September 67 CE- Vespasian besieges Gamla. Early October 67 CE- Vespasian breaks into Gamla but suffers defeat. October 20, 67 CE- Gamla falls. Josephus describes the Battle of Gamla in detail in The Jewish War Vol. III, Book IV- …On that day Titus, who had now returned, indignant at the reverse which the Romans had […]
A Smaller Rebel Coin “for the freedom of Zion” Date- 66-70 CE Language and Script- Hebrew, paleo-Hebrew alphabetic Bronze Prutah – Front Bronze Prutah – Back General Information- Coins minted in Jerusalem during the second year of the revolt against the Romans, Prutot were the bronze fractions of the famous silver shekels. These coins bore […]
The Rebels Assert Independence “for the f[reedom] of Israel” Date- 132-135 CE Current Location- Private Collection, Shlomo Moussaieff. Language and Script- Hebrew, paleo-Hebrew alphabetic Bar Kokhba Coin – Front Bar Kokhba Coin – Back General Information- Sixty years after the destruction of the Temple, the Jews revolted against the Romans for a second time. Their […]
The Rebels Mint their Own Coins “shekel of Israel” Date- 66-70 CE Language and Script- Hebrew, paleo-Hebrew alphabetic Silver Shekel – Front Silver Shekel – Back General Information- • Before the summer of 66 CE and the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome, the ordinary bronze coins used in Judea were struck at […]
Coin of Titus depicting the Colosseum. The Colosseum – the greatest amphitheater of the antiquity – was built in Rome, Italy, about 1920 years ago. It is considered an architectural and engineering wonder, and remains as a standing proof of both the grandeur and the cruelty of the Roman world. The Colosseum
Silver coin of Nero, from the mint of Antioch 63 CE. Part of a hoard of 13 shekels found by Nahman Avigad and Zvi Moaz in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Avigad, Nahman, Discovering Jerusalem, Shikmona Publishing Co, Jerusalem, 1980, p. 195. See also- Gold Coin of Nero, 51-54 CE Neronian Tetradrachm, 60 CE The […]
Roman Britain, 2nd century AD Found in the River Thames near London Bridge (1834) Hadrian (reigned AD 117-138) is famous as the emperor who built the eighty-mile-long wall across Britain, from the Solway Firth to the River Tyne at Wallsend- ‘to separate the barbarians from the Romans’ in the words of his biographer. This head […]
Tenth Roman Legion Tile. Photo courtesy of Zev Radovan. The meager Roman remains discovered in the Old City of Jerusalem include stamped roof tiles and bricks bearing the initials LXF , short for LegiooXoFretensis, the Tenth Roman Legion, which participated in the siege against Jerusalem. The tile shown here also depicts the legion’s emblems–a wild […]
In the account of the battle for Gamala, we encounter Josephus’ description of his own involvement as a rebel commander, a role he claimed he never really pursued wholeheartedly. Gamala was an impregnable fortress located in the lower Golan, and its conquest by the Romans was a harbinger of their conquest of the rest of […]
Josephus tells the story of how Jewish discontent with Roman rule soon flared into open revolt. He chronicles the inner Jewish struggle between the incipient Jewish revolutionaries and the pro-Roman aristocracy. (405) This advice the people hearkened to, 1 and they went up into the temple with the king 2 and Bernice and began to rebuild […]