Something of a Nuisance: Ancient Jews between East and West

As the classical historian Barry S. Strauss notes in the Prologue to Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire, “many books have been written on the Jewish revolts against Rome,” and he values them highly, noting that “the scholarship is superb, and I gratefully and humbly acknowledge my debt.” What, then, is his hiddush? “This book’s contribution is to focus on the Jewish state’s unique position between East and West, between Parthia and Rome.” And, indeed, in addition to doing many other things in this exceedingly readable volume, he often illustrates the way in which Judea was caught in the middle of a clash between two ancient civilizations.

But if today, as writers from both sides argue, Israel is the spearhead of the West in a war against its enemies in the East, two thousand years ago Judea was merely a small entity on the borderline and had, as Strauss shows, more of an affinity (on the whole) to the superpower of the East, the ancient Iranian empire of Parthia, than to the Western superpower, which had been its overlord since 63 B.C.E. For the Romans, Parthia was for centuries an inextinguishable threat, “the sole empire remaining in Rome’s orbit that could challenge its power;” for the more restive Jews, it was a prospective source of assistance. Consequently, “when Rome looked at Judea, it saw the shadow of Parthia.”

For instance, when Octavian and Mark Antony promoted Herod to a subservient sort of royalty in Judea, it was because, as Antony told the Senate, “it was an advantage in their war against the Parthians for Herod to be king.” Jews inclined to throw off the Roman yoke could, for their part, cling to the hope that if they ever tried to do so the Parthians might help them.

At the most decisive moment, the Parthians may have been inclined to do so, but ultimately didn’t. “Strategists who thought that help from beyond the Euphrates was available” were one of the “several streams in Judean society” that “converged to raise the banner of rebellion” in 66 C.E. But the only help that came from that direction consisted of volunteers from the Jewish Diaspora, including some from the Jewish-led kingdom of Adiabene in northern Mesopotamia. “Vologases,” the Parthian king, “chose neutrality during the Great Revolt, even if that hastened a Roman victory.”

In the aftermath of the devastating Roman victory that came soon enough, the conflict between Rome and Parthia went on as usual. And Rome’s difficulties with the Jews did not cease either. Though the Holy Land was pacified, the Diaspora rumbled. Jewish uprisings in Egypt, Cyprus and other locations ruled by the Romans in the early second century, though unsuccessful and mostly forgotten today, were something of a nuisance to Rome. Were these scattered Diaspora Jewish fighters proxies of the Parthians in their ongoing struggle against their rival? Strauss can’t say for sure, but he accumulates enough evidence to lead him to conclude that “it is possible that the Parthians encouraged Jewish revolt in the Roman Empire, even if speculation is the best that the historian can do.”

Barry S. Strauss’s Jews vs. Rome reminds us that even two thousand years ago the Jews’ fate in their own land and in the Diaspora was bound up with the struggle between dueling powers taking place in their vicinity. Let’s hope (and/or pray) that things turn out, in the end, much better this time around.