The last of the governors, Gessius Florus, was the worst of all who held this office. His extortions and murders drove the people into despair. Especially in Cæsarea, where the majority of the population was Greek, and constantly attacked the Jews, he refused to grant them protection. Agrippa II made an attempt to pacify the Jews and persuade them to send a committee to Rome, but without avail. The daily sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor was discontinued and open rebellion was declared (66).

The Jews fortified the Temple, captured several Roman forts, including that of Jerusalem, and Cestius Gallus, the commander of Syria, was defeated. Vespasian, the ablest general of the Roman army, was placed in command and began the war in Galilee, where Flavius Josephus, the famous historian, was in command of the revolutionary forces (67). Josephus was besieged in the fortress of Jotapat, and, after weeks of hard fighting, surrendered. In the fall of 67 all of Galilee was in the hands of the Romans.

In 68 Vespasian conquered the land east of the Jordan, while in Jerusalem the reign of terror continued and the Zealots wasted their forces in a bloody civil war. Meantime a revolution had broken out in Rome and Nero had committed suicide (68). Three emperors followed each other in quick succession and the internal troubles caused Vespasian to temporize in his warfare. But by 69 he had conquered the whole land with the exception of Jerusalem and three fortified cities held by the patriots. In this year he was proclaimed Emperor and went to Rome, leaving the work of continuing the war to his son Titus.

Titus began the siege of Jerusalem in April, 70, and at once the internal feuds ceased, the besieged doing their utmost to defend the place. Titus had to take the city step by step. Finally on August 10th the Temple, the last retreat of the patriots, was stormed and destroyed by fire. Those who survived intrenched themselves in the upper city and continued their resistance until September 7th. According to Josephus, 1,100,000 perished in the war and 97,000 were made captives and sold as slaves or taken to the circus, where they were torn to pieces by wild beasts. Seven hundred, selected from the noblest families, were taken to Rome to be shown with the holy vessels captured in the Temple in the triumphal march. An arch of triumph was erected as a memorial of victory, which is still standing in Rome. Titus left the siege of the three remaining fortresses to his captains. They spent three more years in reducing them, Massada, the last one, falling in 73. The last defenders of the place killed themselves in order to escape being taken alive by the Romans. Thus the last vestige of the independent Jewish kingdom, founded by the Maccabees, disappeared.

CHAPTER II
FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM (70) TO THE COMPLETION OF THE MISHNAH (200)

The destruction of Jerusalem had thrown the Jewish people into a terrible crisis. Although the Jews, as individuals, did not fare worse than during the preceding one hundred and thirty years, Judæa was now a province of the Roman Empire.

The only new law, enforced after the destruction of Jerusalem, was that of a special tax of two Drachmæ, which every male had to pay. This tax, called “Fiscus Judaicus,” took the place of the half-shekel formerly paid by every male Jew into the treasury of the Temple, according to the Rabbinic interpretation of the Law in Exodus xxx, 11-16. Some of the Jews were sold into slavery; some went to Rome, where they swelled the congregation existing there since the second century B.C., and where they had several synagogues and catacombs used as cemeteries. Others again emigrated to Babylonia, where a Jewish settlement existed since the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, or settled on the northern coast of Africa, and on the islands of the Mediterranean.

Under Domitian, the brother and successor of Titus (81-96), the tribute of the “Fiscus Judaicus” was exacted with great severity. Domitian was altogether hostile to the Jews; yet in his reign Jewish propaganda increased in Rome, and people belonging to the highest class of society, among them Flavius Clemens, a nephew of the Emperor, with his wife Clementina, were converted to Judaism. Flavius Clemens was put to death and his wife exiled for their change of faith, as the Roman law considered it a crime, and called it atheism. Dio Cassius, the historian of Rome, speaks of a class of people who were not Jews by descent, but had adopted the Jewish religion. Similar proofs of the existence of a Jewish propaganda are found in the New Testament (Matthew xxiii, 25) where the Pharisees are denounced for their efforts in making converts, and in the daily service, composed about one hundred, in which a special prayer for the proselytes is offered.

Under Emperor Nerva (96-98) the “Fiscus Judaicus” is said to have been abolished.