Pros And Cons Of The Roman Empires

Through history, the Jewish nation has had several conflicts with countless empires, religions, and other groups of people who had opposing beliefs and practices. One of the largest and most powerful empires which the Jews had several conflicts with was the Roman empire. The Roman empire initially came in contact with the Jewish people when Pompey the Great laid siege to Judea and the temple, making the land of the Jews a client kingdom, or a native tribe who joins the Roman empire in order to self-preserve itself. Since then, the Jewish people were slowly provoked into several conflicts and revolts against the Roman empire which led to further harsh oppression of the Jews in the empire. Although the Romans were initially not an openly anti-semitic …show more content…
An great example of this is the out of hand reaction of the Romans after the Great Jewish Revolt which they provoked. When the Jews got tired of Roman discrimination and decided to start an uprising, the romans fought back by sending the most powerful Roman general, Vespasian. Vaspian ultimately laid siege to Jerusalem, destroying the holy temple of the Jews and killing all of the inhabitants of the city. All in all, about one million Jews died, over 100 thousand were enslaved, and the remains of Jerusalem were completely destroyed and scattered. This punishment towards the Jewish people was way out of hand compared to the revolution which they led, and it if was not enough, the Romans decided to mock the Jews of their defeat through the creation of different symbols of victory, such as several coins or the Titus arch, which celebrated the Jewish defeat. Later on, after the Bar Kokhba revolution, the Romans once again decide to overly punish and increase the persecution of the Jews because of their uprising. In reaction to the revolution, Romans brought about one third of their entire forces to combat the Jews. As a result, the Romans annihilated over 580 thousand more Jews, wiping out almost all of the population of Judea. Apart from their response, the Romans increased their persecution of the Jewish religion after this revolution, leading to the inhumane murders of ten of the greatest Rabbis of the time, including Rabbi Akiva, showing how Rome had become an increasingly anti-semitic empire by this point in history. If all of this was not enough, the Romans also decided to ban any remaining Jews from Judea, as well as rename the land of Judea to Syria-Palestine as a form of mocking the Jews by having their home land be named