned Aristobulus and beheaded his son Alexander, the priest Hyrcanus and the Idumean Antipater changed to Caesar's side and subsequently helped him to win in Alexandria.
It was during this period that Palestine was drawn into the Egyptian civil war . Cleopatra VII was around the autumn of 49 BC. Was expelled from Alexandria. She recruited mercenaries in Palestine and marched with her private army against the border fortress of Pelusion . With his advisors and the army, her brother Ptolemy XIII moved. to meet her, but before the battle broke out, Pompey appeared in September 48 BC. BC (according to the pre-Julian calendar) on the coast, where he had fled after his defeat at Pharsalus . The Roman general, who because of his friendship with Ptolemy XII. as guardian of his son Ptolemy XIII. could occur, asked the Egyptian government for support. However, the Roman was murdered; two days later, his main opponent, Caesar, landed in Egypt. There he was supported by a Jewish contingent under the leadership of Antipater in the fight against Ptolemy XIII.
For this, Caesar rewarded Hyrcanus with the hereditary office of high priest and made Antipater the de facto ruler of Judea. Antipater became his client, a connection that became the basis of the close relationship between Antipater's descendants and the rulers of Rome. In addition, Antipater was granted Roman citizenship with the privilege of tax exemption. The port city of Joppa (now part of Tel-Aviv) fell to Judea, and Jerusalem was allowed to be re-fortified. The temple retained its own jurisdiction over Judea, Idumea, Perea, and Galilee.
After Caesar's murder, Cleopatra fled in 44 BC. From Rome to Egypt, where she soon had her brother Ptolemy XIV eliminated. There the queen also won the heart of Mark Antony , who gave her 36 BC. The earlier Ptolemaic territories in Syria and Asia Minor.
After Antipater 43 BC He was poisoned by his son Herod the Great , who had been poisoned since 47 BC. Was governor of Galilee. As 40 BC When Antigonus and the Parthians invaded Judea, Herod fled to Rome. There he was appointed King of Jerusalem under the second triumvirate , consisting of Octavian , Mark Antony and Lepidus . From 39 to 37 BC Herod waged war against Antigonus. After the conquest of Jerusalem and the victory over Antigonus, he was executed on the orders of Mark Antony.
However, after the fleets of Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC. BC in the battle of Actium by Octavian, the later emperor Augustus , were defeated, the Ptolemaic empire fell to Rome. In the conflict between the triumvirs, Herod decided in good time against his patron Antonius and in favor of Octavian. In the year 30 BC He was therefore confirmed as king on Rhodes by Octavian.
Nabataeans
King Aretas III. Philhellen (87-62 BC) conquered Damascus, interfered in the power struggles of the Hasmoneans and besieged Jerusalem. Now, however, Rome intervened. On behalf of Pompey , the general Marcus Aemilius Scaurus put an end to the occupation of Jerusalem. He defeated Aretas and concluded in 62 BC. Before Petra a comparison with the mediation of the Hasmoneans. Petra became a vassal of Rome against payment of 300 talents.
Thus, the empire came into a vassal relationship to Rome, but was able to maintain its independence for almost 200 years. The city's prosperity continued to grow and the buildings began to take shape in the 1st century BC. Chr. Increasingly monumental forms. At the time of Aretas IV (8 BC – 40 AD) the main temple was built as a representative building in the center of the city. It is estimated that Petra had about 30,000-40,000 inhabitants. 24 BC They succeeded in subjugating Dedan , which lies far in the south ; at that time they were already controlling the nearby Hegra.
The historian Diodorus (1st century BC) wrote, probably citing older clichés:
- They lead a robber life and often plunder neighboring countries on raids. […] They neither plant corn nor other fruit-bearing trees, nor drink wine, nor do they build any houses. […] Although there are many other Arab tribes who use the desert as pasture, they far surpass the others in wealth, although they do not number much more than 10,000, because quite a few are used to frankincense and myrrh and exquisite spices to the sea bring to.
King Malichus I (59 – after 30 BC) allied in 40 BC. With the Parthians against Rome. 32 BC BC Herod the Great attacked Malichus - allegedly on the initiative of Cleopatra. After a victory at Diospolis / Dion , he suffered a defeat at Kanatha against the Nabateans. According to Josephus, their success was only achieved with the help of Cleopatra's strategist Athenion, a statement that the ancient historian Christoph Schäfer doubts. Finally, Herod defeated the Nabataeans in the summer of 31 BC. BC decisive at Philadelphia, today's Amman .
In the period that followed, Rome encouraged shipping traffic on the Red Sea and had caravan routes built that bypassed Petra in the north. The last Nabatean king, Rabel II (70-106), took into account the resulting economic decline by moving the capital to Bostra .
Under Trajan , the kingdom of Nabataea lost its relative independence in 106 and was incorporated into the empire as the Roman province of Arabia Petraea . Economically, Petra was soon eclipsed by Gerasa .
Roman client kingship of the Hasmoneans (43 BC – 71 AD)
See also: Herodian dynasty .
Herod the Great (43-4 BC)
Herod I or Herod the Great was born in 37 BC. King of Judea, Galilee and Samaria . As a client king appointed and supported by Rome, however, his sovereignty was limited. As an Idumean, Herod did not belong to any of the Jewish tribes , but was a Jew, since the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus I (175-104 BC) had forced the inhabitants to accept Judaism during the conquest of Idumea. Although he strictly adhered to the Jewish rules and rites and refrained from anything that could have aroused the anger of the Jewish people or the Jewish authorities, he was reproached for not being a Jew, since the Torah says: “Only from the midst of you Brothers, you may appoint a king over you. "( Dtn 17.15 EU )
Herod was the second son of Antipater and his wife Cypros, a Nabataean woman . 47 BC He was appointed governor of Galilee by his father, a little over 25 years old. After his father, who had once supported Caesar, was poisoned four years later, he became engaged in 42 BC. With the Hasmonean woman Mariamne and divorced his first wife. 40 BC BC Antigonus and the Parthians invaded Judea; Antigonus became king of Jerusalem. Herod fled and then traveled to Rome. 36 BC At the request of his wife Mariamne, Herod made his brother-in-law Aristobulus high priest, but had the 16-year-old drowned after his first appearance at the Feast of Tabernacles at the end of the celebrations.
32 to 31 BC BC Herod defeated the Nabataeans. He decided against his patron Antonius and for Octavian. In the year 30 BC Thus Herod was confirmed as king of Rhodes by the victorious Octavian. 29 BC He had his wife Mariamne executed, and the following year also his brother-in-law Kostobaros because of a conspiracy. Herod was assassinated in 27 BC. Early uncovered. In honor of Augustus, Herodes had Samaria expanded and renamed “Sebaste” (from the Greek σεβαστός “sublime”, corresponding to the Latin “Augustus”). 27 BC Great festivals took place in Jerusalem, where Herod had a theater and an amphitheater built. In Galilee, which had opposed strong opposition, Herod built nothing for the Jews there during his long reign. After a drought of 25 BC There was a famine and epidemic. Herod had grain procured in Egypt, and he also waived a third of all taxes.
Herod let himself be 23 BC. BC build a royal palace in Jerusalem and the Herodeion residence in Judea. He married another woman, again by the name of Mariamne ; she was the daughter of the priest Simon Boethos . From Augustus he received the landscapes Trachonitis, Batanäa and Auranitis to his domain. Between 20 and 10 BC The splendid renovation and expansion of the second Israelite temple was built in the 4th century BC , which was then given the name Herodian Temple .
14 BC Herod stood up for the Jews in Asia Minor and Cyrene . Due to the economic prosperity in Judea, he waived a quarter of all taxes. By extracting pitch from the Dead Sea, he had for a time almost achieved a monopoly on this substance, which is so important for caulking ; he had also leased the copper mines on Cyprus from the Roman emperor . In connection with British pewter , it achieved a dominant position in the manufacture of bronze .
The settlement of the succession brought Herod, whose sons strived for rule, in far-reaching power struggles in which Rome always had to be taken into account. Since he was afraid that his two sons (with the first Mariamne) Alexandros and Aristobulus in the year 12 v. Chr. Chr. After life, Herod accused them before the emperor. He drove with both of them to Aquileia in northern Italy , where the trial was to take place; but Augustus was able to reconcile the three men. Herod regulated his succession in such a way that both Alexandros and Aristobulus were raised to royal rank, but Antipater was to become king.
As a result of a campaign against the Nabataeans, who were in league with rebels, Herod fell out of favor with Augustus. Again Herod suspected that Alexandros intended to assassinate him. After renewed suspicion a year later, Herod charged the sons of Mariamne (I.) with high treason. He was able to reconcile himself with Augustus, and he allowed Herod to take legal action against his sons. The trial took place 7 BC. BC in Berytos ( Beirut ) before a Roman court, the Mariamne sons were found guilty and executed. The succession was changed so that Antipater should now be the sole heir to the throne. In second place he ranked his son of the same name from his marriage to the second Mariamne Herodes Boethos . Herod went in 6 BC. Against Pharisees , who had announced that with the birth of the Messiah the end of his rule would be imminent. A year later, Antipater was also tried for a plot. The verdict had to be approved by the Roman emperor, whereupon Herod had him executed. Herod now appointed his son Herodes Antipas from his fourth marriage to Malthake as his heir to the throne. At that time he was already marked by a serious illness. Young Torah students smashed 4 BC After a call from Pharisee teachers, the golden eagle above the main entrance to the temple in Jerusalem as an alleged Roman symbol. Herod had the guilty arrested, tried and punished.
He changed his will again: Herodes Archelaos (from his marriage to Malthake) was to rule as king over the entire kingdom, while Herodes Antipas and Herodes Philippos (from his marriage to Cleopatra from Jerusalem - not to be confused with the Egyptian queen) together over Galilee and Perea , respectively Gaulanitis ( Golan ), Trachonitis , Batanaea and Panias should rule. At the end of March or at the latest at the beginning of April of the year 4 BC Herod died. Since Augustus did not confirm Herod's will, no one received the title of king. However, the three children received their designated areas. Shortly before his death, Herod had the most respected Jewish men locked in the Jericho racecourse. His plan was to have her murdered when he died so that the Jews would weep when he was buried. However, his sister Salome and her husband Alexas foiled the plan and freed the men.
Herodian tetrarchy
See also: Herodian Tetrarchy .
After Herod's death, Augustus divided his kingdom between his sons Herodes Antipas (Galilee and Perea ), Herodes Archelaos (Judea and Samaria) and Herodes Philippos ( Iturea , Golan , Trachonitis ).
The ethnarch Herodes Archelaos and the tetrarch Herodes Antipas, both sons from Herod's fifth marriage to the Samaritan Malthake , were half-brothers of Herodes Philippos who had been brought up with him in Rome. Philip was married to his niece Salome , the notorious daughter of Herodias for her involvement in the execution of John the Baptist . However, their marriage remained childless.
The eldest son Archelaus received most of the kingdom, while Antipas and Philip were given smaller areas of rule. The northern tracts of land open to the east towards the desert, which Herodes Philippos ruled as sovereign, only produced an annual tax income of 100 talents. In contrast, the areas of the ethnarch Archelaos produced 600 talents per year. Philip had the city of Paneas , located at the sources of the Jordan , expanded and named it Caesarea (Philippi) in honor of the emperor Tiberius . He raised the settlement of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee to the rank of city and named it Julias after Julia , the daughter of the Roman emperor Augustus . Flavius Josephus reports: “He was a mild ruler and calm mind to his subjects, and he also spent his whole life in his own country. Whenever he went out of his house, he took only a select few with him and had the throne chair, from which he spoke righteously, carried over every way. If someone met him who wanted help and assistance, the chair was immediately set up, and now he held an investigation, punished the guilty and acquitted the innocent accused. "The tetrarchy of Philip was established after his death in 34 AD slammed by Emperor Tiberius of the province of Syria, in 37 his relative Herod Agrippa I received the territory from Emperor Caligula . Salome married Aristobulus , son of Herod of Chalcis , a grandson of Herod the Great. He later became king of Lesser Armenia (Armenia minor).
Herod Archelaus was appointed successor by Herod the Great and ruled for a decade; its territories were confiscated from Rome. He first put down a revolt by the Pharisees in the temple, in which 3,000 Jews were killed. Then he sailed to Rome to have Augustus confirm his claim to power. There, however, his brother Herod Antipas appeared against him. Nevertheless, Augustus appointed Archelaus ethnarch over Judea, Samaria and Idumea ; he promised him the title of king if he should rule well. But Archelaus was an unpredictable ruler. After his return he appointed his brother Eleazar as high priest in place of Joazar ben Boethos, and Joshua ben Sie soon replaced him, but Archelaus replaced him shortly afterwards with Joazar ben Boethos. The Jews were particularly offended by the fact that he disowned his first wife Mariamne - possibly Antipater's widow - in order to marry the wife of his executed half-brother Alexander, Glaphyra , even though she had been married to King Juba II since Alexander's death . 6 AD Jews and Samaritans sued him before Augustus, who called him to Rome through an envoy. In a court hearing he had him removed from office, confiscated his property and banished him to Vienna in Gaul. Its ethnarchy was transformed into a Roman province.
Herod Antipas (the nickname Antipater - representative of the father - was given to him later to distinguish himself from his father) was ruler of Perea and Galilee. where his capital Sepphoris was. He founded Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, which was named after Emperor Tiberius. His sister-in-law and niece Herodias , the wife of his half-brother Herodes Boethus , left her husband out of love for Antipas, who in turn rejected his first wife, the daughter of the Nabatean king Aretas IV . This double adultery caused offense among the Jews and the injured father-in-law Aretas inflicted a severe military defeat on him. According to the biblical account, John the Baptist publicly denounced Herod Antipas of double adultery around 28 AD, whereupon John was arrested and later executed at Herodias' instigation. Flavius Josephus, however, mentions nothing of this criticism of the Baptist in his report on the execution of John the Baptist. Rather, he cites the prevention of a possible rebellion as the motive for the arrest and execution. Herod Antipas went to Rome in 39 to receive the title of king from Caligula , but was banished to Lugdunum in Gaul on the basis of serious charges brought against him by his nephew and brother-in-law Herod Agrippa I. His kingdom was united with the territory of Herod Agrippa.
Herod Agrippa I was the son of the Jewish prince Aristobulus and his wife Berenike and thus a grandson of King Herod the Great. One of his brothers was Herod of Chalkis , ruler of the Kingdom of Chalkis from 44 to 48. His other brother was Aristobulus the Younger , who was married to Jotape, daughter of King Sampsigeramos II (14-48) of Emesa . Herodes Agrippa was brought up in Rome together with Drusus , the son of Tiberius, and with the later emperor Claudius . As Flavius Josephus reports, Agrippa, who had fled Rome and was completely in debt, thought in his desperation of suicide, but his wife Kypros, a granddaughter of Herod the Great, managed to avert this by asking for support from Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias. But only thanks to the financial help of the wealthy Jew Tiberius Iulius Alexander was he able to return to Rome in 35/36. In 37 AD, Agrippa, who was able to benefit from his contacts with leading personalities in Rome, opened up new perspectives: Emperor Caligula appointed him king of the tetrarchy of the late Herod Philippos and two years later also for the area of southern Gaul exiled Herod Antipas. In the year 41 Agrippa also received the territories of Herodes Archelaos from Claudius . His sphere of influence thus included the entire area of his grandfather.
In 42 AD Agrippa gathered the client kings who were dependent on Rome in Tiberias. These were his brother Herod of Chalkis, Polemon II of Pontus, Kotys of Lesser Armenia, Antiochus IV of Commagene and Sampsigeramos of Emesa, the father-in-law of his brother Aristobulus. The Roman governor of Syria, Vibius Marsus , who was apparently not invited to this conference, but who appeared during the meeting of the kings in Tiberias, sent messengers to the royal guests to ask them to return to their homeland. Agrippa wrote several times to the emperor - albeit in vain - to send a new governor to replace Marsus.
Domestically, he tried to draw influential Jews to his side by aligning with Jewish law. For this reason he probably instigated a persecution of the young Christian community in Jerusalem, during which the apostle James was murdered and Simon Peter was taken prisoner. He died in AD 44. His death is described in the biblical book of Acts :
“But when it was day there was no small dismay among the soldiers about what had become of Peter. But when Herod asked for him and could not find him, he called the guards to the investigation and ordered them to be led away; and he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. But he was very bitter against the Tyrians and Sidonians. But they came to him with one accord, and after persuading Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country was nourished by the royal land. On a appointed day, however, Herod, after putting on royal clothes and sitting on the throne, made a public speech to them. But the people called out to him: The voice of one God and not one of man! But immediately an angel of the Lord struck him for not giving glory to God; and eaten by worms, he passed away. But the word of God grew and multiplied. "
A similar report can be found in Flavius Josephus .
His son Herod Agrippa II was too young to succeed him. The kingdom was therefore converted to a Roman province and administered by Roman procurators. One of his daughters, Drusilla , later married the Procurator of Judea, Marcus Antonius Felix .
Herod Agrippa II was the last Hasmonean king from 50 to 70 . Only after the death of his uncle Herod of Chalkis did Herod Agrippa II take over the royal dignity and supreme supervision of the temple service in Jerusalem, with the right to appoint the high priest. This made him the religious head of all Jews in Palestine as well as in the diaspora . He stood up for the Jews of Alexandria ; in the same year he received from Claudius instead of Chalkis in Syria the former tetrarchy of Herodes Philippos , i.e. the landscapes of Batanaea, Trachonitis and Gaulanitis, as well as the areas of Lysanias . In 64 Emperor Nero gave him the cities of Tiberias and Tarichea in Galilee and Julias in Perea with the surrounding villages. Herod Agrippa II tried in vain to prevent the Jewish War (66–70 / 73 AD) against the Romans. After the war he accompanied the Roman general and later Emperor Titus to Rome, where he lived until his death in 93.
Revolts against Rome (AD 66–135)
Jewish War (66–70 AD), destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple
An uprising against the Roman Empire that began in AD 66 expanded into the Jewish War , described by Flavius Josephus in his work De bello Judaico . When Jerusalem was destroyed in 70, the Herodian Temple was also destroyed, which is depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome . Jews were able to continue living in their land until the Bar Kochba uprising was ended on the orders of Emperor Hadrian , with a large part of the population perishing or enslaved .
In Judea taxes were heavy and the governors took advantage of their office to blackmail the provincials. There were also provocations against the Jewish religion, whose monotheism was incompatible with the Roman state religion . To put down the uprising, the Syrian legate Gaius Cestius Gallus was sent to Jerusalem with 12,000 legionnaires and auxiliary troops in autumn 66 . However, Gallus had to withdraw with heavy losses.
Emperor Nero Vespasian was entrusted with leading the war . As reasons for his appeal calls Suetonius his ability and experience and above all that he posed no danger because of his humble origins in the eyes of Nero. Vespasian's 60,000-strong army consisted of three legions, 23 auxiliary cohorts , cavalry units and 15,000 auxiliary troops from the allied oriental princes. Vespasian's son Titus besieged Iotapata in 67 and conquered Iapha. By May / June 69, all the fallen cities apart from the fortresses Herodeion , Machairos and Masada had been retaken, thus isolating Jerusalem.
The Jewish commander Josephus was captured during the siege of Iotapata . In his captivity he prophesied Vespasian the imperial office; later, after Vespasian had actually attained imperial dignity, he was released. He wrote his De Bello Iudaico about the course of the war .
After the beginning of the Jewish War, the Roman Empire plunged into its worst crisis since the founding of the Principate . This crisis and the fall of Nero can be traced back to the catastrophic situation of the Roman finances and the dwindling acceptance of the emperor by the army and by the urban Roman plebeians . After the death of Nero, there was a year of inactivity in Judea. Titus supported his father by negotiating with the Syrian governor Gaius Licinius Mucianus about a revolt against the briefly ruling Vitellius. In July 69 the legions of Syria, Egypt and Judea proclaimed Vespasian emperor. Vespasian defeated Vitellius in the Battle of Bedriacum in northern Italy on October 24, 69.
Titus, who had now risen to the Roman throne, was commissioned to bring the Jewish War to an end, i.e. to take Jerusalem. It is not clear from the sources whether, in addition to the conquest, the complete destruction of the city and the temple was planned.
The siege of Jerusalem began with four legions during the feast of Passover in the spring. Almost a third of the total population of Iudaea had gathered there to celebrate the most important Jewish festival, which is why the city's population had increased tenfold for a few days. Right at the beginning of the siege, Titus is said to have tortured and crucified those fleeing from the city in front of the besieged . According to Flavius Iosephus, 500 Jews are said to have been executed in this way every day. After storming and destroying the second curtain wall, Titus had the whole city enclosed by a wall. As a result, over 600,000 Jews are said to have starved to death within a few weeks. Tacitus, however, estimated the total number of the besieged at 600,000 people. The inner city and the temple withstood the siege until early August. After Titus' soldiers reached the outer courtyard of the temple, they burned the structure and killed everyone they encountered. Allegedly around 1,100,000 people died in the siege, only 97,000 are said to have survived. The survivors were sold into slavery or killed in circus games, and the Jewish land and its income were confiscated for the benefit of the imperial treasury . The remaining Jews were forced to pay the poll tax that they had paid annually to the Temple of Jerusalem to the Capitoline Jupiter (fiscus Iudaicus) . Only the foundation wall of the temple built by Herod, today's Western Wall , remained. The temple treasure, which included the menorah , a seven-armed candlestick, was brought to Rome. After the suppression of the uprising, Vespasian established Judea as a propratory province.
Since the war, Titus had a liaison with Berenike , eleven years his senior , a great-granddaughter of Herod the Great and sister of King Herod Agrippa II. She was recognized as her brother's co-regent. Berenike stood up for her homeland. She achieved an influential position in Rome, where she lived from 75, but a marriage between a Jewish princess and a Roman general threatened political stability in the eyes of the Romans and was therefore even more impossible for an emperor's son like Titus. Due to the enormous public criticism, Titus was forced to leave her against his and her will (invito, invitam) . Berenike was probably banished from Rome immediately after Titus came to power.
There were no legal obstacles to a marital union, because Berenike was a Roman citizen from birth, since Gaius Iulius Caesar her family in the 1940s of the 1st century BC. For their services in the civil war had been granted Roman citizenship. However, the marriage may have been prevented by the fact that she was Jewish and any children would have been Jews as well. Apparently, the Senate and the people of Rome could not make friends with this so shortly after the Jewish uprising and the city fire of 64, which was associated with the Christians - according to the Roman view of a Jewish sect. The plebeians openly showed their opposition. Because of their protests and reasons of state , Titus failed to legalize his connection with Berenike, and also removed her from his personal circle. However, she stayed in Italy and apparently came to Rome again shortly before the death of Titus in 81, and then returned to her homeland.
Rabbi (after 70), diaspora uprising (115–118)
Jews had lived in the diaspora, which they call Gola or Galut, for many generations. At the latest in the 5th century BC They lived in Egypt in the west, in the east they lived since the Babylonian captivity. With the destruction of the temple by Titus, many more of them will have left the impoverished land. Even if the numbers are only to be understood as approximate values, at the time of Tiberius there were 4.5 million Jews in the Roman Empire with its perhaps 55 to 60 million inhabitants, i.e. around 7 to 8% of the total population, in Palestine itself perhaps one million.
There religious authority passed to the rabbis . Jochanan ben Sakkai , who, according to legend, was carried out of the besieged Jerusalem by his students as supposedly dead, founded a school of Torah teaching in Jawne with Roman permission , which lasted until it was closed by the Christian state church in the early 5th century. The Sanhedrin , once the supreme Jewish religious and political authority and at the same time the highest court, was re-established as a priestly body to which only scholars could now get. Its chairman, the nasi , was known to the outside world as the patriarch . At the same time, the Pharisees took over the leadership of the congregation. As teachers of the law, whose teachings form the content of the Mishnah , they are also called teachers of the Mishnah time, or Tannaim (teachers). The nasi soon traced back to Hillel , the most important Pharisaic rabbi from the time before the destruction of the Second Temple, head of the Sanhedrin and founder of a school for the interpretation of the holy scriptures, and finally even to David himself, which probably served to strengthen his authority. In earlier times the king was referred to as nasi. As a result, the Babylonian teacher in question, the rosh ha-gola, granted the nes'in Palestine powers only within the framework there. The Babylonian teachers or exiles can only be documented from the 3rd century, but they can be traced back to the Davidic house. In the provincial capital Caesarea, with its perhaps 70,000 inhabitants, the school of the only Jewish poet of the time, Bar Qappara , a student of Judah ha-Nasi, whose school rivaled the older one, existed from the beginning of the 3rd century . The first non-Jew is said to have been baptized here ( EU 10 ). After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, Caesarea became the capital of the province of Palestine. At the beginning of the 6th century the city had the second largest library after the Alexandrian one ; it contained 30,000 volumes.
In 115, while Trajan was waging his war of conquest in the east, a widespread Jewish rebellion broke out in the eastern diaspora countries . This diaspora insurrection soon developed into open war that spread to Cyrenaica and Libya, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Cyprus. This war was preceded by skirmishes between Jews and Christians in Alexandria and Cyrene, but it was soon directed against Rome. The fighting was so intense that cities were devastated even after three decades. Even if Cassius Dio ( Roman History 68,32) certainly tried to pile up every imaginable accusation of the inhumanity of the insurgents a hundred years later, as often happened between political-religious opponents, his description probably also reflects the memory of the brutality of the clashes Again: “In the meantime the Jews of Cyrenaica had made a certain Andrew their leader and destroyed both Romans and Greeks. They ate the flesh of their victims, made girdles of entrails, smeared themselves with blood, and clothed themselves in the skins; many saw them from top to bottom, others threw them before wild animals, and still others forced them to fight as gladiators. In total, two hundred and twenty thousand people died. ”In the end, the emperors saw themselves compelled to bring numerous colonists into the country to compensate for the human losses.
In Cyrene, the Greek temples in particular seem to have been the target of destruction, but the symbols of Roman rule such as the Caesareum, the basilica and the baths were also destroyed or badly damaged. Apparently the non-Greek peasants supported the Jews against Rome, because where they did not, they were showered with praise. The Jewish armies moved to Egypt, but were eventually subject to the legions of Emperor Hadrian in 118. The leader of the uprising was a Jew named Andrew or Luke; presumably he had both a Hebrew and a Greek name. Since he is referred to as a king, he will be seen as a messianic pretender, comparable to Simon bar Kochba , the leader in the last great uprising of the Jews from 132 to 135.
Newly erected buildings and milestones give the Jewish uprising ( tumultus Iudaicus ) as the reason for the renovation .
The Sanhedrin stayed in Jawne until 135th. After the Bar Kochba uprising, the school was destroyed, the Sanhedrin met a few years later for some time in the Galilean Usha. From this time a large Jewish burial town in Bet She'arim remained , in which the patriarch Yehuda ha-Nasi (the "prince") was buried. At 166 the Sanhedrin finally took its seat in Tiberias . The chairman remained the most important spiritual authority of the Jews in the country and in the diaspora for the following centuries , before the office of patriarch, which had become hereditary in a dynasty, was abolished by the Roman emperor. The last patriarch was Gamaliel VI. (approx. 400-425), the last time a collection of money for the patriarch appeared in 429. The importance of the Tannaites lies in the collection and order of the oral tradition in halachic codices (Mishnah, Tossefta) and the Torah exegesis (halachic Midrashim) as the chain of tradition threatened to break off by the destruction of the scholarly schools. A distinction is made between up to six generations. The period of those teachings followed the Tannaim (up to 220/240) commenting Amoraim (up to 500), then the Babylonian Talmud processed Saboraim (until the 7th century), and finally the period of Geonim (until the 11th century) , the heads of the Jewish academies in Babylonia, known as interpreters of the Talmud. The end of the teacher dynasty in Palestine and the (unsecured) murder of the last teacher in Babylonia by the Sassanids at the end of the 5th century led to a crisis. This was only ended with the establishment of a new dynasty by Bustenai or Bostanai at the beginning of the Islamic period, which also raised claims about Palestine.
Rebellion from 133 to 135, Simon Bar Kochba
The Bar Kochba uprising broke out in Judea in 132 and lasted until 136. After the Jewish War 66–70 and the Diaspora uprising 115–118, with the foothills of which Emperor Hadrian was still busy when he took office, this was the third and last uprising. Instead of the traditional fee for the Jerusalem temple, which the Romans had destroyed in the Jewish War, the Jews were subsequently imposed a corresponding fee for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus , a continuing stumbling block.
The subject of a research controversy is whether Hadrian contributed to the outbreak of the uprising by imposing a ban on circumcision , revoking a permit previously given to the Jews to rebuild the destroyed Jerusalem Temple, and resolving to establish Jerusalem as a Roman colony called Aelia Capitolina (which tied the city to his family name) to rebuild. These three reasons for the outbreak of war are named in Roman and Jewish sources or have been deduced from them. However, the thesis that the building of temples was initially permitted and then forbidden is now considered refuted, the prohibition of circumcision was probably only imposed after the outbreak of the uprising and the establishment of Aelia Capitolina was - if it actually took place before the outbreak of war - only one of the circumstances that affected the insurgents appeared unacceptable. There does not seem to have been any major conflicts between Jews and Romans before, because the Romans were surprised by the uprising.
The uprising was not an enterprise of the entire people, but among the Jews there was a pro-Roman and a anti-Roman direction. Initially, the rebellion was only started by a strictly religious group. According to the Cassius Dios report, the survey had been prepared well in advance by collecting weapons and setting up weapons stores and secret places of retreat.
When the uprising began in 132, the two Roman legions stationed there proved to be inferior, so Hadrian ordered reinforcements from other provinces to Judea, including the respected commander Sextus Iulius Severus. It is unclear whether Hadrian himself took part in the expeditio Iudaica until 134 . There is no doubt that the enormous mobilization of troops for the fighting in Judea was a reaction to high casualties. As an indication of this, the fact is also interpreted that Hadrian in a message to the Senate renounced the usual declaration that he himself and the legions are well.
In the fighting, in which almost 100 villages and mountain festivals had to be taken individually, over 500,000 Jews were killed. From Iudaea the province was Syria Palaestina . Hadrian valued the eventual victory so highly that in December 135 he received the second Imperial acclamation; but he renounced a triumph .
The Torah and the Jewish calendar were banned, Jewish scholars were executed and scrolls were burned on the Temple Mount . Statues of Jupiter and the emperor were erected at the former temple shrine. The Jews were initially not allowed to enter Aelia Capitolina . They were later granted entry once a year on Av 9 to mourn defeat, temple destruction, and displacement. An external provocation was the stone head of a pig at the south gate of Jerusalem.
The uprising of the Bucoles shows that Roman rule also met resistance in neighboring Egypt, and that the Roman legions regularly raised new emperors . Avidius Cassius , who, as a descendant of the Seleucids, made it to the praefectus Aegypti , became governor of Syria in 166. In 172 he ended the uprising of the Bucoles in Lower Egypt, which had started in 166/67 (Cass. Dio 71, 4). In 175 Avidius Cassius was proclaimed emperor by the Egyptian legions after a false report of the death of Mark Aurel had spread. He was murdered in Syria that same year.
In 193/194 the province of Syria Palestine , which had existed since the Bar Kochba uprising, was divided into the provinces of Syria Coele, Syria Phoenice and Palestine .
Empire of Palmyra (260-272)
For the Roman East, the situation changed drastically as a result of the rising Sassanid Empire, which replaced the Parthian Empire in 224. Probably as a result of the defeat of Emperor Gordian III. in the battle of misiche in 244 residents of applicable Palmyra one of the leaders of the trade town called Odaenathus for Exarchos . This office was apparently created because of the critical situation. Odaenathus, who was of Arab descent, was accepted into the Roman Senate around 250; in 257/258 he was made governor in Syria Phoenice by Emperor Valerian , and in 258 he was also appointed consul.
In 260, at the Battle of Edessa , Emperor Valerian fell into the hands of the Persian king Shapur I. Palmyra, which had enjoyed the status of a free city since the time of Hadrian, now gained increasing independence. Odaenathus managed, albeit in vain, to negotiate with the Persian king and stabilize the situation, after which he was appointed imperial deputy by Emperor Gallienus . Shapur moved to Syria, but was attacked and defeated while retreating, laden with rich booty, crossing the Euphrates.
In 261 Odaenathus also defeated the usurper Quietus near Emesa and also eliminated Ballista , the Praetorian prefect of Emperor Valerians. Valerian's son Gallienus then appointed Odaenathus to dux Romanorum and corrector totius Orientis , with which Odaenathus rose to the position of imperial deputy in the Roman Orient. Further advances by the Persians could be prevented, and Gallienus took care of the defense of the western areas in the meantime. Odaenathus was apparently able to recapture the Roman province of Mesopotamia with his army in 262/63 and advance to the Persian residence of Ctesiphon . He may have led two campaigns, one in 261/62 and the other in 267.
After the assassination of the imperial deputy Odaenathus, probably at the end of 267, Septimia Zenobia took over the guardianship of her son Vaballathus, who was barely ten, and ruled as queen over a large part of the Roman Orient. Emperor Gallienus did not recognize their rule, as the planned campaign of Heraclianus in 268 shows.
His successor Claudius Gothicus avoided any interference, just as Zenobia formally recognized his supremacy. After a victory by Palmyra, he even assumed the title Parthicus maximus . The ruler Palmyras recognized the emperors in Rome, but she took advantage of the imperial crisis to extend the area of influence of her capital to Arabia and Egypt in 270 , whereupon Claudius sent the general Probus against her, who recaptured Egypt. After the death of Claudius, whose fight against the Goths was his priority, their army occupied Alexandria at the end of November 270. Parts of Anatolia, such as Cilicia and the city of Tyana , were also attached to their sphere of influence, but an advance westward from there failed. Vaballathus carried the title vir consularis rex imperator dux romanorum from 270 . Milestones were set up on the streets in his name, and a separate imperial coinage was created. At a milestone in the province of Syria Palestine , Emperor Aurelian , the successor to Claudius, who died in 270, was no longer mentioned. In Egypt, however, there was formally a condominium between the two emperors until April 272, even though Aurelian was preparing for war. In relation to the eastern areas, the emperor appeared as king of kings , as rex regum , analogous to the Persian titulature.
With the Jews, however, Palmyras was initially hated hopeful rule in their eyes, at least since Odaenathus had destroyed the school center Nehardea and deported 262 Jews from Babylonia to Palestine during his Ctesiphon campaign. In each case there was unrest, the extent of which we have no knowledge of. Correspondingly, troops from Palestine also joined Aurelian's campaign against Palmyra, while the Alexandrian Jews tended to remain on the side of the Palmyren, especially since they were promoted by Zenobia.
In the second half of the year 271 Aurelian marched to Byzantion, where he wintered, in the spring of 272 he opened the war against Zenobia, only the city of Tyana offered him resistance so that he had to besiege it. In a political move, however, he prohibited the looting of the city. Zenobia had her son proclaimed Augustus and herself Augusta . Aurelian continued to accept coinage as Augustus . In two battles at Antioch (Immae) and Emesa , Aurelian defeated her armies, again spared Antioch, in June he was already ruling Egypt.
In August 272 he finally moved into the largely unfortified oasis town of Palmyra, supported by the Arab tribal union of the Tanukh under the Lakhmid ruler Amr, which was hostile to Palmyra. Zenobia was captured while fleeing on the Euphrates, brought to court in Emesa and brought to Rome, where she led Aurelian in triumph through Rome in 274 together with the Gallic usurper Tetricus I. According to the Historia Augusta and several other sources, she spent her old age in a villa not far from Tivoli near Rome and died as a matrona in the capital. Zosimos , on the other hand, reports that the queen refused any food on the transport to Rome and as a result starved to death. Her close political advisor, the philosopher Longinos , was executed in Emesa, as was "certainly" General Septimius Zabdas, who at the time had led the Palmyrenian army to Egypt. Another attempt at insurrection by the Palmyrenians collapsed when Aurelians arrived in the early summer of 273. In Egypt, where there had been a rebellion in Alexandria, the corrector Claudius Firmus was used and the common coinage of Aurelian and Vaballathus was withdrawn from circulation. With the cult of Sol invictus , he introduced a new state cult across the empire.
John Chrysostom reports that Jews tried to rebuild the Jerusalem temple in the time of Constantine the Great. But their ears were cut off and shown around as a deterrent. The activity of this small group could have been stimulated by the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Bethlehem , which was consecrated in 335. Under Constantius II there was apparently a forced emigration of Jewish law teachers to the Persian Empire. In 351/352 there was an elusive uprising in Sepphoris in Galilee, Valentinian allowed the Jews to practice their religion freely.
Dominance of Christianity, division of the empire (395), Jewish-Samaritan majority
Dominance of the churches in the entire empire, privilege, Caesarea and Jerusalem
With the end of the persecutions since Constantine I (313) and the increasing privileges by the state, which included tax exemption, a steeper ecclesiastical hierarchy emerged. The bishops in the respective metropolis of the provinces became archbishops from 325, to whom the other bishops of the province owed obedience. Below the Bishop plane found deacons and deaconesses , elders and lecturers , were added gravedigger, doorkeeper , Protopresbyter and subdeacons . The clergy was the only class to which all social classes had access, even if not everyone could rise to the highest positions in the most important church centers and the higher classes probably did not strive for a diocese in less respected areas. The Clergy on the estates of the landlords put residents who are tenant farmers .
With the relocation of the imperial capital from Rome to Byzantium, Christianity gradually became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, and in 394 it even became the state religion. Greek finally gained the upper hand over Latin as the official language in the east of the divided empire in 395.
Jerusalem already received an honorary priority in Nicaea (325), but the privileges of Caesarea were expressly respected, which was the most important port of Palestine and the political center of the province from Herod and until the Arab rule. In addition, Origen had taught here, so that the city also enjoyed a high spiritual reputation. In the 4th century, as in most Roman provinces, but in contrast to Syria, the Christians did not yet form the majority of the provincial Romans. The communities grew, if one follows Eusebius of Caesarea (Hc 8, 1, 5), only stronger since Gallienus. At the Council of Chalcedon , however, Jerusalem received jurisdiction over Palestine in 451. Justinian finally sanctioned the rights of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, which was now on the same level as Constantinople and Rome, Antioch and Alexandria.
Jews and Samaritans
The Jewish communities, too, had apparently recovered from the losses of the uprisings; they were mainly concentrated in Galilee (Tiberias), but there were also settlements in Hauran, Golan and in the area between Ashkalon and Ein Gedi . In Tiberias and Sepphoris , Jews dominated the city council. There were also strong Jewish communities in Skythopolis and Lydda . The pilgrimage report by Anonymous of Bordeaux still shows in 333 that Jerusalem was still forbidden to Jews. Legal obstruction and local persecution led to surveys in 351/52 and around 440. At the request of the Jewish community, around 425, Empress Eudocia allowed the Jews to mourn the destruction of their temple in Jerusalem. She herself lived in the city from 443 until her death in 460, the city walls of which she had renewed; after their death, the Jews again lost their right of access on major public holidays. According to a letter to the Jews in Rome and Persia, some of the leading men hoped for the re-establishment of a Jewish kingdom. However, when 103,000 Jews gathered outside Jerusalem, they were driven away by stone-throwing monks.
The groups that fought against the Jews, such as monks led by the Bar-Sawma, met with militant resistance. At one point the parishes raised 15,000 armed men to prevent the monks from destroying synagogues, such as that of Petra.
In late antiquity , the Samaritans were particularly numerous in Caesarea. At the beginning of the 4th century, for example, it was said that only Jews and non-Jews together were more numerous than the Samaritan community members. Her most important teacher was Baba Rabba, 'the great father'. This also led to syncretistic teachings, as Origen shows, who polemicized against Ebionites and Elkesaiten . According to the Cologne Mani Code, Mani belonged to the latter group for a time before he founded his own religion. The relationship between Jews and Samaritans deteriorated drastically in the course of the 4th century. At times the Samaritans were considered pagans by Rabbi Abbahu. The internal Jewish prohibition of interest lending against the Samaritans was lifted, and contacts at public events were avoided. However, within the cosmopolitan city of Caesarea, there were no open conflicts between the three groups. Their assimilation allowed them to participate in military service and public administration. But in the years 484 and 529/30 as well as 555 there were uprisings of the Samaritans. The leaders Justasas and Julian ben Sabar were crowned kings, but were soon captured and killed. The cause lay in the imperial policy, which was increasingly hostile to religious minorities and sold thousands to the Persians as slaves. In 578 both Jews and Samaritans rose again.
Struggles within Christianity
The dominant religion, Christianity, was torn apart. Theophilus died in 412, his successor was Cyril , one of the most powerful churchmen of his time, who was able to enforce his theological positions bindingly for the imperial church at the ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431 and is still considered the most important founder figure of the Miaphysites , better known than Monophysites, like theirs Opponents called. Cyrill's successor Dioskur , who took over the patriarchal office in 444, was initially able to assert himself with his Monophysite teaching at the so-called Synod of Robbers of Ephesus in 449 . But only two years later there was a split at the fourth ecumenical council in Chalcedon : Pope Leo the Great rejected the Monophysite doctrine, and the majority of the council and Emperor Markian accepted this position. The majority of the Egyptians stuck to the rejection of the council resolutions, which repeatedly led to tensions between these communities and Constantinople.
Monophysitism arose against the background of rivalries between the Patriarchate of Alexandria and that of Antioch. In addition to Egypt, monophysitism was also gaining ground in Syria. In the 480s, the emperors tried to implement a compromise solution formulated in the Henoticon , which ignored all disputes between “Orthodox” and “Monophysite” Christians and ignored the resolutions of Chalcedon; but this attempt failed and instead of an agreement with the Monophysites only led to the 30-year-long Akakian schism with the Roman church (until 519). The 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553 could not reach an agreement either. The same applied to the short-lived promotion of the Monophysitic special current of aphthartodocetism by Emperor Justinian I.
In the early 7th century, monotheleticism was developed as an attempt at a compromise solution . According to this, Jesus has a divine and a human nature. Divine and human nature, however, have only one common will in it. This attempt to bridge the gap between Monophysitism and the position of Chalcedon also failed. Monotheletism was rejected in the Reich Church after Maximus Confessor's objection .
With the recapture of the Vandal Empire in North Africa and the Ostrogoth Empire in Italy, there was an attempt to recapture the lost territories.
Municipium and Kolonat, population rise again
Classical Roman society was subject to major changes as early as the 2nd century, but even more so during the imperial crisis. In 212 all cities of the empire received at least the rank of municipium, which, however, entailed considerable financial burdens. Every male resident between 14 and 60 years old had to pay an annual tax. The small group of Roman citizens was exempt from this, however, the upper classes (metropolites) paid a reduced tax. The municipal system spread over the entire province until around 300, apart from the Upper Galilee, the Golan and the imperial possessions in Jericho and the northern Negev. The cities built baths, amphitheaters and aqueducts based on the Roman model, as they were otherwise oriented in everyday life and in religious matters. The majority spoke Greek.
Diocletian and his successors had the province reorganized. The Legio X fretensis came from Aelia (Jerusalem) to Aila on the Gulf of Aqaba, the southern part of the province of Arabia together with Petra and the Negev came to Syria Palestine. The dux Palestinae commanded the border defense. Until 358 the civil administration was under the governor in Caesarea, but now the areas formerly included in Arabia were separated as Palestina Salutaris. After another division around 400 it became the province of Palestina Tertia with Elusa as the capital. Scythopolis, on the other hand, was the capital of the Palestine Secunda and included Galilee, the Golan, some East Jordanian areas and the Jezreel plain. The rest of the area around Caesarea was now called Palestina Prima. In 536 the local governor was raised to the rank of proconsul. In addition, as the most important Christian country, the region experienced an economic boom, which was reflected in new farms and villages. Imperial foundations and relic translations encouraged the inflow of funds. The population rose again to perhaps half a million inhabitants and thus reached a peak. In the fourth century the population of Palestine was unlikely to have reached that of the time before the great uprisings.
This refers to the transition phase in the development from free farmers to colonies, and therefore to the flat land and the smaller towns, where the changes were initially even more drastic. Imperial laws, presumably on the initiative of the large landowners, created the prerequisites for transferring almost unlimited power of disposition and police power to local masters, whose growing economic units were thereby increasingly isolated from state influence. The rural population was initially forced to cultivate the land and taxes (tributum) to be paid. Until the 5th century, the people who worked the land were often tied to their land while their property belonged to their master, but after three decades in this legal status others could take their mobile property or their property into their own possession. Under Emperor Justinian I there was no longer any distinction between free and unfree colonies. Colons and unfree were now used identically to describe arable farmers who were tied to the clod and no longer owned free property.
Since Constantine the Great, gentlemen have been allowed to chain fugitive colonies who had disappeared less than 30 years ago. Since 365 it has been forbidden for the colonists to dispose of their actual possessions, probably primarily tools. Since 371 the gentlemen were allowed to collect the taxes from the colonies themselves. Finally, in 396, the farmers lost the right to sue their master.
Persians conquer Jerusalem (614), victory of East Rome under Emperor Herakleios (630)
After several wars, Eastern Byzantium and Persia concluded an "eternal peace" in 562. But in the 570s and 580s there was again fierce fighting in the upper Tigris region. In 575 the Byzantines occupied Lazika on the eastern edge of the Black Sea, which in turn was briefly held by the Persians in 588. As a result, the Byzantines extended their territory almost to the Caspian Sea without being able to hold these regions in the long term. In 591 a new peace agreement was reached. The Roman-Persian battles of the 7th century were ultimately driven by the will to defeat the enemy completely, no longer just to gain territories. After the war in the time of Chosrau I (531-579) had already been waged with great severity, the Persians under Chosrau II (590-628) began to systematically occupy Eastern Roman territory from 603 onwards.
The emperors' less tolerant policy towards non-Christians led to the Persians being welcomed as liberators. The conquest of Jerusalem took place in 614 by the Persian general Shahrbaraz - judging by later reports, also with the help of Jerusalem Jews who hoped for more freedom from the Persians. One of the booty items was the Holy Cross that General Schirin gave to Chosrau's favorite Christian wife. The shock effect on the Christians was enormous. Jews also destroyed the church in Kaparnaum, while Christians destroyed the local synagogue in return when the Persians had to leave.
Syria and Egypt were administratively incorporated into the Persian Empire as permanent conquests, even if the occupation of Jerusalem lasted from 614 to 629. Regardless of the very poor tradition, this can also be assumed for Syria, where Caesarea has now become the seat of a marzban .
Emperor Herakleios wanted to leave the capital with an army, bypass the Sassanid armies in Asia Minor and attack the Persians in the hinterland. In a total of three campaigns he probably had quite a considerable force. George of Pisidia reports that Herakleios had made it clear to his soldiers that this was not an ordinary campaign. One is now fighting against an enemy of Christianity; this is a holy war against the forces of darkness. Matching images of Christ were set up in the camp. As early as 615, coins with the inscription Deus adiuta Romanis ("God help the Romans!") Were minted in large numbers .
In 623 the emperor returned to the capital after a minor victory and then made contact with the Christian population in the Caucasus. Herakleios' two actual counter offensives took place in 624/25 and 627/28. He made an advance to Armenia, then on to Azerbaijan . There he had a Zoroastrian fire temple ( Tacht-e Suleiman ) destroyed. The emperor withdrew to Cilicia in 625 and contacted the Kök Turks in order to forge an alliance.
In 626 the Persians, who for their part had allied themselves with the Avars, besieged the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire together with Slavs ( Siege of Constantinople (626) ). But they finally had to break off the siege and the Persian army under Shahrbaraz withdrew from Chalcedon to Syria in the spring of 627 . As early as 626 Herakleios had defeated a Persian army and put himself back on the offensive. In Constantinople, the salvation of the capital was attributed to the Mother of God.
The emperor's brother, Theodoros, had been able to defeat a Persian army in Mesopotamia under the command of General Shahin . Herakleios meanwhile gathered more troops in Lazika on the Black Sea and again made contact with the Turks. They then invaded the Sassanid Empire several times. Herakleios marched south from Tbilisi in September 627 . On December 12th, 627, a battle broke out near the ruins of Nineveh . After the victory, Herakleios occupied the great king's favorite residence in Dastagird . This fled to Ctesiphon . Chosrau, who refused to negotiate with Herakleios, lost all support from the greats of his empire and was ousted and murdered in February 628. He was succeeded by his son Kavadh II Siroe on the throne. The text of the letter addressed to Herakleios, in which Kavadh Siroe asks for peace and describes the emperor as "... the mildest emperor of the Romans, our brother ..." , has been passed down through the Chronicon Paschale . Herakleios called him his son and asserted that he never wished to deprive any king of his rightful throne.
The provisions of the peace made in 628 provided that Persia abandoned all conquests made since 603 and returned the Holy Cross, for which Herakleios guaranteed the Persians free retreat; they didn't even have to pay compensation. Shahrbaraz, who himself ascended the throne for a short time, also restituted the Holy Cross, whose solemn repatriation probably took place in March 630. The gain in prestige for the emperor was enormous. The emperor sent part of the relic to the Merovingian Dagobert I , and legends about "Heraclius, the Persian victor" soon arose throughout the West, stylizing him as a triumphator in the name of Christ.
Christian Arabs: the Ghassanids
The eastern Roman province of Syria stretched from Antioch and Aleppo in the north to the Dead Sea, to the west and south of it was the province of Palestine. Syria was partially populated by Arabs, especially in the eastern and southern parts, as was Palestine. In the course of the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, these Arab tribes had adopted Christianity many times, often as Monophysites. The Arabs of Syria remained politically sidelined until the Ghassanid tribe (allegedly) immigrated from Yemen and founded a semi-autonomous empire. Under the leadership of the Jafnids, they became allies ( foederati ) of Eastern Estrom; their king or phylarch ruled from the capital Bosra over the Arabs along the Jordan.
The term “Ghassanids” is not documented at the time, but only appears in later sources. Jafniden is also being used more and more in research . They reached the Roman border area probably in the 5th century. Possibly they were Monophysite Christians already at that time . There seems to have been a power struggle with the Salīh, who had previously been the most powerful clan in the Arab-Syrian border area and the allies of the Romans and who have now been ousted by the Jafnids.
The first sheikh of the Jafnids, whose name appears in the Eastern Roman sources around 498, is Ǧabala (Greek: Gabalas). He invaded Palestine but was defeated by the Romans and made peace with Emperor Anastasius around 502 ; the Jafnids became foederati of the Eastern Romans, who in turn committed themselves to regular monetary payments, as was customary in the Roman border area. Ǧabala was appointed phylarchos (tribal leader) by the emperor , which may have accelerated ethnogenesis .
Ǧabala's son was al-Ḥāriṯ ibn Ǧabala (Greek: Arethas , 529-569). After another war broke out between Ostrom and Persia in 526, Emperor Justinian appointed him basileus around 530 . He fought against the Persians and their Arab allies, the Lachmids , and took part in the Battle of Callinicum in 531 under Belisarius . The emperor awarded him the high title of patricius for this.
In 540 conflicts between Ghassanids and Lachmids triggered another war between Romans and Persians. In 554 the Ghassanids won a major victory over the Lachmids, whose Sheikh Al-Munḏhir died, allegedly killed by Arethas himself. In terms of ecclesiastical politics, like his successors, he advocated Monophysitism, which the emperor tolerated.
But under his son al-Munḏhir ibn al-Ḥāriṯ (Greek Alamundaros, 569-582) tensions arose with Ostrom in 572, so that Emperor Justin II is said to have ordered his assassination; however, the attack failed. In 575 there was a brief reconciliation between the Romans and the Ghassanids. Alamundaros was nevertheless deposed in a coup in 582 and exiled to Sicily because he was suspected of treason. As a result, the association began to break up into several small groups. The phylarchy of the Ghassanids was restored under Emperor Herakleios , and after the end of the Persian War a line of defense was created from Gaza to the southern end of the Dead Sea, which was supposed to repel pillaging groups from the Arabian Peninsula. However, most of the Eastern Roman troops were concentrated in northern Syria to keep the Sassanids in check.
Muslim conquest
This defense concept made it possible for the Muslim troops from the south to advance to Gaza without encountering resistance from the East. The resistance of the Arabs allied with the emperor collapsed after 634 under the onslaught of the Muslim Arabs . In 635 Damascus fell and the imperial army was defeated in Syria. It is said that some of the Ghassanids defected to the Muslims in the decisive battle of Jarmuk in 636; a significant part of the Arabs allied with Eastern Rome, however, seem to have remained loyal to the emperor and left their homeland after the defeat. The Arab general ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs moved west to Egypt and conquered Egypt from 639 on behalf of the ruling Caliph Umar from 634 , and Caesarea fell in 640.
More recent historical works, however, question the history of the conquest, which has only been handed down in later Arabic sources, on the basis of older Christian and Jewish reports.
Mohammed, failure of the first attacks (up to 632)
When Mohammed asserted himself on the Arabian Peninsula, Palestine was still occupied by the Persians; He himself was taken with the victory of the Eastern Romans, if you follow the Muslim tradition, because he considered the Zoroastrian Persians to be the real enemies of his teaching. On the other hand, he might consider the Jews to be Persian allies, because in the same year he attacked the Jewish farmers of Khaibar about 250 km north of Medina ( train to Khaibar ). In 642 they were finally expelled, and there was only room for Muslims on the Arabian Peninsula. In the Eastern Roman Empire, at the same time, from 630 onwards the pressure to subject the Jews to forced conversion rose, and the emperor even called on the distant Frankish king Dagobert to follow his example. At the same time, the emperor tried to enforce monotheleticism, which the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, opposed.
Mohammed found some recognition among the Christian Arabs in the eastern Roman border area. Farwa ben 'Amr, who was one of the leaders of the Banu Judham of Maʿan in the area of what is now Amman , offered his support to him. After the victory of Islam, the Ghassanids later enforced that, as Bedouins, they remained tax-free even though they were not Muslims. On the other hand, 629 Arab Ghassanids in imperial service under Shurahbil ibn 'Amr successfully fought against Muhammad's cavalry, and other Arabs continued to stand on the Eastern Roman side. After Mohammed 630 had also asserted himself in Mecca, he prepared an attack (presumably a looting campaign) to the north with the now united forces of the Arab tribes, the tabuk campaign. But internal Arab conflicts caused Muhammad's troops to withdraw after about two months. However, Mohammed changed his relationship with the Jews, whom he no longer expropriated or expelled; on the contrary, he offered them protection, which he chartered for four cities, namely Maqna, Eilat , Jarba 'and Adruh. This was the first time that non-Muslims became wards, although they had to pay the jizya .
Consolidation, conquest of Palestine, readmission of the Jews in Jerusalem
After the death of Muhammad in 632, the Muslim coalition initially threatened to break up in internal struggles, as many tribes only felt obliged to the Prophet himself. Abu Bakr , the first caliph , apparently recognized that violence was inevitable in order to preserve the unity of the Ummah . Those who refused to pay the tax were attacked accordingly; the last resistance on the Arabian Peninsula collapsed in 633/34. Subsequently, Abu Bakr, who apparently wanted to consolidate the unity of the Ummah through an external war, turned north and began the Islamic expansion .
After Abu Bakr's pilgrimage in early 634, the attack on Palestine was to begin. After his death in August of the same year and the appointment of Umar as his successor, the caliphate rose to a great power in a few years through victories over Ostrom and the Sassanid Empire . In 635/36 the Muslims achieved decisive victories at the Yarmuk in Syria and in 638 at Qadisiyya in Iraq over the two great empires of late antiquity that had fought each other doggedly just a few years earlier. Between 634 and 642 Palestine and Egypt were conquered by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs , Syria by Chālid ibn al-Walīd, and Mesopotamia and Iran by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas .
An army under ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs was to move towards Eilat, one under three commanders to Tabuk in the Moab region. This time, several Arab tribes in the region joined Islam, who had previously served as foederati in Eastern Roman service. Nevertheless, the invasion threatened to stall in the face of local resistance. ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs, who defeated Patricius Sergius (?) On February 4, 634 near Gaza , was more successful than the other three generals . After the battle, many Samaritans were killed because they had supported the Eastern Romans. According to other sources, however, they were spies for the Muslims.
In the Greek Didascalia of Jacobus , a Christian anti-Jewish dialogue, which arose between 634 and 640 in Estrom, the advance of the Arabs is mentioned; it is the only truly contemporary source on early Islamic expansion. Among other things, a Sergius is named as " candidatus ", at the time a leader of an elite unit, probably the cavalry. In addition, an alleged letter from Caesarea quoted in the Didascalia shows that some hopes for a Messiah who would free the Jews from Roman oppression were temporarily directed towards Mohammed. The letter is about a prophet who appeared among the “ Saracens ”. According to the letter, some hoped that the Messiah would appear in it, but the Scriptures object that true prophets did not appear with sword in hand; rather, the Last Judgment is now announced, and Jews must therefore be baptized now.
The concrete processes during the subjugation of Eastern Roman Syria cannot be reconstructed with certainty, since later Muslim sources are available almost exclusively, the information of which, as mentioned, are not considered reliable by all scholars. Researchers like James Howard-Johnston therefore believe the traditional chronology, which is based on these Arabic reports, to be partially wrong, since the reports and even the order of the events were later manipulated for various reasons. Please note this in the following.
What seems certain is that shortly after Abu-Ubaidah's appointment, he sent small departments to the annual market in Abu-al-Quds, today's Abla, east of Beirut. There was an Eastern Roman garrison nearby, the strength of which had been misjudged by the Arab scouts. Shortly before the Romans could put down the Muslim troops, they were rescued by Chālid ibn al-Walīd († 642), whom Abu Ubaidah had sent after the actual strength of the garrison became known. The imperial troops were defeated in the battle of Abu-al-Quds on October 15, 634 (?) East of Beirut. Damascus had fallen in September ; A siege, which is often assumed in research, did not come about in this context.
With the loss of central Syria, the eastern Roman line along the Mediterranean was broken and communication between northern Syria and Palestine was broken. Abu Ubaidah moved to Pella , where another Eastern Roman garrison and surviving soldiers of the costly Battle of Ajnadayn on July 30, 634 were staying. These blocked access to Palestine. Chalid reached the place first, but the East Romans had dammed the nearby Jordan and flooded the place. Nevertheless, they were defeated again in the Battle of Pella on January 23, 635 (?). After that, Tiberias and the other cities around the Sea of Galilee also surrendered.
After the battle, Shurhabil and 'Amr continued to advance. Bet She'an and Tiberias presumably surrendered in February 635. After receiving information about the position and strength of the Eastern Roman defenders, Caliph Umar wrote instructions to his troops: Yazid should conquer the Mediterranean coast. The departments of Amr and Shurhabil separated. Amr set out to conquer Nablus , Amawas, Gaza and Yubna to complete the conquest of Palestine while Shurahbil besieged the coastal cities of Acre and Tire. Yazid set out from Damascus to conquer the port cities of Sidon, Arqa , Jabail and Beirut. In 635 Palestine, Jordan and southern Syria with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea were in Muslim hands. On Umar's orders, Yazid now turned to Caesarea, which he had to give up in the run-up to the battle of Yarmuk in order to resume the siege later until the city finally fell in 640.
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At Shaizer Khalid, Chalid surprised a caravan that brought supplies to Chalcis. The prisoners reported that there was an army of two hundred thousand men. Chalid immediately returned to the main army with this news. Chalid suggested to Abu Ubaidah, fearing that the Muslim troops would split up, that the Eastern Romans should be offered a field battle. Abu Ubaidah followed this advice and ordered all garrisons to give up the conquered land and to assemble at Jabiya instead. On Abu Ubaidah's orders, the Arab troops withdrew from Jabiya to the Jarmuk plain. In July 636 the army was completely assembled on the plain. The eastern Roman troops arrived about two weeks later. Their commander sent some Ghassanid Arabs ahead to investigate the strength of the Muslims, but Chalid's cavalry defeated them. Negotiations between the two armies dragged on for the next month, while Arab reinforcements kept arriving. Abu Ubaidah handed over the command for the battle of Yarmuk to Khalid, which began on August 15th. It lasted six days and ended in a catastrophic defeat for the East Romans. Possibly due to disputes over the booty, the caliph Khalid withdrew the command. (Some researchers date the battle as early as 635.)
After another imperial army had been defeated a little later near Emesa under the sacellarius Theodorus, the Arabs occupied the previously conquered areas again. Abu Ubaida and his council of war decided to take Jerusalem next. Patriarch Sophronius lamented the destruction of cities, villages and monasteries by the Muslims; the Jerusalem Christians were forbidden to visit Bethlehem as early as 634 for security reasons. In the autumn of 636, according to Arab tradition, only Caesarea and Jerusalem were not yet occupied by the Muslims. The siege of the city lasted four months, probably falling in 638 or at the end of 637, the patriarch died in March 638 - allegedly out of sorrow over the fall of the city. Then the Muslim army split up again. Yazid's armies conquered Beirut, 'Amr and Shurhabil's part completed the conquest of Palestine while Abu Ubaidah and Chalid set out to conquer northern Syria. For the Jewish community it was of the utmost importance that Jerusalem was open again after almost half a millennium of the ban on entry (perhaps from 641) after Caliph Umar personally visited the city. After all, Mohammed had planned the daily bowing of prayer ( qibla ) to Jerusalem, at least for some time, and Umar prayed there and had the temple cleared of the garbage dump. Some Jews who were held responsible for keeping the city clean for the next 80 years or so helped. However, they were replaced by slaves under ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (717-20).
Antioch capitulated on October 30, 637 on condition that all Eastern Roman troops were allowed to withdraw freely. Emperor Herakleios had left Antioch in good time before the conquest and had traveled to Edessa . He organized the defense of northern Mesopotamia and Armenia , then retired to the capital, Constantinople.
How drastic the effects of the long wars were can be seen in the Golan region: of the 173 late antique settlements from the 5th and 6th centuries, only 14 were early Islamic ceramics from the period after 636. Only under the Mamluks, i.e. after around one half a millennium, there were again 139 settlements in the same area.
literature
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- Michael Grant : The History of Ancient Israel , Hachette 2012 (from Abraham to Rome, controversial).
- Günther Hölbl : History of the Ptolemaic Empire. Politics, ideology and religious culture from Alexander the Great to the Roman conquest , reviewed reprint of the 1st edition from 1994, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004.
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- Robert Schick: The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule. A Historical and Archaeological Study , Darwin Press, 1995.
- Hugh N. Kennedy : The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East , Aldershot 2006.
- Thorsten Opper: Hadrian. Power man and patron. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2009.
Remarks
- ↑ Josephus, Jüdische Antiquities 14, 105ff.
- ^ Josephus, Jüdischer Krieg 1, 180.
- ↑ Caesar: De bello civili 3, 103, 2; Plutarch, Caesar 48, 5 et al
- ↑ Josephus, Jüdische Antiquities 14, 80f. and Jewish War 1, 159.
- ^ Robert G. Hoyland: Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam , p. 66.
- ↑ Josephus, Jüdische Antiquities 15, 107–160 and Jüdischer Krieg 1, 365–385; on this Christoph Schäfer, Kleopatra , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-534-15418-5 , pp. 199ff .; Walter Otto : Herodes 14). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplementary volume II, Stuttgart 1913, Col. 1–158 (here: Col. 45ff.).
- ↑ Mordechai Aviam: First century Jewish Galilee: an archaeological perspective , in: Douglas R. Edwards (ed.): Religion and Society in Roman Palestine , Routledge 2004, pp 7-27, here: page 15.
- ↑ Thomas Johann Bauer: “ Who is who in the world of Jesus? “, Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2007, p. 63ff. Herodes Philippos should not be confused with his half-brother of the same name, actually Herodes Boethos , from the seventh marriage of his father to Mariamne (II.), Who was the first husband of Herodias and the father of Salome.
- Jump up ↑ Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18: 4, 6.
- ↑ Josephus, Jüdische Antiquities 18, 116–119.
- ↑ Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 19, 8, 2.
- Jump up ↑ Josephus, Jewish War 2, 499–555.
- ^ Suetonius, Vespasian 4 .
- ↑ Josephus, Jewish War 3, 69.
- ↑ Egon Flaig : Challenge the Emperor. Usurpation in the Roman Empire. Frankfurt / Main u. a. 1992, p. 240ff.
- ^ Tacitus, Historien 4, 51.
- ↑ Ingomar Weiler: Titus and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem - intent or coincidence? In: Klio . 50: 139-158 (1968); Sabine Panzram: The Jerusalem Temple and the Rome of the Flavians. In: Johannes Hahn (Ed.): Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Events - perception - coping. Tübingen 2002, pp. 166–182, here: p. 169.
- ^ Josephus, Jüdischer Krieg 5, 446–447.
- ^ Josephus, Jüdischer Krieg 5, 491ff.
- ^ Josephus, Jüdischer Krieg 5, 567ff.
- ^ Tacitus, Historien , 5, 13.
- ↑ Josephus, Jüdischer Krieg 6, 420. As evidence for these figures, Josephus cites the census that the governor of Syria, Gaius Cestius Gallus , had made shortly before the uprising.
- ^ Tacitus, Histories 2, 2, 1.
- ↑ Helmut Castritius : The Flavian Family. Women next to Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. In: Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum (Hrsg.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms. Munich 2002, pp. 164–186, here: p. 166.
- ^ Cassius Dio 65, 15, 4 .
- ^ Suetonius, Titus 7, 2 .
- ↑ Stefan Pfeiffer: The time of the Flavians. Vespasian, Titus, Domitian. Darmstadt 2009, p. 47; David C. Braund: Berenice in Rome. In: Historia , Vol. 33, 1984, pp. 120-123.
- ↑ On Berenike and the reasons for the separation cf. Helmut Castritius: The Flavian Family. Women next to Vespasian, Titus and Domitian . In: Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum (Hrsg.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms . Munich 2002, pp. 164-186, especially pp. 166-169.
- ↑ Hans-Jochen Gamm: Judaism. An introduction , first edition 1960, ND LIT, Münster 1998, 2011, p. 30.
- ↑ Martin Jacobs: The Institution of the Jewish Patriarch. A source and tradition-critical study on the history of the Jews in late antiquity , Mohr Siebeck, 1995 passim.
- ↑ Martin Jacobs: The Institution of the Jewish Patriarch. A source and tradition-critical study on the history of the Jews in late antiquity , Mohr Siebeck, 1995, pp. 223–224.
- ↑ Jörg Ulrich: Euseb of Caesarea and the Jews. Studies on the role of the Jews in the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea , Walter de Gruyter, 1999, p. 8 assumes less than 70,000.
- ^ English translation: Cassius Dio, Römische Geschichte 68, 32 .
- ↑ Hayim Hilel Ben-Sasson: history of the Jewish people. From the beginnings to the present , Beck, Munich 1978, pp. 454–458 (based on the English edition from 1976, first edition Tel Aviv 1969).
- ↑ Martin Jacobs: The Institution of the Jewish Patriarch. A source and tradition-critical study of the history of the Jews in late antiquity , Mohr Siebeck, 1995, table on pp. 205–206.
- ^ Tannaim and Amoraim , Jewish Encyclopedia , 1906.
- ^ Richard A. Freund: Secrets of the Cave of Letters. Rediscovering a Dead Sea Mystery , Humanity Books, 2004, p. 201. Cf. Tiziana J. Chiusi: On the interaction between Roman law and provincial rights based on documents from the Babatha archive , in: Thomas Gergen (ed.): Diversity and Unity in legal history. Ceremony for Elmar Wadle on his 65th birthday , Heymanns, Cologne 2004.
- ↑ Opper 2009, p. 90.
- ↑ Cassius Dio 69, 12, 1-2 ; Fündling 2006, Vol. 4.2, pp. 670-674; Birley 2006, p. 95; Opper 2009, p. 90.
- ↑ Peter Schäfer: The Bar Kokhba uprising. Tübingen 1981, pp. 29-34.
- ^ Studies by Peter Kuhlmann: Religion and Memory. Göttingen 2002, pp. 133-136 and Peter Schäfer: Der Bar Kokhba-Aufstand , Tübingen 1981, pp. 38-50 and Aharon Oppenheimer: The Ban on Circumcision as a Cause of the Revolt: A Reconsideration . In: Peter Schäfer (Ed.): The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered , Tübingen 2003, pp. 55-69 and Ra'anan Abusch: Negotiating Difference: Genital Mutilation in Roman Slave Law and the History of the Bar Kokhba Revolt . In: Peter Schäfer (Ed.): The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered , Tübingen 2003, pp. 71–91. See also Giovanni Battista Bazzana: The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Hadrian's Religious Policy. In: Marco Rizzi (Ed.): Hadrian and the Christians , Berlin 2010, pp. 85–109.
- ↑ Peter Schäfer: The Bar Kokhba uprising. Tübingen 1981, pp. 29-50.
- ↑ Peter Schäfer: The Bar Kokhba uprising , Tübingen 1981, pp. 47-50.
- ↑ Cassius Dio 69, 12, 3 ; Opper 2009, p. 89.
- ↑ Fündling 2006, Vol. 4.2, p. 676.
- ↑ Cassius Dio 69, 14, 3 ; Birley 2006, p. 101.
- ↑ Karl Christ: History of the Roman Empire. 5th edition. Munich 2005, p. 328.
- ↑ Werner Eck offers an overview : Challenging Rome. Bar Kochba in the fight against the Roman Empire. The image of the Bar Kochba uprising reflected in the new epigraphic tradition. Rome 2007.
- ↑ Hans J. Gamm: Judaism. An introduction , first edition 1960, 1998, reprint, LIT Münster 2011, p. 29.
- ^ Richard Alston: The Revolt of the Boukoloi. Geography, History and Myth , in: Keith Hopwood (Ed.): Organized Crime in the Ancient World , Duckworth, London 1999, pp. 129–153.
- ↑ Udo Hartmann : Das Palmyrenische Teilreich , Stuttgart 2001, here: p. 92.
- ↑ This and the following according to Udo Hartmann : Das Palmyrenische Teilreich , Stuttgart 2001.
- ^ Petros Patrikios , fragment 10.
- ↑ In addition the research discussion with Udo Hartmann: Das palmyrenische Teilreich. Stuttgart 2001, p. 146ff.
- ↑ On the Persian War see Hartmann, Das palmyrenische Teilreich , pp. 162ff.
- ↑ In addition the research discussion with Udo Hartmann: Das palmyrenische Teilreich. Stuttgart 2001, pp. 247-248.
- ↑ Udo Hartmann: The Palmyrene Partial Kingdom. Stuttgart 2001, p. 169.
- ↑ Udo Hartmann: The Palmyrene Partial Kingdom. Stuttgart 2001, pp. 330-331.
- ↑ Udo Hartmann: The Palmyrene Partial Kingdom. Stuttgart 2001, pp. 328 and 288f.
- ↑ Udo Hartmann: Das Palmyrenische Teilreich , Stuttgart 2001, p. 392.
- ↑ Udo Hartmann: The Palmyrene Partial Kingdom. Stuttgart 2001, pp. 406-407.
- ^ Karl Leo Noethlichs: The Jews in the Christian Roman Empire. 4th-6th Century , Akademie Verlag 2001, pp. 32–33.
- ↑ a b Jörg Ulrich: Euseb of Caesarea and the Jews. Studies on the role of the Jews in the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea , Walter de Gruyter, 1999, pp. 8–9.
- ↑ Jörg Ulrich: Euseb of Caesarea and the Jews. Studies on the role of the Jews in the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea , Walter de Gruyter, 1999, p. 10.
- ^ Moshe Gil : A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge University Press 1997, p. 3.
- ↑ Jörg Ulrich: Euseb of Caesarea and the Jews. Studies on the role of the Jews in the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea , Walter de Gruyter, 1999, p. 18.
- ↑ Jörg Ulrich: Euseb of Caesarea and the Jews. Studies on the role of the Jews in the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea , Walter de Gruyter, 1999, pp. 25–26.
- ↑ Theological Real Encyclopedia , Study Edition Part II, de Gruyter 2000, Art. Palestine , p. 596.
- ↑ Codex Theodosianus 5, 18, 1; Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto : The social structure of late antiquity. In: Alexander Demandt, Josef Engemann (ed.): Konstantin der Große. Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus. von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein 2007, p. 188.
- ↑ Peter Sarris: Empires of Faith. The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, p. 31.
- ↑ Hans-Georg Beck: The Byzantine Millennium. CH Beck, Munich 1994, p. 47.
- ↑ According to later sources, this led to massacres of Christians in the city, which are rumored to this day by historians (cf. Elliot Horowitz: Reckless Rites. Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence , Princeton 2006, p. 228ff .; Ders .: "The vengeance of the Jews was stronger than their avarice". Modern Historians and the Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 ( Memento of January 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) , in: Jewish Social Studies 4.2. Cf. also Yuri Stoyoanov: Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross. The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 and Byzantine Ideology in Anti-Persian Warfare , Vienna 2011. The more recent sources do not mention the Jews at all or consider their role to be marginal (cf. Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, p. 6, note 8).
- ↑ For the meaning of the relic, see for example Barbara Baert: Heraclius and Chosroes or The Desire for the True Cross ( Memento of the original of November 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ See John Haldon: Greater Syria in the Seventh Century. Context and Background , in: John Haldon (Ed.): Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria , Farnham 2010, p. 3.
- ↑ It is possible that Herakleios operated later in Mesopotamia with 25,000–50,000, perhaps even with up to 70,000 men (Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius. Emperor of Byzantium , Cambridge 2003, p. 160). See also James Howard-Johnston: Heraclius' Persian Campaigns and the Revival of the East Roman Empire 622-630 , in: War in History 6 (1999) 1-44.
- ^ Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius - Emperor of Byzantium , Cambridge 2003, pp. 126 and 146.
- ↑ In research it is mostly assumed that the term " Khazars ", which appears in the sources, actually meant the Gök Turks and that the source in question, the historian Moses Daskhurantsi, used the term Khazars anachronistically. See James Howard-Johnston: Heraclius' Persian Campaigns and the Revival of the East Roman Empire 622-630 , in: War in History 6 (1999) 1-44, here: p. 13, and Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius . Emperor of Byzantium , Cambridge 2003, pp. 142-143 with evidence.
- ↑ Engelbert Winter, Beate Dignas: Rome and the Persian Empire. Two world powers between confrontation and coexistence , Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 178. Correspondence: Nicholas Oikonomides: Correspondance between Heraclius and Kavädh-Siroe in the Paschal Chronicle (628) , in: Byzantion 41 (1971) 269–281.
- ^ Fergus Millar : Rome's 'Arab' Allies in Late Antiquity , in: Henning Börm, Josef Wiesehöfer (eds.): Commutatio et Contentio. Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian and Early Islamic Near East , in Memory of Zeev Rubin. Wellem-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2010, pp. 199–226.
- ↑ According to this, it was above all this dynasty that gave cohesion to the group later known as the Ghassanids (Greg Fisher: Between Empires. Arabs, Romans and Sasanians in Late Antiquity , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011).
- ↑ Overview of the Arab conquests in Hugh Kennedy: The Great Arab Conquests. Philadelphia 2007.
- ↑ For example Yehuda Nevo , Judith Koren: Crossroads to Islam. The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State , New York 2003 ( review ).
- ^ Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge 1997, p. 8.
- ^ Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge 1997, p. 19.
- ↑ The letters in English translation can be found in Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge 1997, pp. 28ff.
- ↑ Nathanael Bonwetsch (Ed.): Doctrina Iacobi nuper baptizati , Treatises of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen, phil.-hist. Class, NS 13,3, Berlin 1910, p. 86.
- ↑ James Howard-Johnston: Witnesses to a World Crisis. Oxford 2010.
- ↑ Jens J. Scheiner: The conquest of Damascus. Source-critical examination of the historiography in the classical Islamic period. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010.
- ^ Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge 1997, p. 28.
- ↑ James Howard-Johnston: Witnesses to a World Crisis. Oxford 2010, p. 212 f.
- ↑ James Howard-Johnston: Witnesses to a World Crisis. Oxford 2010, p. 467. Howard-Johnston considers this, not the battle at Yarmuk, to be the actual decisive battle.
- ^ Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge 1997, p. 51.
