History of the Jews in the Roman Empire

The history of the Jews in the Roman Empire (Latin: Iudaeorum Romanum) traces the interaction of Jews and Romans during the period of the Roman Empire (27 BC – 476 AD). A Jewish diaspora had migrated to Rome and to the territories of Roman Europe from the land of Israel, Anatolia, Babylon and Alexandria in response to economic hardship and incessant warfare over the land of Israel between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC. In Rome, Jewish communities thrived economically. Jews became a significant part of the Roman Empire's population in the first century AD, with some estimates as high as 7 million people;^[1]^[2] however, this estimation has been questioned.^[3]^[4]

Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem and its surroundings by 63 BC. The Romans deposed the ruling Hasmonean dynasty of Judaea (in power from c. 140 BC) and the Roman Senate declared Herod the Great "King of the Jews" in c. 40 BC. Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea became the Roman province of Judaea in 6 AD. Jewish–Roman tensions resulted in several Jewish–Roman wars between the years 66 and 135 AD, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and the institution of the Jewish Tax in 70 (those who paid the tax were exempt from the obligation of making sacrifices to the Roman imperial cult).

In 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan giving official recognition to Christianity as a legal religion. Constantine the Great moved the Roman capital from Rome to Constantinople ("New Rome") c. 330, sometimes considered the start of the Byzantine Empire, and with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire. The Christian emperors persecuted their Jewish subjects and restricted their rights.^[1]

Constantine the Great and Judaism

Jewish diaspora

Jewish ethnic divisions

Jewish history

History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire

History of the Jews in Egypt

History of the Jews in Italy

History of the Jews in Calabria

History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel

History of the Jews in Syria

Italian Jews

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Goodman, Martin. 2000. State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132–212. London and Portland, OR: .

Vallentine Mitchell

Goodman, M. 2004. "Trajan and the Origins of Roman Hostility to the Jews." Past & Present 182: 3–29.

Jacobson, David (2001), , Biblical Archaeology Review, 27 (3), archived from the original on 25 July 2011

"When Palestine Meant Israel"

Levine, Rabbi Menachem, 2023, Aish

The Jewish History of Rome

Mclaren, James S. 2013. "The Jews in Rome during the Flavian Period." Antichthon 47:156–172.

Pucci Ben Zeev, Miriam. 1998. Jewish Rights in the Roman World: The Greek and Roman Documents Quoted by Josephus Flavius. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr.

Rutgers, Leonard Victor. 2000. The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Schürer, Emil. 1973. The History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–135 A.D.). Revised and edited by Emil Schürer, Géza Vermès, Fergus Millar, Matthew Black, and Martin Goodman. 2 vols. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

Smallwood, E. Mary. 1976. The Jews under Roman Rule. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Stern, Menahem, ed. 1974. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Varhelyi, Zsuzsanna. 2000. "Jews in Civic Life under the Roman Empire." Acta antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 40.1/4:471-478.

ed. 1979. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York: The Museum.