History of the Jews in the Roman Empire

They may even have established a community there as early as the second pre-Christian century, for in the year 139 BCE, the pretor Hispanus issued a decree expelling all Jews who were not Roman citizens.The Jewish Encyclopedia connects the two civil wars raging during the last decades of the first century BC, one in Judea between the two Hasmonean brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, and one in the Roman republic between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and describes the evolution of the Jewish population in Rome: ... the Jewish community in Rome grew very rapidly.

The Jews who were taken to Rome as prisoners were either ransomed by their coreligionists or set free by their Roman masters, who found their peculiar custom obnoxious.

Many cities of the Roman provinces in the eastern Mediterranean contained very large Jewish communities, dispersed from the time of the sixth century BC.

After the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus, the proconsul Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) remained to secure the area, including a visit to the Jerusalem Temple.

[9] Central privileges included the right to be exempted from polis religious rituals and the permission "to follow their ancestral laws, customs and religion".

[17] Impressed by Yohanan's bravery and (ultimately correct) prediction that Vespasian would one day be Emperor, he granted them safe passage to and the right to settle in Yavneh, which as a result would go on to become an important cultural center of Jewish life in the Empire.

Jews continued to live in their land in significant numbers, the Kitos War of 115–117 notwithstanding, until Julius Severus ravaged Judea while putting down the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.

985 villages were destroyed and most of the Jewish population of central Judaea was essentially wiped out – killed, sold into slavery, or forced to flee.

After the Jewish-Roman wars (66–135), Hadrian changed the name of Judaea province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina in an attempt to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the region.

A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple, and their dwelling in other countries for the most part was not a result of compulsory dislocation.

Josephus, the book of Acts in the New Testament, as well as other Pauline texts, make frequent reference to the large populations of Hellenised Jews in the cities of the Roman world.

[25]: 224  Martin Goodman states that it is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast.

For the generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history.

In spite of the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jews remained in the land of Israel in significant numbers.

As the religious persecutions continued, Hillel determined to provide an authorized calendar for all time to come that was not dependent on observation at Jerusalem.

Julian, the only emperor to reject Christianity after the conversion of Constantine, allowed the Jews to return to "holy Jerusalem which you have for many years longed to see rebuilt" and to rebuild the Temple.

Some Jews were sold as slaves or transported as captives after the fall of Judea, others joined the existing diaspora, while still others remained in the region and began work on the Jerusalem Talmud.

Jewish communities were thereby largely expelled from Syria Palaestina and sent to various Roman provinces in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.

Image of Joshua from the 3rd-century wall paintings at the synagogue of Dura-Europos
Siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, painted c. 1504
Relief from the Arch of Titus in Rome depicting a menorah and other objects looted from the Temple of Jerusalem carried in a Roman triumph
Detail of a menorah relief on a column, Ostia Synagogue , 1st century
Jewish ritual objects depicted in 2nd century gold glass from Rome
A pair of putti bearing a menorah, on a cast of a 2nd- or 3rd-century relief (original in the National Museum of Rome )
Menorah motif, Vigna Randanini catacombs
Expulsion of the Jews in the Reign of the Emperor Hadrian (135 AD): How Heraclius turned the Jews out of Jerusalem. (Facsimile of a miniature in the Histoire des Empereurs , 15th-century manuscript, in the Library of the Arsenal , Paris.)