Roman camp at Masada.
Posted on 07/08/2015 7:22:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The remains of an imperial Roman legionary camp -- the only one of its kind ever to be excavated in Israel or in the entirety of the Eastern Empire from the second and third centuries CE -- have come to light at a dig near Megiddo, archaeologists said this week.
Legio, a Roman site situated next to Tel Megiddo in northern Israel, served as the headquarters of the Sixth Legion Ferrata -- the Ironclad -- in the years following the Jewish Revolt, and would have helped keep order in the Galilee during the Bar Kochba Revolt in 132-135 CE...
In the century following the Jewish Revolt in 66-70 CE, Rome garrisoned two imperial legions in Palestine to keep order, one in Jerusalem and a second in the Galilee. Until recently, the location of the castrum -- Latin for a permanent military camp -- housing the Sixth Legion was uncertain.
The erstwhile presence of a Roman legio was preserved in the name of an Arabic village nearby -- Lajjun. But surveys and aerial studies of the site by Tepper in recent years pointed to the presence of a Roman military structure, and during the first season in 2013 the team found the first evidence of the military camp.
This season's excavations have unearthed large numbers of ceramic roofing tiles marked with the sign of the Sixth Ironclad Legion, clay pipes, sewer channels and several buildings, all of which attest to the high level of planning at the site...
The number of Roman military camps of this type found in the eastern half of the Roman Empire "is zero," said Matthew J. Adams, head of the Albright Institute and co-director of the dig...
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
Who Really Built the Water System at Megiddo?
http://asorblog.org/2013/10/08/who-really-built-the-water-system-at-megiddo/
Judaism and Religious Freedom in the Rabbinic Period (70 CE – 1000 CE)
http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/judaism-and-religious-freedom-in-the-rabbinic-period-70-ce-1000-ce
Thank you for that interesting article.
As you know, I am very interested in that part of world history. :-)
Looks like I missed one of those ‘funny’ characters before I posted the title, though. :’(
Go and don't worry. My wife and I spent two weeks there last year and had an amazing time. You won't regret visiting Israel.
“The Roman destruction of Jerusalem in the Roman Wars/Jewish Revolt was at least as significant to the transformation of the Israelite nation as the Exodus was.”
The war was probably carried out by Auxiliaries, locals who had been recruited and then led by Roman officers. It’s my understanding that the destruction of the Temple in particular was done against the orders of Titus.
I thought the Roman Army camp around Massada was well preserved.
Roman camp at Masada.
I went back in ‘98. Fabulous!
There are some traces of temporary camps, like the one used during the siege of Masada; this is the first permanent legionary fort found in that part of the world.
I doubt that Titus was against the act itself.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jewishtemple.htm
Colosseum ‘built with loot from sack of Jerusalem temple’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1311985/Colosseum-built-with-loot-from-sack-of-Jerusalem-temple.html
Israeli Rabbis Hope to Search Vatican
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1058869/posts
And the Jews could also hit back hard as we see during the Kitos war -- where supposedly 240,000 gentiles were killed in Cyprus
I knew about Masada, but I didn’t know about the “Kitos War”. I’ll go check it out. Thanks.
Teutoberger Wald was a tragic defeat for the Romans, but I disagree that it was the decisive defeat conventional wisdom has it. There were several later punitive campaigns where the Romans marched at will across Germany. Germanicus decisively defeated Arminius at great cost to the Germans. I think the Romans just decided the Rhine was the best natural barrier for the frontier and Germany just didn't have the riches to justify the expense of occupation. Besides, with Arminius defeated they were able to establish client states across the Rhine.
Your posts are always awesome! This was is especially appropriate for this time of year on the Jewish calendar, the “Three Weeks,” commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies.
Actually Josephus is where I got the idea that Titus didn’t want the Temple destroyed. This is from the Josephus that you linked to:
“As they drew closer to the Temple, they pretended not even to hear Caesar’s orders, but urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands.”
“When Caesar failed to restrain the fury of his frenzied soldiers, and the fire could not be checked, he entered the building with his generals and looked at the holy place of the sanctuary”
“As the flames had not yet penetrated to the inner sanctum, but were consuming the chambers that surrounded the sanctuary, Titus assumed correctly that there was still time to save the structure; he ran out and by personal appeals he endeavored to persuade his men to put out the fire, instructing Liberalius, a centurion of his bodyguard of lancers, to club any of the men who disobeyed his orders. But their respect for Caesar and their fear of the centurion’s staff who was trying to check them were overpowered by their rage, their detestation of the Jews, and an utterly uncontrolled lust for battle. “
Not that I’m aware, but I like the idea. ;’)
The persecution of Jews didn’t start with the Romans; the Greeks’ dislike began during the Persian Empire, perhaps in part because the Jews considered Cyrus the Great a liberator and the Greeks not so much. Like the Romans, the Greeks scoffed about the lack of idols in the Temple, and regarded circumcision as mutilation.
The Romans couldn’t get Jews to serve in the army; their reluctance to serve was an obvious consequence of their food laws and the Shomer Shabbat, which prohibits even cooking food on the sabbath. In exchange for the Roman occupation and the continual tension with the Parthians, and not having to serve in the occupying power’s army, the Jews were given the favor of paying a special tax.
After the Romans’ destruction of the Temple, the empire imposed the Fiscus Judaicus, a special tax mimicking the former tithing that Jews paid to support the Temple (now destroyed), that was levied on all Jews throughout the Empire (not merely Jews who had survived the revolt) to support the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the center of the most important official Roman cult. Sez here that temple burned down three times in a little over a century and a half, with the fourth iteration being built by, of course, Titus.
The Kitos War was one of the rebellions that festered out of the Roman atrocities. The immediate incitement came from the emperor Hadrian, the lover of catamites. He was especially appalled by circumcision and insulted by the Jews’ “failure” to adopt foreign cults. He decided to level what was left of Jerusalem and build a new city, dedicated to himself.
The Roman response to the uprisings was to massacre or enslave the population of Judea, and ban the practice of Judaism and circumcision throughout the empire. The bans lasted until that monstrous faggot Hadrian died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelia_Capitolina
Josephus was a collaborator, and wrote for a non-Jewish audience; he wanted more understanding of his own people, but didn’t want to piss off anyone. The goal was always to level the place. In past attacks on the Temple, pagans would drag in images of their marble deities, defiling it.
The Romans would have cut more ice had they actually tried to befriend the Jews, but by and large the Romans didn’t work that way. When newly in an area, the Romans would make alliances and impose very modest tribute; none of that would last very long, usually.
The Iceni revolt in Britain, which has been romanticized and glorified into something it was not, led to the annihilation of the Iceni; the Arminius (”Herman”) revolt in Germania led to the eventual killing of Arminius by members of his own tribe (probably members of his own family) who were paid by the Romans to do just that. And the Varian Disaster wasn’t “The Battle That Stopped Rome”.
Thanks, and good observation about that, I didn’t realize it.
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