First Jewish-Roman War

Judea , sometimes spelled in its original Latin form Iudaea to distinguish from Judea proper, is a term used by historians to refer to the Roman... province that incorporated the geographical regions of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, and which extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel. It was named after Herod Archelaus's Tetrarchy of Judea, of which it was an expansion, the latter name deriving from the Kingdom of Judah of the 6th century BCE. Rome's involvement in the area dated from 63 BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when Rome made Syria a province. In that year, after the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus, the proconsul Pompeius Magnus lay siege to and entered the Jerusalem Temple. Subsequently, during the 1st century BCE, the Herodian Kingdom was established as a Roman client kingdom and then in 6 CE parts became a province of the Roman Empire. Judaea was the stage of three major rebellions .
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The Battle of Beth Horon was a battle fought in 66 CE between the Roman army and Jewish rebel forces in the First Jewish-Roman War. The Battle of... Beth Horon is considered the worst defeat the Romans suffered at the hands of rebels. Judea came under Roman influence in 63 BCE, when the Pompey the Great arrived in the Levant as part of the Roman campaign against Mithridates VI of Pontus. In 37 BC Rome appointed Herod the Great as a client king of Judea, helping him oust the Parthian-backed leader Antigonus II Mattathias. Shortly after Herod's death, Judea became partitioned among his sons as tetrarchy, but due to disturbances by 6 CE it came under direct Roman control and with exception of a small autonomous region in the north became a Roman province, ruled by prefects appointed in Rome. In 66 CE, long-standing Greek and Jewish religious tensions took a downward spiral after Jewish worshippers witnessed Greek civilians sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue in Caesarea and complained to the authorities. The Roman garrison did not intervene, leading to the triggering of popular protests against Roman taxation.
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The Zealot Temple Siege was a short siege of the Temple in Jerusalem fought between Jewish factions during the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman... Empire . The forces of Ananus ben Ananus, a Jewish priest and former High Priest of Israel, besieged the Zealots who held the Temple. According to the historian Josephus, Ananus incited the people to rise up against the Zealots who were in control of the Temple. When John of Giscala led the Zealots to believe that Ananus had contacted the Roman General Vespasian for assistance in retaking control of all Jerusalem, the Zealots, driven to desperation, asked the Edomites for assistance in preventing the delivery of the city to the Romans. When the Edomites arrived, the Zealots opened the gates of Jerusalem to them, and the Edomites slaughtered ben Hanan's forces, killing him as well. After freeing the Zealots from the Temple, they massacred the common people. Jerusalem remained in the control of the Zealots until 70 CE, when it was sacked by Rome and the Temple was destroyed.
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The Siege of Yodfat was a 47 day siege by Roman forces of the Jewish town of Yodfat which took place in 67 CE, during the Great Revolt. Led by Roman... General Vespasian and his son Titus, both future emperors, the siege ended with the sacking of the town, the deaths of most of its inhabitants and the enslavement of the rest. It was the second bloodiest battle of the revolt, surpassed only by the sacking of Jerusalem, and the longest bar Jerusalem and Masada. The siege was chronicled by Josephus, who had personally commanded the Jewish forces at Yodfat and was subsequently captured by the Romans. Judaea had been a troubled region throughout the 1st century CE, torn between different religious sects, struggling to fit into the Roman system and subject to Roman procurators who were often corrupt and repressive. A major rebellion finally erupted in 66 CE and a rebel government established in Jerusalem. When Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, failed to take Jerusalem and was then ambushed at Beth Horon, the rebellion spread into the kingdom of Agrippa II, including the Galilee.
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The siege of Masada was among the final accords of the First Jewish-Roman War. The long siege by the troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass... suicide of the Sicarii rebels and resident Jewish families of the Masada fortress. The siege has become a controversial event in Jewish history, marking radicalism on the one hand and heroic struggle on the other. According to Josephus, a 1st-century CE Jewish Roman historian, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In 66 CE, at the beginning of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish extremists called the Sicarii overcame the Roman garrison of Masada and settled there. Three years later, following the Siege of Jerusalem and subsequent destruction of the Second Temple, additional members of the Sicarii and many Jewish families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop, with the Sicarii using it as a base for harassing the Romans. The works of Josephus are the sole record of events that took place during the siege.
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