Rome: Cestius Gallus’ Army Against the Jewish Revolt, AD 66
v.1.0 May 12, 2002
I have lost the source for the material and am waiting word on the name of the book. The convention when designating Roman legions is to use the Roman numerals; since today we use them only for designating corps, I find the convention confusing.
Rome3rd Legion (4 cohorts, c. 2000)
7th Legion (8 cohorts, c. 2000)
22nd Legion (4 cohorts, c. 2000)
4 cavalry wings (2000)
6 auxiliary cohorts (4800)
AlliesAntiochus of Commagene: 2000 horse archers, 3000 bowmen
Agrippa of Judaea: 1500 horse archers, 3000 bowmen
Soaemus of Emesa: 1200 horse archers, 1500 bowmen, 1000 javelin men
We have no information on the Jewish forces, but may assume they were guerilla bands without formal organization. Please do send us any historical details as would help our readers understand the events of this revolt and its suppression.
Auxiliary units were what we today might call Line of Communications troops and paramilitary forces. They held strong points and garrisons, protected the L of C, hunted insurgents, and generally conducted second-line duties.
The Jewish Revolt of 66-74 ADSource: Article by Jim Bloom http://www.saga-publishing.com/roman_judaeo_war.htm
“We do know that from 66 to around 135 the Jews under Roman rule rebelled at least three times, on each occasion mounting a tenacious, savage resistance and incurring enormous losses. The ferocity and perseverance of these uprisings are unique in the annals of the Roman Empire. Clearly, the case of Judaea is exceptional: a Roman province in which the natives steadfastly refused to be assimilated into the Hellenistic culture of the occupying power….
Judaea/Palestine is unique among the Roman provinces: that province alone embraced a national identity intense enough to challenge Roman rule. That identity stemmed from a body of Hebrew religious writings that constituted an explicit focal point for the development of staunchly uncompromising political and religious institutions. This locus and these institutions provided the setting for the two great rebellions that the Romans faced in Palestine (plus one in North Africa) in the first and second centuries AD. Messianic promise that was embodied in this sacred literature fused with misgovernment and Romanizing policy to provide the seedbed for mutiny.
It is exactly because these rebellions stemmed from a Jewish national identity that the Romans found them far more dangerous than any other revolt. Challenges to Roman authority usually were based on generalized resistance to Romanization, Hellenization, or paganism or on any particular program for a new political and religious order. In fact, many such programs emerged from this remarkable region, but none were so worrisome as the Jewish purists. Jewish resistance to Roman rule explains why the process of Romanization in Palestine had to involve more than the usual solutions: founding of colonies, other Greco-Roman cities and the co-opting of local patricians.
The Jewish threat demanded a measure unprecedented among the Roman rulers: forced migration -- what we now call ethnic cleansing—on a scale unmatched since the ascendancy of the Assyrian conqueror Sennacherib eight centuries earlier and the permanent stationing of an unusually large legionary force…”
Also: http://homeschoolunitstudies.com/Samples/Rome/jewishrevolt.html
The Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem, killed over 1 million Jews, took about 100,000 into slavery, and destroyed of the Temple in 70 A.D.
[Given the population of the world in those times, (2-300 million) one million killed seems excessive – perhaps someone informed can educate us? PBS tells us that when the Romans entered Jerusalem, they killed 40,000 Jews, which is a horrible massacre by any standard. Rome had a population of 1 million. Would Jerusalem have had substantially more? (http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/voices/voices4b.html) ]