Diaspora Revolt
The term "Diaspora Revolt", also known as the Trajanic Revolt and sometimes as the Second 'Jewish–Roman War,' refers to a series of uprisings launched by Jewish diaspora communities across the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire during the final years of Trajan's reign. Hostilities began while Trajan was engaged in his Parthian campaign in Mesopotamia, creating a favorable opportunity for rebellion. Ancient sources do not specify the motivations, but they were likely shaped by the Roman destruction of the Second Temple during the First Jewish Revolt in 70 CE, long-standing tensions between Jews and Greeks, the Fiscus Judaicus tax, messianic expectations, and hopes for a return to Judaea.
The Jewish uprisings broke out almost simultaneously across several provinces of the eastern Roman Empire. In Egypt, Libya and Cyprus, rebel attacks were directed mainly against local populations rather than Roman authorities, with ancient authors such as Cassius Dio and Eusebius, as well as epigraphic evidence, reporting extreme violence, including mass killings and the destruction of temples. By contrast, the revolt in Mesopotamia appears to have formed part of a broader local resistance to Roman expansion into Parthian territories.Marcius Turbo, one of Trajan's top generals, was dispatched with both land and naval forces to suppress the uprisings in Egypt and Libya. Literary sources suggest that the Jewish population in these regions faced severe reprisals and devastation. Meanwhile, General Lusius Quietus quelled the rebellion in Mesopotamia and was subsequently appointed governor of Judaea. It was during this time that the lesser-known and poorly understood Kitos War unfolded, seemingly involving Jewish unrest in Judaea. The diaspora uprisings were likely suppressed before autumn 117, possibly as early as summer of that year, just prior to Trajan's death; however, some unrest may have persisted into the winter of 117–118.
The Diaspora Revolt appears to have led to the devastation or annihilation of Jewish communities in Egypt, Libya, and other regions. Significant damage to buildings, temples, and roads is attested especially in Cyrene and other parts of Cyrenaica. A festival celebrating victory over the Jews was still being observed eighty years later in the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. Fifteen years after these uprisings, the Bar Kokhba revolt erupted, marking the last major Jewish attempt to regain independence in Judaea. After its failure, the Jewish population in Judaea was greatly reduced, and the community's center shifted to Galilee. In the Diaspora, the largest Jewish communities were now concentrated in Parthian Mesopotamia and Roman-ruled Asia Minor and Italy.
Primary sources
The available sources on the Diaspora Revolt are limited, fragmented, and incomplete, making it difficult for historians to reconstruct a comprehensive account of the events. The principal sources, Cassius Dio and Eusebius, offer only brief coverage, and only a few other, less detailed literary references survive. Scholars therefore rely on archaeological evidence, including ancient documents and inscriptions, to supplement and clarify the limited textual record.Cassius Dio, a Roman historian and senator, addresses the revolt in his Roman History ; his narrative survives, however, only through a 12th-century abridgment by the Byzantine scholar Xiphilinus. Dio's account provides the most detail on the events in Cyrene, while offering only brief mention of Cyprus and a passing reference to Egypt. This account attributes responsibility for the uprisings to the Jewish population. Dio also records the Roman suppression of unrest in Mesopotamia, though he does not explicitly identify a Jewish role in that region. Scholars disagree on the extent of changes and bias introduced by the abridgment: Classicist Timothy Barnes suggested that Xiphilinus's anti-Jewish sentiment may have influenced and distorted the original text, whereas historian Lester L. Grabbe argued that "there is no reason to assume that it has been extensively distorted or rewritten, only shortened by omission."'
Additional descriptions of the revolt come from Eusebius, a bishop and scholar from late-antique Syria Palaestina, who discusses it in his Chronicon and Ecclesiastical History, works generally considered reliable sources. His account centers on the uprisings in Egypt, with additional references to a Jewish rebellion in Mesopotamia and events in Cyprus. Eusebius notes that Greek historians provide accounts of the revolt similar to his, though he appears unaware of Cassius Dio's version, which puts greater emphasis on violent atrocities; In contrast, Eusebius adopts a more neutral tone. Nonetheless, his portrayal of the revolt is framed within his broader theological argument that Jewish suffering was a consequence of their rejection of Christ, a theme common in early Christian references to the Jewish–Roman wars.
Appian, an Egyptian-born Greek historian and lawyer, provides a first-person account of the revolt in the surviving portions of his Roman History 2.90. Among several anecdotes, he recounts his narrow escape from capture, fleeing a Jewish ship via wilderness paths and boat near Pelusium, and describes the destruction of the Pompey monument near Alexandria by Jewish rebels. His neutral tone is similar to that of Eusebius, who is believed to have used Appian as a source. Also active in the second century, Arrian, a Greek author, wrote a now-lost work on the Parthians that reportedly included references to Trajan's actions against the Jews, and is believed to have been used as a source by Eusebius.
A much later source on the Diaspora Revolt is Paulus Orosius, a Christian Roman historian and theologian, who discusses the events in his Seven Books Against the Pagans, composed around 418 CE.' Orosius saw the Jewish uprisings as divine punishment—a plague upon Rome—resulting from its persecution of Christians. His narrative draws on Eusebius, likely via Latin translations by Jerome and Rufinus, though Orosius rearranges the material and adopts a more vivid, dramatic rhetorical style. His account's reliability has been questioned due to chronological and historical inaccuracies, and, according to Judaic scholar William Horbury, his version is derivative, lacking immediacy and "vague" in its presentation.
The uprisings in Egypt are also documented by papyrological evidence, especially texts in the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, a collection of papyri relating to Jews and Judaism in Egypt. These documents illuminate the revolt's chronology, casualties, impact, and aftermath, and show, for example, that local Egyptians fought against the Jews rather than supporting them, as was suggested earlier. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence also clarifies the events in Cyprus and Cyrenaica, with Latin and Greek inscriptions from Cyrenaica recording the reconstruction of buildings damaged during the "Jewish uprising", thereby revealing the scale of destruction and subsequent rebuilding programs.
The Diaspora Revolt also finds echoes in rabbinic literature composed in later centuries, based on earlier oral traditions. The Jerusalem Talmud, a rabbinic compilation redacted in Galilee during the 4th–5th centuries CE, refers to the revolt in tractate Sukkah 5:1, which preserves three stories about it, including accounts of the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Alexandria and the massacre of Jews by Trajan. These narratives, which focus on Roman actions rather than the Greeks or Egyptians, were likely influenced by the heightened anti-Roman sentiment following the Bar Kokhba revolt, which occurred about fifteen years later and had disastrous consequences for the Jews of Judaea. While the stories contain historical kernels, they also incorporate legendary elements that limit their reliability as strict historical sources. Nonetheless, these sources reflect contemporary rabbinic debates about Jewish life in the diaspora in the aftermath of the Jewish–Roman wars, highlight hostilities and tensions between Jews and Romans, and reveal continuing hope for the coming of the Messiah among the Jews of Judaea.
Background
The motivations behind the diaspora uprisings are complex and difficult to discern, owing to the lack of direct sources on their underlying causes. The Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, at the height of the First Jewish Revolt, was a deeply traumatic event whose effect was exacerbated by the simultaneous introduction of the Fiscus Judaicus, a humiliating, punitive tax imposed on all Jews across the empire. The post-revolt period also saw widespread messianic expectations—a belief in the imminent coming of a redeemer, a descendant of David, who would bring transformative change and restore the Davidic kingdom in Israel—as well as a longing for the re-establishment of the Jewish state. Contemporary Jewish texts such as the Third Sibylline Oracle'', 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch'' reflect these themes, emphasizing anticipation of a messianic figure, the ingathering of the exiles and the eventual rebuilding of the Temple. The messianic aspect of the revolt is perhaps suggested by Eusebius referring to Lukuas, the leader of the Jewish rebels in Libya, as "king", suggesting that the uprising evolved from an ethnic conflict into a nationalist movement with messianic ambitions for political independence.Inter-ethnic tensions and local conditions also fueled the unrest, especially in Egypt, where longstanding social, economic, political, and ideological frictions between Jews and Greeks had intensified since the third century BCE. The situation deteriorated under Roman rule, leading to sporadic violence in various eastern cities, including severe riots in Alexandria in 29 BCE, 38 CE, 41 CE, and 66 CE. The Jewish defeat in the First Jewish Revolt amplified hostility toward the Jews of Egypt, leading to their violent exclusion from civic positions and the imposition of higher business fees. It also intensified anti-Jewish rhetoric in Egypt, greatly exacerbating tensions between Jews and Egyptians. In the years leading up to the Diaspora Revolt, incidents of anti-Jewish violence by Greeks occurred in 112 and the summer of 115 CE. These attacks, especially the latter, were likely direct catalysts for the Jewish uprising in Egypt. In Libya, earlier disturbances in 73 CE, which resulted in the deaths and dispossession of many wealthy Jews, may have weakened the moderating influence of the Jewish elite, allowing more radical elements in Jewish society to gain prominence and push for revolt. Additionally, the destruction of the Jewish landholding aristocracy exacerbated economic hardships for Jewish tenant farmers, pushing them into cities and worsening their plight.
William Horbury wrote that the revolt was influenced by a strong national hope and local interpretations of messianic expectations, particularly the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the Temple. He added that Jews in the diaspora may have been influenced by the ideals of "liberty" and "redemption," which were central to the First Jewish Revolt and spread to communities in Egypt, Cyrene, and possibly Cyprus through refugees and traders from Judaea in its aftermath. This idea is supported by Josephus' account of Jews belonging to the radical Sicarii faction who migrated to Cyrene after the war, the discovery of First Jewish Revolt coinage in Memphis and near Cyrene, and traces of these themes in diasporic literature.
Classicist E. Mary Smallwood suggested that the revolutionary movement during the Diaspora Revolt can be viewed as an early form of Zionism, seeking the return of Jewish exiles from North Africa to Palestine. The advance of the Cyrenaican Jews into Egypt, marked by widespread destruction, may have been intended as the initial phase of this large-scale migration. Archaeologist Shimon Applebaum wrote that the movement aimed at "the setting up of a new Jewish commonwealth, whose task was to inaugurate the messianic era." Biblical scholar and historian John M. G. Barclay likewise argued that the extensive damage to Cyrenaica's infrastructure during the uprising implies that the Jews involved intended to leave the province, probably aiming ultimately to reach Judaea. Horbury similarly concludes that the Jewish forces likely aimed to return to and defend Judaea.