Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/558

508 Bar Kokba Bar Mizwah

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

(Sbab. ix. 1 Yer. ib. 17a; Yeb. 72« Yer. Yeb. viii. 9 Gen. R. xlvi.). It does not follow, however, from the



preceding passages that the Judieo-Christians were compelled by Bar Kokba to submit to circumcision (Basnage,"LTIistoiredes Juifs," xi. 361, Rotterdam, 1707), and the statement that the Christians were tortured by Bar Kokba if they did not deny Jesus, is made only by Christian authors (Justin, " Apologia," ii. 71 compare " Dial." ex. Eusebius, in " Hist. Eccl. " iv. 6, § 2, and in his " Chronicle, " where he therefore calls Bar Kokba a robber and murderer; Jerome,



Orosius, "Hist." vii. 13). The actual reason seems to have been that the Christians refused to unite with the Jews in the struggle. The Samaritans, however, participated in the conflict, to which Jews residing in foreign countries also flocked in masses, the number of combatants being further

in his " Chronicle "



swelled by pagan accessions; and there ensued, as Dio Cassius observes, a war which was neither of small proportions nor of short duration. Rufus could not at first resist the onslaught of the Jews, to whom he was compelled to relinquish one place after another almost without a struggle; and thus about fifty strongholds and 985 undefended towns and villages fell into their hands (Dio Cassius, lxix. 14). These fifty strongholds were situated in Palestine, and may be located with tolerable accuracy (" Magazin fur die Wissenschaft Publius des Judenthums," xix. 229; "Monats-

Marcellus.

scbrift," xliii. 509),

But although

the

Jewish arms did not penetrate beyond the Palestinian border, their success caused the Romans to become conscious of their danger. They despatched Publius Marcellus, legate of Syria, to the aid of Rufus but this general also was defeated. It is uncertain whether the insurgents acquired possession of Jerusalem: the Jewish sources contain no mention of it and the coins bearing the inscription, " In



Commemoration

of the Liberation of Jerusalem," are unreliable because they may have originated with Simon the Hasmonean. Among the historians, Graetz is almost the only one that accepts the sup-

But if this had position of a conquest of Jerusalem. been the case, the insurgents would not have made Bethar, but Jerusalem, their center of operations. Moreover, Bethar, according to Eusebius, was situated in the vicinity of Jerusalem, a statement which may apply equally to a place north or south of the

Holy

However

may

a city of the size ascribed to Bethar in Jewish sources could never have arisen in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. Hadrian was now compelled to summon the greatest general of his time, Julius Severus, from Britain, to conduct the campaign against the Jews and Severus was accompanied by the legate Hadrianus Quintus Lollius Urbicus, former governor of Germania. Hence it follows (contrary to the opinion expressed in the Jewish Julius sources, in Moses of Chorene's " Hist. Severus. Arm." ii. lvii. and in the writings of Milnter and Lebrecht) that Hadrian did not personThe Roman troops enally participate in the war. gaged in Palestine were the Tenth Legion (Pretentis), the Second (Trajana), the Third (Gallica), and the Fourth (Scythica), all drawn from Syria; but even with so considerable an army, Severus did not venCity.

this

be,





508

ture to engage the Jews~in open battle. He sought gradually to dislodge them from their strongholds. The Romans were compelled to enter from the north, and here they captured the populous and cities, Kabul, Sichin, and Magdala, surnamed Zebuaya ("City of the Dyers"). The next city invested was the so-called " Har ha-Melek " (Tur Malka, " Mountain of the King "), where a certain "Bar-Deroma," possibly identical with Bar Kokba, commanded on the Jewish side. The Val-

well-fortified

ley of

Rimmon, perhaps also called Bik'at-Yadayim,

the starting-point of the rebellion, became the scene of a murderous conflict (Eliyahu R. xxx. compare Lam. R. i. 16; Gen. R. Ixiv.). The Romans are said according to certo have fought fifty-two battles tain writers, fifty-four until, at last, Bethar alone remained and this place finally fell, through treachery, into the hands of the Romans, who would not for a long time afterward give permission for the in;

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terment of the

slain.

The war was ended, and Bar Kokba met his death upon the walls of Bethar. Indescribable misery spread over Palestine; the land became a desert the Jews were slaughtered en masse and Talmud and Midrash bewail the horrors of the Roman

End of



the "War. conquest.



According

fell in battle,

Dio Cassius, 580,000 Jews who succumbed to It must have been regarded

to

not including those

hunger and pestilence. as an evil omen by the Jews that the

mon

pillar of Solo-

Jerusalem fell of itself. Indeed, the end of the Jewish nation had come. The Romans also had sustained heavy losses and it is reported that Hadrian did not even send the usual message to Rome that he and the army were well (Dio Cassius, ib.) a story which can not be true in view of the opinion already expressed that Hadrian was not present during the conflict (see, however, " Revue Etudes Juives, " i. 49). Hadrianus was for the second time elected imperator by the Senate, and Julius Severus was honored with the ornamenta triumphalia. (The governor of Bithynia, named Severus, so highly praised by Dio Cassius, was another person, Sextus Julius Severus.) This war, designated by the Mishnah (Sotah ix. 14) as "the final polemos," had lasted three and one- half years (Seder 'Olam R., toward the end, according to the reading of Dei Rossi not two and one-half, as in



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in the

common

Lam. R.

ii.

2;

reading; Yer. Ta'anit

Jerome on Dan.

ix.).

iv. 68rf et seg.

But

this applies

only to the actual struggle for Bethar after the fall of that city, which, according to the tradition, took place on the Ninth of Ab, 135, two brothers in Kephar-Haruba, in the vicinity of Tiberias, had still to be overcome (Yalk., Deut. 946; the Venice ed., however, reads here " Kephar Hananyah, " otherwise as in Yer. Ta'anit and Lam. R. I.e.). In three cities Hamath near Tiberias, Kephar Lekutyah, and Bethel Hadrian had garrisons posted for the purpose of capturing Jewish fugitives (Lam. R. i. 16; slightly different in ed. Buber, p. 82). Here, as in the beforementioned Valley of Rimmon, the Jews are said to have been brought in by false promises. Many were sold into slavery and for this purpose a market was held under the terebinth, which tradition identified with Abraham's Oak, where Jews were sold for the price of a horse. Others were sold at the market

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