Although a scholarly treatise of the Jewish-Roman War, of 66-74 CE (“War”), Guy Rogers’ (“Rogers”) book For the Freedom of Zion: The Great Revolt of Jews Against Romans, 66-74 CE (“Freedom of Zion”), unlike most such books, is well written and highly accessible even for the casual reader. I highly recommend reading this if you are at all interested in the War. Rogers relies primarily on Josephus’ (purportedly firsthand) account of the War and analyzes the modern secondary scholarship on the War. Freedom of Zion is broken down into five parts, as well as 15 appendices. The appendices provide much context and background to the War, such as source material used (primarily a discussion of Josephus and his books), the Herodian dynasty, whether Judaea was a “province” from 6 CE (I use the term province loosely as Rogers notes scholars have debated on the topic which he addresses), the amount of food and water necessary for the Roman army during the War, a timeline of events, and other background information. If you are a casual reader, reading Freedom of Zion from page one until the end is fine and will be an engaging read. But, if you are studying the War and scrutinizing Rogers’ opinions regarding the War’s causes and the mistakes of the resistance, I suggest reading the appendices first, then part five (which provides a small summary of the War, as well as Rogers’ opinions on causation and rebels’ mistakes), and then read parts one through four.
Concerning the substance, in the first part of Freedom of Zion, Rogers describes the events leading up to the War. The focus is on Judaea’s transition from a Herodian kingship, appointed by the Roman Senate, to a “province” in 6 CE ruled by non-native governors and procurators, who were not sensitive to local religious issues. Prior to 6 CE, Judea was largely an ethnarchy ruled by King Herod, whose Idumaean father, Antipater I, was at first a supporter of Pompey but, then after Pompey’s murder, switched sides to Iulius Caesar, providing Caesar with crucial military assistance in Egypt. As a reward, Antipater was given Roman citizenship and freedom from taxes. Antipater was made procurator of Judaea, and in turn he appointed his son Herod as general of the Galilee. Prior to this, Judea was ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, after the Maccabean revolt and recapture of the Temple in 164 BCE. Caesar also confirmed Hyrcanus II, a decedent of the Hasmoneans, as high priest. Herod was militarily successful. While the Parthians sided with Hyrcanus’s nephew, Iulius Caesar’s right-hand man Mark Antony sided with Herod. Herod was eventually able to repel the Parthians, after which he was appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate.
According to Rogers, even though Herod was extremely cruel (including killing many of his own children and relatives to consolidate power (some even joked it was better to be Herod’s pig than child, since it was forbidden to eat pork under Jewish law)), life under Herodian rule for the Jews (although Herod was not himself ethnically Jewish but descended from converts, as did all Idumaeans who were forced to convert to Judaism by the Hasmonean King John Hyrcanus I) was not terrible. Herod started many projects, including rebuilding the Temple. Eventually, Herod died, but because there had been so many revisions to his will, his children fought over who would be his successor. The issue, regardless of the will had to be decided by Caesar Augustus, who, after hearing from all sides, chose to split Judea giving portions of Judea to each of Herod’s sons as well as Herod’s sister (probably because there was alarming news coming from Judea of a revolt headed by Judas the Galilean was coming and the son Harod’s last will designated as successor (Archelaus) was not ruthless enough to stop it). Things in Judea quickly deteriorated from there. Archelaus was kicked out for incompetence, and Judas the Galilean started a tax revolt, urging Jews not to register for the Roman census. Rogers argues Judea effectively became a “province” in 6 CE, with successive Roman governors attempting to levy taxes and loot the treasury of the Temple, which was immense given the Temple tax Jews everywhere were required to pay. The looting intensified with Nero, who had to raise money after Rome was burned (by Nero himself) and there was a need to subsidize Rome’s enormous welfare state (free distribution of grain to all Roman citizens).
The immediate “fuse” to the War, according to Rogers, was during the reign of the last governor, Gessius Florus. Florus did nothing after Hellenists desecrated a synagogue on Sabbath in Caesarea, and he, also, personally looted the Temple’s treasury, resulting in Jews mocking Florus. Two successive massacres ensued. Eventually, the Temple was seized by rebels, cutting off Florus’ access to the Temple’s treasury. This was the point of no return; the War became inevitable. Notably, later in part five, Rogers argues that the desecration of the synagogue in Caesarea and looting of the Temple, although precursors to the War, were not the causes of the War per se. Rather, the War’s more basic cause was Judea’s transition from a Herodian kingship to “province”, which created circumstances that left the Jews in Judea feeling hopeless and that they had no representation in government to deal with their pressing religious issues. While Herod was ruthless, he nonetheless attempted to appease the Jews (such as by rebuilding the Temple). The Roman provisional rulers did the opposite. Not only were they not sensitive to local religious issues, but they also actively looted the Temple’s treasury, leading to a full blown revolt.
In part two, Rogers describes the War in the north. The first assault to make the rebels capitulate was led by Cestius, whose army included 29,467–35,667 legionaries, auxiliary, and allied soldiers, plus thousands of pack animals. Rogers estimates his army required 30,780-34,200 pounds of food and 21,600–24,000 liquid liters of water daily. Cestius waged an assault on the Temple, which the rebels repelled. Cestius had to retreat, according to Rogers, because he did not have enough provisions to continue a sustained assault on the Temple. After the retreat, the rebels began to fortify cities for the impending assault they knew would come. Rogers argues, later in part five, that the rebels’ city fortification strategy was a tactical error, because it walled in all the rebels into one area, which was convenient for the Roman legions, who were more accustomed to fighting a conventional war than the rebels were. The rebels should have, according to Rogers, fought a guerrilla style insurgency campaign from the wilderness (like the Maccabean revolt and recapture of the Temple in 164 BCE). Interestingly, Rogers also points out that the rebels could have implemented a guerrilla style campaign, by falling back and seeking support from Adiabene, which is located in modern day Iraqi Kurdistan. Adiabene was a client state of the Parthian empire (who probably would have been happy to see Rome fail in the region) and Adiabene‘s kings, princes, and queen converted to Judaism. The Adiabene option, as Rogers calls it, seems plausible in light of the fact that several members of the Adiabenian royal house were in Jerusalem during the fall of the Temple and were taken hostage. (Notably, although not mentioned by Rogers, the candelabra and table depicted in the Arch of Titus erected to celebrate the War might have been gifts from Queen Helena of Adiabene, who converted to Judaism and took a Nazarite vow.) The rebels’ city fortification strategy, which culminated in mass suicide at Masada, was (supposedly) the idea of and implemented by Josephus, who claimed to have trained a 100,000-man army in Galilee, purportedly along Roman preparedness to meet a conventional type war fought by Romans. Rogers discounts the size of Josephus’ army and notes it was probably not possible for Josephus to create a Roman style military, given his background. Rogers documents the internal strife between Josephus and John of Gischala, who would later lead the rebels in opposition to the assault on the Temple.
Humiliated by Cestius’ retreat, Nero decides to tap 57-year-old military commander and ex-consul named Titus Flavius Vespasianus (referred to in English as Vespasian) to take command of the War against the rebels and to prevent the rebellion from spreading. Vespasian’s army is substantially larger than Cestius, estimated at 60,000 troops, requiring an estimated 126,940 pounds of food and 103,520 liters of water daily. Rogers provides these estimates of daily food and water to support his argument in part five that a guerrilla style campaign attacking supply lines (which was enormous by these estimates) would have been a better tactic than the rebels’ city fortification strategy, which made them sitting targets surrounded by walls. Rogers documents Vespasian’s rampage through the north in the beginning of the War, and the eventual surrender of Josephus, who did not kill himself (although he entered into a suicide pact with his subordinates, which he manipulated) and who predicts that Vespasian would become the next ruler of all lands, in effect, applying the Jewish prophecy of a king messiah in Numbers 24:17 to Vespasian, a theme Josephus repeats throughout his book on the War, based on Rome’s military victories and the rebels’ defeat (including chance successes based on weather). Vespasian’s campaign through the north was ruthless, resulting in several massacres and the north’s eventual capture.
In part three, Rogers describes Titus’ siege on Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Vespasian abandons the assault on the Jews, so that he could start a coup d'état in Rome and become Caesar, which he does. In the process, Vespasian managed to burn down Rome’s own grand temple, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. After taking control of the throne, Vespasian appoints Titus, his 30-year-old son (most Roman generals were in their early 40s), as commander of the legions to lead the assault on Jerusalem. Accompanying Titus was Tiberius Iulius Alexander, an apostate Jew from an aristocratic Jewish family of tax collectors in Egypt, who was the former governor of Judaea (46–48 CE) and had been the first Roman governor to recognize Vespasian as emperor in 69 CE (as prefect of Egypt). Although not Rogers’ theory, given Titus’ age and inexperience, it is more likely than not that Tiberius was the real commander of the siege of Jerusalem and the Temple, not Titus, especially since Titus made some naive decisions during the campaign, where his father would have engaged in more scorched earth tactics. In contrast to Titus’ inexperience and naïveté, Tiberius, as prefect of Egypt, was as ruthless as Vespasian, employing his legions against the Alexandrian Jews in a brutal response to ethnic violence, killing some 50,000 Jews according to Josephus. Officially, however, Tiberius was Titus’ chief of staff. Rogers describes Titus’ siege on Jerusalem and the eventual destruction of the Temple. Rogers points out that, according to Josephus, before the Temple was burned, Titus and his generals (including Tiberius) supposedly had a meeting, where it was decided not to destroy the Temple. According to Rogers, this does not square with the monuments, which Rogers describes in part four, created after the War to honor Vespasian and Titus, including fragments from the Circus Maximus Arch, which credit Titus with “subdue[ing] the race of the Jews, and destroy[ing] the city of Jerusalem, which by all generals, kings, or races previous to himself had either been attacked in vain or not even attempted at all.” Part four also includes a discussion of the assault on Masada and an extended discussion on whether or not there was a mass suicide at Masada as Josephus describes.
Finally, in part five, Rogers presents his theories on the War. His first theory is that the cause of the War was Judea’s transition from Herodian kingship to a “province” in 6 CE ruled by non-native governors and procurators who were not sensitive to the local population’s issues. His second theory is, as noted above, the failure of the rebels’ city fortification approach. He advances his argument that the the rebels should have instead fought a Maccabean-style guerrilla insurgency campaign, focused on attacking Roman supply lines, which he estimates was enormous, with what he coins as the Adiabene option (a fall back to a nearby local client state (ruled by Jewish converts) of the Parthian empire, which may have had a geopolitical interest in seeing Rome’s siege fail, with such a fallback strategy being typical and beneficial in such insurgency campaigns). Yet, he admits it is speculative whether the Jews could have prevailed had they fought as such. Highly recommend for the military buff and the casual reader.
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