The Constant Feud

Violent Confrontations

Appendix II shows the extent to which the Middle East and Europe are exact opposites in all civilizational criteria. Such opposites in thought and behavior are sufficient to cause mutual distrust and antagonism, but in order to bring things to a shooting war, one needs some specific cause, a casus belli

. Hostilities between the two sides began in about 600 BC and have continued ever since. Once they started, it is easy to predict that one war would lead to another. It was an age when the rules of international relations asserted that once a territory was conquered, the conqueror continued to have a legitimate claim on the acquired territory and if ever it were lost again, the right to recover it by force of arms. As the Persians occupied Western Asia in the time of Cyrus the Great, and Egypt in the time of Cambyses, they claimed continuing ownership and the right to recover it by force. Unfortunately, the Romans had the same principles, and in addition to Egypt and the Near East, they also claimed ownership of Mesopotamia, which was occupied by Trajan in the second century AD. The result was five centuries of near constant warfare.

So, there were plenty of reasons why warfare was continuous, once it started. But why did it begin in the first place? According to Herodotus, the origins of the Persian War, which was the first in the series of the East - West conflicts, started when the Persians sought revenge against the Greeks for the destruction of Troy, which was caused by the abduction of Helen by Paris, which was seen as revenge for the abduction of Europa by the Greeks, which led back to the abduction of Io. Translating this sequence of abductions into normal language means, that nobody really knew how it started, but it did go back to very old times.

Without diminishing the importance of the abducted ladies, it seems that the original cause was much simpler and also more important. Urban civilization was built upon tools and weapons of metal. A copper sword was better than no sword at all. A bronze sword could cut a copper sword in two, and an iron sword could do the same to both. However, metal weapons and tools needed suitable ores and technology.

Copper was quite common in the Middle East. It was found in Cyprus, in Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, Oman and Iran. Working with copper was also comparatively easy. If one found a chunk of native copper, hammering it into shape, without the need for smelting could form it. However, its softness, which gave it advantage in the stage of manufacture, meant it was weak against bronze or iron weapons. Iron was still far in the future, but bronze was there. Already at the beginning of the Third Millennium BC, there were bronze tools and weapons in Egypt and the Middle East.¹

There was, however, one big problem with regard to manufacturing bronze tools, and especially weapons, in the Middle East. The region had some deposits of copper, but very little tin, if at all. There were some small deposits of tin in Syria and eastern Iran,² but they gave out soon enough. Tin was essential for the manufacture of bronze. Even with copper there were some problems. The richest copper deposit in the region was on Cyprus, the copper island as its name manifests, but Cyprus was no part of Asia; it belonged to the Mycenaean world.³

The result of the unequal distribution of strategic ores was that already in the third millennium BC there was a flourishing bronze industry in the Aegean. That industry imported the raw material from Europe, some of it from Spain, but mainly from Cornwall and Ireland.⁴ At that time there were no permanent Greek or Mycenaean colonies, but there were plenty of Mycenaean merchants and shippers, who exported Greek and Aegean produce, mainly oil and wine, in exchange for European ores. These merchant adventurers reached the western Mediterranean and the British Isles and left their traces in archeological sites. They did not colonize, but had some semi-permanent trading stations, like the later European trading stations on the coast of Africa, before the period of actual colonization.⁵ The Mycenaean merchants and the Aegean manufacturers provided the finished products to the Eastern kingdoms. If they had a monopoly on the supply, they must have set the price.

Having a monopoly in foreign hands could not have been a very satisfactory arrangement for those in the Middle East. First, they had to rely on Mycenaeans, Greeks and Cretans for the supply of metal weapons on which their rule was based, and second, they must have been subject to high prices. The Phoenicians were not under orders to any of the Eastern dynasties, so it seems that only the prospect of high profits induced the Phoenicians to circumvent the western stranglehold on their supply of essential ores.

According to Cicero,⁶ the Phoenicians planted in 814 BC a colony on a promontory in North Africa, Carthage. It was about the same time when the Greeks planted their first colonies in Sicily and southern Italy. There was a race on both sides of the Mediterranean to reach Spain, one of the major sources of ores. The Carthaginians secured for themselves the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula, the Greeks continued to colonize the northern shores of the Mediterranean. The Phoceans reached Massilia (Marseilles) and continued on to northern Spain.

It is very likely that the actual colonization only served to replace the existing semi-permanent trading stations, both on the southern and the northern shores of the Mediterranean.⁷ Long before the establishment of Carthage, the Bible writes about ships of Tarshish (Tartessus in Spain) in King Solomon's time. When we reach historical times, there were a string of colonies, naval bases with fleets, on both sides of the Mediterranean, competing for the same essential metal. It was a combustive situation.

It should be added that merchant adventurers, then and into late historical times, were pirates too. The adjective 'sacker of cities' is not a pejorative Homeric expression. It was so then and it remained thus in modern times, when the ships of the Algerian pirates replaced the ships of Carthage and Etruria, and the ships of the Knights of St. John from Malta and the Grand Duke of Tuscany replaced the ships of Massilia and Lipara. The race for colonies, trading stations and naval bases continued. The Carthaginians colonized western Sicily and Sardinia, the Phoceans of Massilia colonised Alalia in Corsica and Lipara, at the northern entrance to the Straits of Messina ⁸

There was another development in the Western Mediterranean that only increased the competition between the two shores of the Mediterranean. That factor were the Etruscans. Indeed, the Etruscans and their origin is one of the remaining riddles of history. It was a mystery even in classical times.⁹ However, it seems that the theory of their eastern origin, as opposed to possible northern or indigenous origin, had more credence then than it does now. There is a close resemblance between Etruscan and Lemnian, Lycian and Lydian, all languages of Asia Minor. An Egyptian monument listing the Sea Peoples who attacked Egypt in piratical attacks, listed among others a people called 'Trs.w' - pronounced Toorshah or Tyrsenoi. The same monument also listed the Sardinians and the Sicels, who like the Tyrrhenians settled in the western Mediterranean.

There are a number of facts that can be confidently stated about the Etruscans. They were probably of Eastern origin, from Asia Minor, occupied Etruria, Latium and Campania, and were enemies of the Greeks.¹⁰ If they came from Asia Minor, then they probably had to leave their homeland because of Greek pressure; it was sufficient cause for a grudge. They had close ties with the Carthaginians. It is an open question who had the first ascendancy in the western seas. The Carthaginians were colonists of Tyre, one of the major cities of Phoenicia, but they reached the West only at the end of the ninth century BC. The Tyrrhenians, however, as part of the Peoples of the Sea, must have reached Etruria much before that, together with the Sardinians and the Sicels, who also appeared on the same Egyptian monument. According to classical sources, the Tyrrhenians and their companions from the Sea Peoples, were the original Mediterranean pirates.¹¹

The commercial rivalry between the Greeks of Massilia, Alalia and the Sicilian Greek cities on the one hand, and the Carthaginian - Etrurian alliance on the other, eventually burst into open warfare. Herodotus tells about Phoceans who fled from their home in Asia Minor before the Persians and sailed westward to join their colony in Alalia on Corsica. From there, they started piratical activities until the Carthaginians and the Etrurians sent a fleet against them. In the ensuing battle, the Phoceans were victorious, but they lost 40 out of their 60 ships. They eventually deserted Alalia, sailed south and joined Rhegium and settled Lipara at the entrance of the Straits of Messina.¹²

The sea battle with the Phoceans was only one episode of the continuing battle for the dominance of the ore trade between the mines in Spain and northern Europe and the customers in the Aegean and the Middle East. It is sufficient to cast a look at the map to see the actual situation. The Carthaginians effectively controlled the sea route between Sicily and Africa. They had bases in Carthage, Western Sicily and Malta. No Greek ship could easily take that route.

The Greeks, however, seemed to control the northern route. There were Greek cities on both sides of the Straits of Messina, Messina and Rhegium, and they had a naval base on the Lipari islands, which controlled the northern approaches to the Straits. The alliance of Carthage and Etruria had some advantage in that setup. Greek ships on their way to Messina had to pass either between Sardinia and Etruria, or between Sardinia and Sicily. Sardinia was a Carthaginian colony and Etruria policed the Tyrrhenean Sea.¹³ The cooperation between Carthage and Etruria was so complete that Aristotle wrote in his Politics that Etrurians and Carthaginians were like citizens of the same state.¹⁴

We shouldn't be carried away with the application of modern techniques to historical situations. It was an age where the only detecting instrument was the human eye, and speeds for chase, or escapes, was provided by suitable wind or human muscle. Naval bases and patrols could have been effective, but their blockade never could have been absolute.

This was the situation when the first open warfare started between the Middle East and Europe.

Eastern Attack

The first open conflict between Asia and Europe, or more accurately between the Middle East and Greece was in the second half of the 6th century BC. The root of the conflict was in the emergence of a new and dynamic power in Western Asia, the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. It overran the Middle East and Asia Minor and by its very expansion came into direct conflict with the Hellenic world, which was also in the process of accelerated expansion.

The Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus expanded in the proven Middle Eastern way. Huge armies moving and conquering new lands, incorporating them in the Empire. It had been done before by Sargon I, Rameses II , Nebuchadnezzar and others. Luckily for the Middle East, Cyrus the founder of the Empire, was a thinking person, who preferred a liberal approach to conquered peoples, instead of brute force. This policy was to have very far-reaching consequences in future history, but the immediate result of the liberal approach was that the Persian overlordship was, more or less, accepted by the conquered peoples, or at least by their rulers.

The Hellenic expansion was different and its roots were different too. It had to satisfy the hunger for land of the citizens of the city-states. The demographic spiral had finally caught up with them, as it did in the Middle East three millennia earlier. Greece was then, and still is, a rocky, poor and unfriendly land, suitable for olives, wine and pasture but not much else. From very early times, Greece had to rely on the import of wheat from the region north of the Black Sea. The straits of Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were the jugular of mainland Greece, a fact well exploited by the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War.

The solution of the Greek cities for coping with overpopulation was to plant colonies and re-settles their excess population in them. The colonies were essentially agricultural settlements,¹⁵ but usually had additional purposes too. As the Hellenic settlements were usually planted on the shore, preferably with good harbors, they were naval bases, commercial depots and trading posts.¹⁶ The wheat trade with the region north of the Black Sea was through the Greek colonies in that area, which bought or exchanged the wheat and shipped it home.

The Hellenes were not alone in the policy of colonization. The Phoenicians and the Etruscans did the same. There were, however, great differences between the Greeks and their competitors as colonists.

The Etruscans were not colonists in the accepted sense of the word. They left their homeland under pressure, probably at the time of troubles at the end of the Mycenaean period, and conquered a new territory in the best tradition of migrating peoples. The only specific Etruscan addition to the method was that they did it by sea after a successful piratical career. They spread inland and established a territorial state in central Italy.

The Phoenicians had no population pressure. They established colonies not because of demographic pressure, but as naval bases and trading posts. This they did on the North African littoral and in Spain. The main weakness of the Phoenician colonies was always in their lack of manpower. This was the reason that they always had to rely on mercenaries with all the problems caused by the mercenaries. The subject of Flaubert's Salammbo, describing a revolt by Carthaginian mercenaries, was taken from history.

Neither the Etruscans nor the Phoenicians were serious competitors in the race for more colonies.¹⁷ The Black Sea remained a Greek lake and apart from the western Mediterranean and Spain there were no Phoenician or Etruscan colonies.

There was one common factor in colonization as between the Greeks and their Eastern rivals. Both colonized in utter disregard to the wishes of the inhabitants of the colonized region, or even their very existence. If the colonizing process met with great resistance, it might possibly have been aborted. If there was less or no resistance, then the colony was established and the local people had the option of accepting it peacefully, or being compelled by other means.¹⁸

In this sense, the Hellenic colonization around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, was similar to later colonization in the 18^th and 19^th centuries AD. In both periods, the colonization was done in utter disregard of the native population, except for the utterance of pious platitudes about civilizing missions. The Greeks did the same in the last wave of colonization, after Alexander the Great. That was the time when they also discovered their 'civilizing mission'.

The Greek colonization was driven by naval force, as was the later West European expansion. The Persian expansion was based on advancing armies conquering new territories, and preparing new bases for further advancement. The Russians used the same method in modern times.

The most ancient Greek colonies were on the Asian mainland facing the Aegean. The colonies there were the most important and the wealthiest. The roots of Ephesus, Miletus, Halicarnassus, Smyrna and others go back to near mythological times.

Lydia was a semi-Hellenized native kingdom in western Asia Minor. Its rulers had a Hellenic upbringing, they regularly consulted the various Greek oracles, and in addition were very rich. They had gold and silver mines, their wealth was legendary. They were Hellenized but not Greek, and that made a considerable difference.

In the 6th century BC the Lydian kingdom got itself embroiled in a war with a number of Greek colonies. The Lydian king, Croesus, whose name became synonymous with wealth, succeeded in defeating the Greek cities and even planned to extend his rule to the islands of the Aegean as well. According to Herodotus, only timely good advice made him change his plans.¹⁹ Croesus was greedy. He was not satisfied with the overlordship of the Ionian cities, he wished to extend his rule to the whole of Asia Minor. He did succeed in extending his rule to the river Halys; only Lycia and Cilicia escaped his rule. However, his expansion brought him into conflict with the Persian Empire.

The end of the story is known. Cyrus occupied Lydia, treating Croesus with his usual good sense. Together with the kingdom of Lydia, Cyrus received the overlordship of the Ionian Greek cities, their constant revolts and the backing given by the mainland Greeks to the local revolts. As by then Cyrus was the legitimate king of Lydia, the refusal of the Ionian cities to accept his rule was rebellion.²⁰ That was the casus belli of the first East-West conflict.

Cyrus had the good sense to realize that before tackling the Greeks he had to make sure of his rear, which he and his successors secured. Towards this end, the Persians demolished the remainder of the Babylonian Empire, then Cyrus's son and successor, Cambyses occupied Syria and Egypt. Finally Darius, successor to Cambyses, felt secure enough to turn against Europe.

The war against Europe was conducted in two phases. Darius himself conducted the first. He led the Persian army to the region north of the Black Sea to neutralize the Scythian tribes so they would not attack Persia in his rear. He passed with his army on a bridge on the Danube built by Greek mercenaries from Ionia. The expedition was not successful, but surprisingly, the Ionians proved to be loyal `and held the bridge against the Scythians. ²¹ The loyalty was short-lived and when the Athenians at Marathon defeated Darius, landing from the sea, the Ionians staged a simultaneous revolt and burnt Sardis, capital of the Lydian satrapy, to the ground.²²

The next and last step in the war against the Greeks was a two-pronged attack. Xerxes, Darius's son, collected a huge army and led it into Europe over two bridges on the Bosphorus. The bridges were built by Phoenicians and Egyptians. According to the account recorded by Herodotus, Xerxes mobilised the whole of Asia against the Greeks. Simultaneously with his attack, Carthage and Etruria struck at the Greek cities of Sicily, to prevent them from coming to the aid of the mainland.²³ The plan was superb but too bad it lacked a few small details, like provisions for the huge army, or blockading the Hellespont against ships carrying wheat from the Black Sea region to Greece. It was such an oversight that Herodotus thought it important to remark on it.

The result was disastrous to the Persians. Instead of using blockade to starve the Greeks, they fought against better-trained and better-armed enemy. They were decisively defeated at a naval battle at Salamis and a land battle at Plataea. The Persians succeeded in burning Athens to the ground, as Darius had promised, but lost their fleet and two-thirds of their army. To add insult to injury, the combined Carthaginian-Etrurian fleet organized at Persia's request to prevent the Sicilian Greeks coming to the aid of the mainland, was destroyed at Himera on the same day that the Persian fleet was annihilated at Salamis.²⁴

The defeat of the Persians was total. It also gave the direction to future wars between Asia and Europe. Asia had the manpower, the wealth and the enthusiasm. It was never enough. European discipline, like marching in rows and keeping in step, and ingenuity usually carried the day.

One effect of the defeat was that Greek mercenaries became the arbiters of Middle Eastern battlefields. Xenophon's Ten Thousand was only one of the mercenary armies. There were more. When Alexander crossed the Hellespont in the opposite direction to avenge the burning of Athens, one of the armies which attempted to block his way was a Greek mercenary army,

There was another important consequence of Persia's ascendancy in the overlordship of the Middle East. That was the alliance between the Persians and the Jews. In the millennium of western occupation, this alliance proved to be the main line of Eastern resistance.

The Persians came across the Jews for the first time when they occupied Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had taken the Jews there into exile after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus allowed the exiled Jews to return for two reasons. He was genuinely well meaning and did not want to keep a people in captivity without sufficient reason. In addition, he was a deeply religious man and found much similarity between the teachings of Zoroaster and the writings of Hosea and Isaiah.²⁵ But in addition, he could use loyal allies. The Middle East was, and still is, a volatile region, and loyal people were rare indeed. Cyrus's liberality was repaid many times over. When his son, Cambyses, added Egypt to the Persian Empire in 525 BC, he continued employing Jewish soldiers as guardians of Egypt's southern frontier.²⁶ The use of Jewish troops in Egypt was only one of the future consequences of the Persian-Jewish connection.

In the millennium following Alexander's conquest, there were constant revolts against western domination. The Persian-Jewish alliance, sometimes overt and sometimes covert, was usually at the center of the resistance. The Jews within the area of occupation and the Persians from without. As the Jews were inside, they usually underwent the brunt of the losses. Cyrus made a good deal for his country by being magnanimous to the Jews.²⁷

Western Occupation

In 334 BC the Macedonian army crossed the Hellespont under the leadership of Alexander. In the 10 years following the crossing it destroyed the Persian Empire and reached India. When Alexander died ten years later in Babylon, the whole eastern Mediterranean was a Greek lake, and a string of new Greek colonies stretched through Asia, from Alexandria in Egypt to Alexandria in the Punjab.

Nearly sixty years later, in 270 BC the Roman Republic came into conflict with the Carthaginians who controlled the Sicilian side of the Straits of Messina. The cause of the conflict was trivial; a band of mercenaries, the Mamertines, came into conflict with Messina and the Mamertines appealed to both the Carthaginians and the Romans for help.

Alexander's conquest and Rome's conflict with Carthage were closely interconnected, and were caused by the same social and economic forces. Both actions solved the basic problems, although in completely different ways.

The sources are unanimous that Alexander was not the originator of the Asian invasion; he inherited it from his father, Philip of Macedon, who was assassinated a few years before the crossing. Indeed, when he was killed, one army corps under the command of Marshal Parmenio was stationed at the Hellespont waiting for the order to cross. Alexander did not even think of not executing his father's will. He had been educated all his life to that purpose.

The official reason for the invasion was cited as an act of vengeance for the invasion by Xerxes of Attica and the burning of Athens about 150 years before. ²⁸ At least that was the reason given by Alexander in the letter he sent to Darius III, King of Persia, announcing his challenge for the lordship of Asia.

There is a different view for the immediate reason for the invasion, less mythological and more realistic. Polybius, who was usually a competent, sober and honest historian, wrote that view. ²⁹ According to Polybius, Philip of Macedon noted that a mercenary Greek army, under the generalship of Xenophon, retreated from central Mesopotamia, traversing the whole of Asia, eventually reaching the Black Sea, without any of the barbarians venturing to face them. The second event, noted by Philip, was the crossing into Asia of King Agesilaus of Sparta, who found no opposition there and could do as he wished, until he returned home because of disturbances there.

Philip of Macedon came to the correct deduction that the Persian Empire had become so weak, that if he were to send an army, he could overcome all possible resistance and eliminate the Persian threat once and for all. The Persian Empire was very rich, and Philip wanted to lay his hands on that wealth. The Asian invasion could be a useful and profitable enterprise. It is true that militarily the Persian Empire was weak, but Persian money had been involved in every inter-Greek conflict, and Philip saw a good opportunity to stop the practice.

The Western prong of Europe's two-pronged attack on the Middle East, that of Rome's attack on Carthage, also had its official and unofficial reasons.

The official reason for the First Punic War is well known. The Carthaginians had interests in Sicily, they had a few naval bases on the west of the island. They had bases in Sardinia, Corsica and Spain as well. In fact, the western Mediterranean was a Carthaginian lake. As Rome was drawing nearer to Sicily, she chose the side of the Greek colonies on the eastern part of the island, who were in constant conflict with Carthage.³⁰

Following a prolonged naval war, Rome proceeded to defeat Carthage on land in Africa. That victory brought only a temporary respite in the wars. Soon after the Second and then the Third Punic Wars were fought, until Carthage was completely defeated, the town itself eradicated from the surface of the earth, and the western Mediterranean turned into a Roman lake, just as the eastern half was a Greek lake.

So much for descriptive history. It is correct and accurate as far as the immediate actions are concerned. However, they miss the real reason for both wars, which was an expansion out of necessity.

Agriculture reached Europe much later than it reached the Middle East. It was shown that there were a few thousand years between the start of the Neolithic Revolution in the Middle East and Europe. The demographic explosion, which was a direct result of the Neolithic Revolution, also arrived later in Europe than the Middle East; but eventually it did arrive. The problems caused by the demographic explosion were felt earlier in Greece than in Rome, and also in a more virulent manner.

That Greece felt the effects of the demographic explosion earlier than Rome arose from the fact that Greece, being in the southeastern corner of Europe, had agriculture before Italy. Whether it was caused by the nearness of agricultural centers in Anatolia or because of the south-north desiccation, which reached Greece before Italy, is not known and is of no importance here.

The effects of the demographic explosion were more violent than in Rome, because Greece was less suited for agriculture than Italy. Since very early times, Greece had to import food from the area north of the Black Sea.³¹ Greece had a very acute agricultural crisis since very early days, much earlier than Rome, but the problem in both places could be expressed in a simple sentence: Too many people, not enough land.

It is true, that in both countries there were people who had more land than they were entitled to, but the issue that there are people anywhere who are more powerful and thus able to grab more than others, is general and should be included in any analysis. In both countries there were laws restricting individual land-holding, but such regulations can be easily circumvented. So, the Greeks had a land problem since very early times³² and so had the Romans, even before the Punic wars.³³

The same problem, overpopulation, did exist in the Middle East too. However, the Middle Eastern solution could never work north of the Mediterranean. There were constant social conflicts in Greece, as the accounts given by Thucydides aptly show. In Rome there was constant preoccupation with the ager publicus - public land and the various leges agrariae - land laws. The problem came to the fore with Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus but had been a problem long before.

Neither in Greece, nor in Rome, could one incarcerate the excess population into slave barracks as was done in Tel-el-Amarna or Mohanjo-daro. Slavery was for criminals and prisoners-of-war, and not for freeborn Greeks and Romans. In addition, it was not only a question of land, it was also a question of food.

The Greeks solved the problem of the land by colonizing round the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Romans expanded in Italy and settled colonies in the newly occupied territories. Colonization became more and more difficult It wasn't only the Greeks and Romans who had problems of overpopulation. Local resistance practically prevented further expansion. The possibility of importing food from abroad, as the Greeks did for a long time, had an even greater limitation.

The Greeks imported wheat from the black belt of the present Ukraine lying north of the Black Sea. The local farmers had a surplus and were willing to sell. There were Greek colonies on the spot who could be the middlemen and transshippers. How do you pay for essential food? Greece might have had a surplus of oil and wine, but these certainly had commercial limitations. If not barter, then gold or silver is required. However, Greece had no gold and very little silver. Macedon had gold, but it was for Macedon itself, and of course, across the Aegean lay Lydia, with both gold and silver.

Both the Greeks and the Romans had to turn imperial. In a cynical way, their solution was exactly the same as the solution of the European powers in the 19th century. In both cases, in classical as well as modern times, the acute discontent of the home countries was exported to the colonies. Eventually, both Macedonia and Rome colonized the newly occupied territories. It was more apparent in the case of Alexander, as his problem was more urgent, because the demographic pressure and the scarcity of resources were more acute. He himself founded a great number of colonies, from Alexandria in Egypt to Alexandria in Bactria and in the Punjab.

Alexander the Great would certainly have understood Cecil Rhodes, who wrote at the end of the 19th Century:

"In order to save the forty million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines...If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialist".³⁴

He would probably give less appreciation to those who stressed the civilizatory mission of western colonization. He also knew propaganda gestures and manipulation of public opinion.

The conquest of Asia by Alexander proved to be temporary.. Although, Alexander himself made a conscious effort to bring the Greeks and the Persians together,³⁵ he did not succeed. Alexander died in 323 BC in Babylon, 10 years after he crossed into Asia. After his death, his family and generals started scrambling for pieces of the inheritance, now referred to as the War of the Epigoni. When the dust settled, there were three successor states: Macedonia and Asia Minor was one, Seleucia in Syria and Mesopotamia was the second, and Ptolemaic Egypt in Egypt, Libya and Cyprus was the third. The eastern parts of Alexander's conquests fell away within three generations of his death.³⁶

The Roman wars with Carthage were different from Alexander's blitzkrieg. It was a long, drawn-out war, which started in 270 BC and ended in 146 BC. During these years there were times when Rome herself was seriously jeopardized, with Hannibal campaigning in Italy and destroying Roman armies. That was the time when Rome, out of sheer desperation, renewed the archaic practice of human sacrifice.³⁷

It is interesting to compare the results of Alexander's expansion with that of Rome. When Alexander died, his Empire splintered into fragments, with the fragments becoming independent, each fragment being greater, richer and stronger than the home country. Neither Macedon nor Greece profited from the conquests, indeed they became the backwaters of the Hellenistic world. Landless people in Macedon and Greece could find opportunities in the new Hellenistic monarchies, chiefly Seleucian Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt. These states actively encouraged Greek settlements in their territories. These countries grew in importance on account of Macedon and Greece.

The conquests made by Rome remained Roman colonies, as were Spain, Lusitania, Sicily and Africa. Sicily and the African colony, built upon the ruins of Carthage, became the granaries of Rome. So Rome imported food from her colonies to feed its own people, and Greece exported its own people to the colonies. The Roman solution created the 'panem et circensem' - 'bread and entertainment' mentality, which eventually destroyed the Empire, the Greek solution created an insoluble ethnic problem, which in part is still with us.

After the second Punic War, Hannibal escaped from Carthage, justly worrying about the possibility of being extradited to Rome. He reached the court of Antiochus, one of the rulers of the successor states in the East. According to contemporary sources, Hannibal wanted to organize a common front of Macedonia and the Asian successor states against Rome. Nobody can be certain what arguments Hannibal used to further his plans, but it seems that he must have had a prophetic vision. The Macedonians and Greeks, who were the hunters under Alexander, soon become the prey of the Romans.³⁸

As Hannibal predicted, so it happened. Between the second and the third Punic Wars Rome became the master of both halves of the Mediterranean. Carthage remained an insignificant town in North Africa, shorn of its African and Spanish possessions, waiting for the inevitable end. Macedon and Greece were eliminated as independent states, and the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean accepted Rome as the ultimate arbiter of their affairs. When Antiochus III of Syria attacked Egypt, it was sufficient for Rome to send an unarmed consular emissary, T. Popilius Laenas, to stop the war and send Antiochus back to Syria.³⁹

It was significant that in the same year, 146 BC, in which Rome finally destroyed Carthage altogether, she destroyed Corinth too. With these two separate victories, the Romans signaled to the whole world, that they were the only superpower and the arbiter of the civilized world. As that civilized world, according to the Romans, was all round the Mediterranean, that sea was named mare nostrum - our sea. And it was really so.

Roman domination of the Eastern Mediterranean had a number of long-term consequences. First, Rome became the primary enemy of the East replacing Macedonia and Greece, as in later times the United States replaced Great Britain and France. The second result was that the Greeks, both from the mainland and the islands, joined Rome's enemies during the process of the first domination. Later Rome was to use the Greeks of the Hellenistic East as local agents and the Greek language was used in the eastern part of the Empire as the language of administration. The Greeks in the East were in an awkward position. They did not really appreciate the Romans, seeing in them uncouth Northern barbarians, but they themselves were hated invaders in the eyes of the locals. They were between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The colonial administrators in the East were always Romans, or at least from its Western colonies, and the important element of the Roman Army in the East were usually legions and auxiliary forces from the West. Rome had also a major financial stake in the East, because apart from taxes, tributes and other contributions as well flowed from the East to supply the home city.

During the first Mithridatic war, when the Pontic army conquered the island of Delos, 20,000 Romans and Italians were found there, and duly slaughtered by the Pontic troops and the enthusiastic locals. ⁴⁰ Delos was an important financial center and the main slave-trading emporium in the Mediterranean. The banks of Delos, together with those of Kos, were the ancient world's equivalent to today's offshore banking. When Mithridates laid his hands on the deposits of those banks, he remitted taxation for 5 years, which certainly did no harm to his popularity.

The first serious resistance to Roman domination started at the beginning of the 1st Century BC It was an auspicious time, and the hopes of the Eastern antagonists were high as they hoped to stop the Roman steamroller. There was some pragmatic basis to this hope.

Mithridates Eupator, king of Pontus from the northern part of Asia Minor, on the shore of the Black Sea, was the leader of the resistance. Mithridates was of Persian origin, the descendant of one of the seven high-ranking Persian officers, who conspired against the Magi who usurped the throne after the death of Cambyses, and who put Darius on the Persian throne. He had a reasonable chance of success, at least by any logical calculation.

Rome was in the throes of internal disorder and external war. The internal disorder was a civil war between the Populares, led by Marius and Cinna, and the party of the Senate, led by Sulla. Some of the fighting, massacres really, was in Rome, and some in Spain. Indeed, Mithridates established contact with Sertorius in Spain, but without tangible results. The external war was with the Italians in Rome on the question of their rights of citizenship.

In the East, there was a growing resentment against the Romans and the whole East joined Mithridates. His allies were the peoples around the Black Sea, from the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. Last but not least, the Greeks from the mainland, especially from Athens were with him. He was the champion of the East.⁴¹ When he gave instructions to kill all Italians and Romans within 30 days of the instruction, it was executed on time .The fact that the Romans had no inkling of the plan shows how widespread was the hatred against Rome. The Parthians were not involved in the war itself, although it was obvious that they supported it.

Mithridates had all the chances of success but it always eluded him. Despite overwhelming superiority in soldiers and ships, he was no match against the Romans. In three wars, he was defeated three times, by Sulla, by Lucullus and finally by Pompey . Mithridates lasted out all three wars and died defeated.⁴²

The last chapter of the Mithridatic wars coincided with the war against the pirates of Cilicia. As those were allies of Mithridates in all his wars against Rome, it was really a direct continuation of the wars. The pirates were based in the inlets and fiords of Cilicia, their fight against the Romans was really one of the aspects of the war of the Hellenistic East against the Roman steamroller. The conduct of the war was given to Pompey who led an efficient campaign against them.

At the end of that war, the first phase of the Roman conquest was over. Pompey's visit to Jerusalem was probably a fitting termination to the campaign.⁴³

The Eastern Mediterranean was under complete Roman rule. The only exception was Egypt, but even that country was effectively a Roman protectorate. The reason that it was not occupied was that Egypt was so rich that in the unstable Roman political situation, every politician took good care that none of his competitors laid his hands on such wealth. Egypt became a Roman province when the civil war between Roman politicians was over, and Octavian, the grandnephew of Julius Caesar became its sole ruler, without contenders for power. Even then there was a strict rule that no Roman with senatorial rank could enter Egypt.

The Romans were perfectly aware that they can rule Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt only if they eliminate the possible danger from the east, the Parthian Empire. The Romans had previous contacts with the Parthians and the contacts had not been hostile. Still, the Romans were conscious of the great power of the Parthians and decided to tackle the challenge. It seems that they were overconfident, perhaps because of their easy victories over Mithridates and other Eastern challengers, and they awarded the command of the expedition to Crassus, who was better financier than general. Crassus paid with his life for his overconfidence and out of his seven legions less than two returned to Syria.⁴⁴

The lessons learned from the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae set the pattern of future Roman policy in the Middle East. It was a policy to defend the existing eastern provinces from Parthian interference. However, before the eastern war zone of Rome reached stability there were two incidents in the relations between Rome and the East. Both incidents were directly connected with internal Roman struggles for power .

After Caesar's assassination, and after the defeat of the assassins, political power was taken by Octavian, the grand-nephew of Caesar, who grabbed the West under his rule, and Mark Antony, Caesar'Size="3"d-in-command, who received the East as his share of the spoils The division eventually turned to open enmity. However, before it reached open warfare, Mark Antony attempted to recover the eagles lost by Crassus. His attempt failed; Parthia succeeded in overrunning Syria and Palestine, where the Parthians were greeted as liberators. It was only in 38 BC that Mark Antony repulsed them.⁴⁵

The second and last episode in the consolidation of Roman power in the East was the battle of Actium. This sea battle was the last to settle the fate of the rule of the Empire. Although Mark Antony was a Roman pro-consul, resident in the East and married to an Egyptian queen, Actium was effectively an open conflict between East and West. It was Tota Italia, meaning that it was not a Roman internal war, but a war of the whole of Italy, meaning the whole West as declared by Octavian. The Egyptian and Phoenician fleets were supported by the old Mithridatic alliance.⁴⁶ Mark Antony and the East lost the battle, and with that the stage was set for nearly 700 years of continuous warfare between Rome and Parthia, and Rome and her rebellious subjects in the Middle East.

After the Battle of Actium, Octavian, Augustus by then, reorganized the Empire. He decided on the borders, on future defense policy, and set the strength of the Roman army at 28 legions and an appropriate number of auxiliary cohorts and alae. Accordingly, the permanent army was less than 400,000 soldiers. It was a professional army, whose soldiers signed for long periods and were paid by the state.

In the East there were Roman provinces and client kingdoms. There was not much difference between them. Roman provinces were governed by proconsuls or propraetors, depending on the importance of the province Independent kingdoms had legates, somewhat like the British High Commissioners of a later age. Egypt alone was governed by a lower ranking official, as there was a prohibition against members of the senatorial class entering Egypt.

The Roman provinces and client kingdoms of the East were those of Asia Minor and Syria, west of the Euphrates, Judea which also included areas east of the Jordan and Egypt, which was extended to include Cyrenaica and Cyprus.

East of the Euphrates was the Parthian Empire, stretching all the way to India. North of Parthia was Armenia Major, which was south of present-day Armenia in the area known today as Kurdistan. The northern parts of Iran, Iraq and the eastern parts of contemporary Turkey, including the area of Lake Van, Were Armenia. It did not reach as far as the Black Sea, as Pontus separated it from the sea. Pontus occupied most of the territory of present-day Armenia. West of Armenia Major was Armenia Minor, reaching to Galatia and Cappadocia.

The distance between Antioch and the Parthian border was less than 100 miles, so there was always the danger that a surprise Parthian attack would cut Syria in two, and bring the Parthians to the Mediterranean. Indeed, it did so happen a number of times. In the south, there was a wide stretch of desert between the eastern part of Palestine and the Euphrates river.

The Romans stationed a permanent garrison of 6 legions in the area, 2 in Egypt and 4 in Syria. The legions stationed in Egypt were the III Cyrenaica and the XXII Deiotariana. They were kept mainly to secure internal order in Egypt. Judging from the constant internal disturbances between Greeks and Jews, they were well occupied. The permanent legions in Syria were the III Gallica, the X Fretensis, VI Ferrata and XII Fulminata. ⁴⁷ Of course, when needed, reinforcements could be sent from Asia Minor, from the Balkans or other parts of the Empire. The 4 permanent legions in Syria and the auxiliary forces included in all about 60,000 soldiers. It was an impressive army.

For the next seven centuries this was the cockpit for wars and internal revolutions. There is one more element here which should be explained to show the balance of power as it then was. In the Middle East, there was a large Jewish population, both in Roman controlled territories and in the Parthian Empire. In the Roman occupied territories they were in Judea, but also in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Syria and Asia Minor. Apart from Judea, where they were a majority, they were a substantial minority in all places, especially in Egypt and Cyrenaica. In the Parthian Empire, they had two territories where they were at least a very large minority. The first territory was in northern Mesopotamia, south of the Armenian border, the second territory, east of the Tigris, was the kingdom of Adiabene whose ruling family and a large section of the ruling class, converted to Judaism⁴⁸ . Whenever the Jews revolted against Roman rule, which they did quite often, at least they had some hope that help is near, as there was always the possibility that their co-religionists, from beyond the borders, will come to their assistance. It did not always work out that way, but hope of external help was always a factor in the decisions.

The summary of events between the Augustan settlement, which was described above, and the end of the Western occupation of the region in the seventh century AD is separated into two sections:

- Wars between states
- Internal revolutions

It is very difficult to separate the events, i.e. the wars between states and internal revolutions but such a separation helps to clarify the story. The main reason for the difficulty is the lack of equality between the two sides. Rome, and later Byzantium, pursued a strategy of prevention. Both were aware that they represent the Greek, or Graecized elites of the towns and attempted to keep the Parthians off-balance by preventive wars. However, popular resistance always bogged them down. The further east they penetrated, the more they had to assign forces to secure their withdrawal.

The Parthians saw their part in the conflict as one of national liberation and could always count on popular support. So, when the Parthians succeeded in piercing the border defenses, they usually managed to overrun the whole territory to the popular acclaim of the native population.

Wars between States

The Roman Empire pursued a defensive strategy on all her borders. It was in accordance with the last will of Augustus, but also with common sense. The European borders were based upon rivers, the African borders on the desert, and those of Asia partly on a river, the Euphrates, and partly on the desert. The Romans only had to guard the borders with minimum forces and the Empire was safe.

There were, however, basic differences in the overall strategy. In Europe, there was growing pressure from the German tribes beyond the rivers, but the Gauls and the others saw in the Romans their defenders; they were not keen to exchange the Romans for the Germans. In Africa there were no neighbors, only the desert. The strategy in Asia was different. There was a strong enemy on the border, and most of the population within the borders preferred the external enemy to the defenders. This fact alone dictated Rome's strategy in the region. There were two problems, one in Armenia and the second in Syria.

The Armenian problem was twofold. First, Armenia was a buffer state between the Roman provinces of Asia Minor and Parthia. In spirit and sympathy, the Armenians were much closer to Parthia than to Rome. The two peoples had common origins as their names testify. (Iran is a contraction of 'Aryanam' - (country) of the Aryans and 'Armenia' is Aryan people). The second problem with Armenia was that it was the gatekeeper of the Caucasus. North of the Caucasus was that cauldron of humanity from which, from time to time, waves of people came down to the East through the Caucasian Gate. The Parthians themselves, as well as the other Iranian tribes, and the Armenians too, were part of previous waves. In later times, the Seljuks and the Ottomans came through the same gates. Whoever controlled the area could control the direction of the human wave, east to Parthia or west to Asia Minor. The question of who rules in Armenia was of primary importance to both sides, and a permanent bone of contention.

The second problem was the nearness of the Parthian border to the centers of population in Syria, Aleppo, Damascus and Antioch. The border was about 100 miles from the Mediterranean, too near for comfort. The Parthians were not strong enough to defeat Rome, if Rome could collect her forces and confront Parthia. However, it was a rare occasion for Rome, at least from the second century AD onward, to be able to concentrate forces on one front only. It was difficult to base a strategy on the rarity of an occasion, namely luck.

Julius Caesar had planned to attack Parthia with 16 legions. His untimely death stopped this attempt. Mark Antony had attempted to execute the original plan still with 16 legions, but he was not Caesar and failed. Caesar might have failed too, but at least he can still have the benefit of the doubt.⁴⁹

The Parthians were strong in defense; they were also strong enough to break through the border but not strong enough to hold on their conquests. When they overran the Middle East they could always rely on the natives for assistance, outside the Greeks in the cities, but it was not sufficient. Once the Romans, or later the Greeks from Byzantium, collected sufficient forces, the Parthians were always evicted.

Each eviction of the Parthians from the Eastern provinces was a major effort, which the Empire could ill afford. There was one possible solution to the problem, and that was to move the border from the Euphrates and base it on the Tigris, which would have added an extra 300 miles to the distance from the border to the sea. This was the Roman grand strategy in the East, which it attempted to execute a number of times.

From the second century AD onward there were dozens of wars between Rome, or Byzantium, and the East, in Armenia, or in Parthia, or in both. Three Roman Emperors lost their lives in Parthia, one in captivity. It was a senseless succession of wars, although at that time they must have been deemed important enough. As most of the wars were useless marches, in and out of Parthia, fighting on the way in and the way out, this chapter will examine only those wars, during which the Romans succeeded in executing their grand strategy, albeit temporarily, and those wars where the Parthians succeeded in breaking though the border and occupying the Middle East, albeit temporarily.

As might have been predicted, at the zenith of Roman power, before its descent into chaos and anarchy, Rome could keep the Parthians at bay without undue effort. Still, the problems the Romans had to overcome were greater than the direct relation of power as between the Parthians and themselves.

It can be shown that there was a strong correlation between external wars and internal disorders. When Nero sent his legate, Corbulo, to put a Roman nominee on the Armenian throne, the Parthians retorted by inciting the great revolution in Judea in 66 AD which coincided with the troubles in Armenia. Similarly, when Trajan, the soldier Emperor, decided to execute the grand strategy and annex Mesopotamia, his preparations for the war were cut short by an insurrection in the Middle East, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives. He executed his plan, but the result was ephemeral and the new province shortly disappeared from the roster of provinces.

After the fiasco of Mark Antony who attempted to execute Julius Caesar's plan and crush the Parthians once and for all,⁵⁰ there was a period of more than 250 years, from the Augustan settlement until the expedition of Alexander Severus, when the Romans had a comparatively easy time guarding the eastern frontier. They had internal problems, mainly from the Jews, but also from the unruly Greek mobs in Alexandria and Antioch, but even with those to occupy them, they nevertheless succeeded in holding back the Parthians.

After the conquest of Dacia, Trajan made the first major effort in the direction of executing the grand strategy. Trajan was a soldier and preferred to do what he knew best, to make war. He was a good soldier, there was nothing wrong with his campaigning. The problem was with Rome, which could not make the effort to digest the two new provinces. Dacia and Mesopotamia became the first provinces to be abandoned.

Trajan started in a promising manner. He sent an embassy to India and opened a road from eastern Syria to the Red Sea. He made preparations for a major eastern adventure, a la Alexander the Great. Then he occupied Armenia, the perennial bone of contention, eventually reached Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital, and the Persian Gulf. It was a brilliant victory and utterly useless.⁵¹ When he returned to Syria, he had to fight his way back through an unfriendly population. On the way back, he tried to conquer a Parthian fortress town, Hatra, in Mesopotamia, but failed. The victory turned into defeat.

The next series of successful events, from the Roman point of view, in the long Roman-Parthian conflict were the attacks by Lucius Verus, the brother and co-ruler of Marcus Aurelius, and Septimius Severus.

Lucius Verus was no soldier. Still, he succeeded no less than Septimius Severus, who was a soldier's soldier, like Trajan. Verus had the good sense to remain in the rear enjoying Antioch, and relying on his generals who were capable of acting alone. Both attempts, that of Lucius Verus and Septimius Severus, were successful. The Romans occupied Ctesiphon and Seleucia, returned victorious, celebrated a few triumphs, and settled down to enjoy the few years of peace and quiet the victory bought them.⁵²

The last in the line of Roman victories was connected with a change of dynasty in Iran. The Persian Sassanids overthrew the Parthians and as a first step challenged the Romans for the possession of Western Asia and Egypt, formerly Persian possessions from the time of Darius. The new ruler followed up his demands with his army that overran the Middle East assisted by the local population. Alexander Severus, the last Emperor before the descent into anarchy and chaos, succeeded in evicting them. It was a great victory, but it was the last.⁵³

Since that victory, there were campaigns in the East, but the days of easy victories were over. The Sassanids were more difficult enemies than the Parthians, and the Roman Emperors were weaker.

Valerian was elected Emperor in 253 AD. After his election he had to counter the Persians, who had seized Armenia, then penetrated far into Asia Minor, massacred the Greek population of Antioch, and sent cavalry raids to the Aegean Sea. Valerian was taken prisoner at a personal meeting with Sapor, the Persian king. Valerian was not rescued, died in captivity and his body was exposed in Ctesiphon. Syria was saved by the timely intervention of Odenathus, the ruler of the oasis town Palmyra, who came to Rome's help.⁵⁴ He was the husband of Zenobia, who presently submitted the bill for the rescue.

Valerian's captivity and death was probably the nadir of Rome's fortunes in the East. From then on for more than 300 years there was the customary warfare. Marches and counter-marches, massacre and slaughter in Armenia, Syria and Mesopotamia; without purpose and producing no decisions.

There was, however, a very important war, which must be narrated here, as it really raised the curtain to Muslim conquest of the Middle East. It is probable that without this war, the Muslim conquest must have been postponed or aborted altogether.

At the beginning of the seventh century AD, a new Persian king, Chosroes II, attacked the Byzantines with considerable success. The Persian army regained Armenia, seized Asia Minor, occupied Syria, Judea and Egypt, and besieged Constantinople. For a short while the Persians had recovered the Empire as it had been under Darius.

The Byzantine Empire had to undertake extreme measures. It had to mobilize all the resources it could, even sell church plate and jewels, to recover the Middle East from the Persians, which he eventually succeeded in doing. The result was that in Persia the king was assassinated and the country went through turbulent times, with constant revolutions. Both Persia and Byzantium became weaker with the long and cruel war. The biggest losses were of course in the East. In Jerusalem alone, 90,000 Greek Christians were killed. ⁵⁵ Not long after the war, when the Arabs burst out of their peninsula, neither the Persians nor the Byzantines could muster enough strength to withstand them.

In previous wars, the local Greeks actively participated in the defense of the area against the Persians. The natives might have seen the Persians as liberators, but not the local Greeks. They knew that the local population saw them as colonizers and exploiters, and neither expected nor received mercy from the Persians. When the Arab armies reached the area, there were not many local Greeks left to oppose them. A short while before the war reached them, they were massacred in Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. The Arab soldiers who served the Byzantines or the Persians changed sides before the important battles. Thus the last Persian - Byzantine war effectively terminated the Western occupation that started with Alexander the Great.

Internal Revolutions

The title of this sub-section means that there was some territory, a country, in which there was one, or more than one, minority, (social, religious or ethnic), dissatisfied with the status quo, and attempting to overturn it by force.

If one looks at the Middle East between the conquest of Alexander the Great and the resurgence of the East , in the form of Islam, and it is considered as a single unit, then it was always under the rule of one ethnic group, the Greeks, supported by the government of the territory in the form of Hellenistic dynasties, and later the Romans, who supplanted the Hellenistic monarchies and finally by Byzantium, which was a Greek Empire.

The disgruntled minorities were, in fact, the majority of the people, the natives of the land, who felt themselves dispossessed by the Greeks. The natives were of different extraction. They might not have liked each other, but they had a common enemy. Each revolution had some immediate cause and no two causes were identical. The revolution led by Zenobia of Palmyra might not have common ground with that of the Bucoles of Egypt, apart from one common element: the uprisings were fueled by people who felt themselves second-rate citizens in their own countries. They had very good reason for their feeling, and that reason is well documented.

It has already been shown that one of the main reasons for the campaigns in the East, led by Alexander the Great, was the acute social conflict in Greece. Social conflict in agricultural societies meant that there were people with land and others without. Being without land in an agricultural society meant being part of the rural or urban proletariat, as we would now call it. Lacking industry, or even the concept of an industrial society, there was no alternative to agriculture. Some people could have made a living as small-scale artisans or commercial middlemen, but by and large the basis of life was land.

Alexander the Great and his successors, who continued his policy of colonization, planted the landscape with Greek cities, and very great cities at that. Alexandria was the second largest city in the known world, had nearly a million people. Seleucia on the Tigris⁵⁶ had a population of 600,000 people. There were other cities with populations in the high tens-of-thousands or hundreds of thousands. When the Persians conquered Jerusalem in the war with Heraclius, they slaughtered 90,000 Greeks. There may have been more.

The Greek authorities had two aims with colonization. One aim was to reduce social conflict in the home territories, by satisfying the land-hunger of the population, and the second was to plant colonies with loyal and dependable citizens, who could be depended upon in occupied and potentially hostile lands. That was probably the reason why Alexander planted veterans of his army in the center of new colonies. He must have foreseen events when the colonists would be called upon to defend the new cities. Indeed, it happened many times. Whenever the Persians succeeded in breaking into the Middle East, they always slaughtered the Greeks, seeing in them active enemies, but carefully avoided hurting the natives.

This brings out the main point. When Alexander settled Greeks in the Middle East, it was no empty land. It was a densely populated land, especially those areas suitable for Greek settlement. They must have had suitable land with water, roads and preferably with harbors. No Greek colonies were built in the desert.

Judea was an especially densely populated land before the conquest of Alexander. It was on the seashore of the Eastern Mediterranean with sufficient rain for agriculture. So, when the Greeks settled hundreds of thousands of Greeks in Judea, Jamnia, Scythopolis, Caesarea, in the Decapolis, Philadelphia and countless others, where did they take the land for the new settlers? There was only one possibility; land could be taken only from those who worked it before. It meant that hundreds of thousands of Jews became dispossessed.

It is not certain that in every case the Greeks dispossessed the whole of the previous population of farmers. There might have been instances where the Greeks received the land and worked it using local peasants, who paid rent. In either case, either the whole or at least part of the previous population remained landless and reduced to being part of the urban proletariat.

There was another point to the colonization. The Greek administration did not restrict the population of the colonies to Greeks alone. They invited the local population, among them the Jews, to settle in the new cities. This was one of the reasons for the dispersion of the Jews in the Middle East. Of course, this practice planted the seeds of communal strife in the new cities. The later communal warfare in Alexandria, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Mesopotamia were sown then.

What happened in the Middle East in the process of colonization was not a unique event at that time. When in Rome after the civil wars the authorities demobilised 180,000 veterans, there was a veritable new civil war over the question of land, as whole municipalities were dispossessed in order to provide land for the veterans. The result of that land settlement was the Perusian war, led by Fulvia, the first wife of Mark Antony.

Some of the dispossessed Jews had to leave Judea. Some joined the new colonies in the Hellenistic East; some went farther east and settled in upper Mesopotamia or Adiabene, east of the Tigris. In those areas they probably became the majority and proved to be the best allies the Persians could have had in their wars with Rome.⁵⁷ They also reached Europe, first of course Rome herself, but other cities too. The forceful dispossession of the Jews from their land was probably the major cause of the Jewish Diaspora in the Middle East, Europe and eventually the whole world.

Marvin Harris analyzed the social scene in Judea at the time of Jesus and came to the conclusion that the social situation at that time was combustive. Jesus did not preach peace, on the contrary, he preached taking up the sword against the rich and the oppressor.⁵⁸ It is obvious that the situation was combustive. Since Alexander's occupation, more and more colonies were established, touching the lives of more and more local people, who either increased the numbers of jobless urbanites or emigrated or became outlaws. 'Lestai' - bandits they called them in Greek, in Latin they were called 'latrones'. Today they would be called terrorists.

Already in the second century BC the desperation turned into open war against the Seleucids. At that time, Rome supported the Jews, because of her policy to weaken the Hellenistic monarchies. The war against the Seleucids, the war of the Maccabees, was indeed a religious-national war, but it was also against the Hellenising Jewish upper class, who cooperated with the enemy.⁵⁹ The landless were the main force in the revolt. It was a civil war, as well as a war of liberation.

After the Maccabean revolt, which was supported by Rome, the Jews became directly involved with Rome. Pompey with his army came to Jerusalem after the war with the pirates. He already had to fight his way into Jerusalem, which cost 12,000 Jewish lives.⁶⁰ That was the start of Roman involvement with Jews and the start of European anti-Semitism.

Since the famous entry of Pompey into the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem, there were many violent confrontations between the Romans and the Jews, with or without Parthian assistance for the latter.

In 40 - 38 BC when Mark Antony attempted to execute Julius Caesar's legacy, the Parthians preempted him, and broke into Syria and Judea. The Romans succeeded in dislodging them only with great difficulty.

After the death of Herod, in about 4 AD. until the great Jewish war in 68 - 73 A.D., Judea was constantly in turmoil; the hills full of bandits. It was a low-level guerrilla war. Then came the great revolt in 68 AD, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and finally the spectacular siege of Masada. It was a watershed.⁶¹ Then came the revolt of the Jews in Egypt, Cyrenaica and Cyprus in 115 AD ⁶² followed by the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt 20 years later, in 135 - 136 AD⁶³ Each revolt caused more casualties on both sides, more forced slavery or voluntary emigration, which eventually reached Europe.

Despite the view that after the Bar Kochba revolt there were no more Jews in Judea , we find that 200 years later, at the time of Gallus, the brother of Julianus Apostata, then the representative of Constantius, there was a Jewish uprising in Judea against the Greeks and the Samaritans⁶⁴ and at an even later date, at the beginning of the seventh century AD 26,000 Jewish fighters joined the Persians in their attack on the Middle East.⁶⁵

The constant wars in the East in which the Jews were prominent, caused drastic changes in Roman - Jewish relations and also in the direction of the development of the Christian Church. Until the beginning of the troubles, the relations between Rome and the Jews were good. When Julius Caesar was besieged in Alexandria, it was a Jewish army which came to his rescue. The Romans acknowledged Jewish religious restrictions and allowed them religious freedom. The Jewish war of 68 - 73 AD changed all that.

According to Marvin Harris, until the great war of 70 AD, Christianity was one of the acknowledged sects of the Jews, like the Pharisees, Essenes and others. There was argument between the Christian establishment in Jerusalem, which was conservative Jewish and very nationalistic, and some of the Apostles, led by St. Paul, who wanted to extend their teachings to the gentiles.

The Christian establishment in Jerusalem disappeared in 70 AD The representatives of the sect abroad, St. Paul and others, wanted to clear themselves before the Romans who were by then very anti-Jewish, by demonstrating that they were different and had nothing to do with the war.⁶⁶ Until the beginning of the persecutions of the Christians by the Romans, in the middle of the second century AD, the Christian community in Rome always distanced itself from the Jews.

In all the revolts of the Jews, after the Maccabean wars, they had faced two opponents. One opponent was the local Greeks, who faithfully performed according to the original plan they were intended for and formed the local militia. The second opponent was the Roman army.

Since the time of Pompey's entry into Jerusalem, there were at least 6 major wars between the Romans and the Jews. In all these wars, both the Jews and the Roman Army suffered considerable losses.

It is known that at least as late as late Republican and early Principate times, the soldiers of the Roman Army were 'our boys' as is so today in America and Europe. The Roman Army had two kinds of units, the legions and the auxiliary formations. The soldiers of the legions were all citizens, a requirement of entering the service, i.e. they were from the elite of the population.

The soldiers of the auxiliary units came from the provinces and had no citizenship. However, after completing their service, they received Roman citizenship which became hereditary in their families.

Julius Caesar knew many of his soldiers and junior officers by name, and their relationship was friendly enough for the soldiers to sing ribald songs about him during his triumphal parades. Augustus was beside himself with grief when Quinctilius Varus lost his legions in a German forest. ⁶⁷ Tiberius and his brother, Drusus, were loved by the army, and so was Caligula, who when a child was the mascot of a legion.

In addition to the appreciation of the general public and the leadership, Roman soldiers, whether in the legions or in the auxiliary units, had families, friends and girlfriends. They saved their pay in a communal chest, which was kept and managed by each unit, and made plans for their retirement from the service. So when the Roman units were sent to the East, to fight in one of those innumerable wars or revolts, and the casualty lists started to arrive, it had to cause the same sort of effect as it would cause today. The Jews were not the only ones fighting the Romans and inflicting casualties. So were the Persians, above all others, the Egyptians, the Syrians and others.

However, the Persians were in Persia, the Egyptians were in Egypt, but the Jews had communities in Rome and in other European centers. After the Jewish War in 70 AD anti-Semitism became an established feature of Roman life. Not many graffiti survived from that time, but one could imagine their contents.

Tacitus was a good historian and probably a decent man. He wrote in his Histories:

"The Jews are extremely loyal toward one another, and always ready to show compassion, but toward every other people they feel hate and enmity."⁶⁸

Tacitus wrote these lines about a generation after the Jewish war, and a generation before the Jewish uprising in Egypt, Cyrenaica and Cyprus at the time of Trajan's expedition to Parthia.

The historian Dio Cassius, who was Governor of Pannonia and Consul in the time of Alexander Severus, i.e. 120 years after the Jewish revolt in Cyrenaica and Egypt, wrote the following :

"...They would eat the flesh of their victims, make belts for themselves out of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood and wear their skins for clothing; many they sawed in two, from the head downward...".

One does not have to be surprised at the description. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, there was an uprising in Egypt, that of the Bucoles. Dio Cassius described the uprising thus :

"They rose up and moved the other Egyptians also to revolt; a priest Isidorus led them. First they trapped a Roman captain...then they murdered him and his companion, swore a covenant over the entrails of the companion and ate them..."⁶⁹

The meanings of both quotations are clear. Whoever behaves like that, is outside the pale of civilized human beings. So much outside the pale of civilized human beings, that when the same Dio Cassius described the destruction Hadrian wrought in Judea 20 years after the revolt in Egypt, he disregarded the fact that the destruction occurred in one of the provinces of the Empire and not in some foreign country:

"...nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out.... Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore, Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phase commonly affected by the Emperors: 'If you and your children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health.'"⁷⁰

Here is the gist of the matter. The legions were certainly not in health. The natives who were slain, all five hundred eighty thousand of them, were 'lestoi', bandits or terrorist in modern parlance, but the soldiers were 'our boys'.

The Romans had two basic problems in all their wars in the Middle East.

The first problem was that the wars were basically guerrilla wars, and mainly urban guerrilla wars at that. The Roman Army was admirably trained for formation fighting in open territory. In set-piece battles they were well nigh invincible. They were not very good in forest fighting, hence the disaster in the German forest suffered by Quinctilius Varus and his legions; they had problems standing up to heavily armored cavalry, like the Persian cataphracts and the Gothic lancers at a later date. Fighting in the dark warrens of Middle Eastern cities, where an unseen enemy could emerge from every doorway or corner, take its toll, and disappear as soon as he came, was beyond Roman experience and expertise to handle.

The second problem the Romans faced was that their enemies were always fighting to the bitter end. Here was a boomerang that always returned to haunt the Romans in their wars in the East. If the words of Dio Cassius about the Jewish fighters reflected common sentiments among the Romans at that time, then their opponents had to fight to the death, as they had no alternative. Indeed, that was the practice in those wars. The defenders of Jotapata , the fortress in Galilee, commanded by Josephus Flavius, committed suicide, so did the defenders of Masada and the last defenders of the Temple in Jerusalem. The defenders of Nisibis, a Jewish town in northern Mesopotamia which had to be taken by Trajan on his way to Parthia, fought to the last defender, taking with them at least one Roman legion, which Trajan could ill afford to lose. So Trajan won a famous victory, except that there were not many Roman soldiers remaining from his army to carry the news home.

It cannot be said that the Romans singled out the Jews, as far as their policy for defeated people went. It is difficult to view that policy with pragmatic modern eyes. After all, those nine hundred eighty-five razed villages and five hundred eighty thousand slain people were part of the Roman Empire who, if nothing else, should have been taxpayers and potential soldiers. It is true that sometimes the Romans themselves saw the futility of their policy, but those feelings usually came after the facts. The behavior of the Romans against the Jews characterized the Romans in all their dealings with the peoples of the East.

In 270 - 271 AD Aurelian led his army against the desert town of Palmyra in Syria, to suppress an uprising, led by Zenobia, the widow of Odenathus, who had attempted to rescue Valerian a few years earlier from Persian captivity. Zenobia initiated a war against Rome, which spread throughout the Middle East, from Asia Minor to Egypt.

Aurelian led an army against Palmyra, captured it, seized Zenobia when she tried to flee toward the Parthian border. She was brought to Rome to participate in Aurelian's triumph. In her absence, Palmyra rose again.⁷¹ Aurelian returned with his army and this time destroyed the city.

The contemporary chronicles wrote about 'Syrian brigands' and they were treated accordingly. Still, the Historia Augusta quoted a letter from Aurelian to the local commander:

"From Aurelian Augustus to Cerronius Bassus. The swords of the soldiers should not proceed further. Already enough Palmyrenes have been killed and slaughtered. We have not spared the women, we have slain the children, we have butchered the old men, we have destroyed the peasants. To whom, at this rate, shall we leave the land or the city? Those, who still remain must be spared..."⁷²

Beautiful sentiments, if kept. However, the chronicle continues and tells that Aurelian went to Egypt to put down the rebellion there and :

"...he recovered Egypt at once and took vengeance on the enterprise - violent in temper, as it always was..."

The same happened with Diocletian who became Emperor a few years after Aurelian. He had to cope with revolts in the East, chiefly in Egypt. When Diocletian subdued the city of Alexandria, he ordered his soldiers to kill until the blood reached his horse's knees."⁷³ The slaughter was so great that when Diocletian's horse slipped and fell on its knees, Diocletian gave an order to stop the massacre as the blood already stained his horse's knees.

The Romans had a policy, if it can be called a policy, There was no particular animosity against the Jews in Judea. The Jews suffered more than others because they revolted more than others. All the enemies of the Romans were bandits, Jewish, Egyptian or Syrian. Probably the only difference between the Jews and other nationalities was that the Jews were more cohesive than the others, as was seen by Tacitus too, and they had communities in the larger cities of the Empire.⁷⁴

According to a hypothesis proposed by Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, the origin of anti-Semitism was in Egypt, where the Egyptian population resented the presence of Jewish mercenaries serving their hated Persian masters. The Greek population of Egypt brought in by the Macedonian dynasty, became influenced by the Egyptians, as well as by the Maccabean revolt against the Greeks. The leading position of the Jews in the Egyptian Ptolemaic army did not endear the Jews to the Greek population. These facts and the perpetual communal fights between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria spread to the Christian churches and thence to the West.⁷⁵

There is no doubt that it is a credible theory. It certainly explains the enmity of the Christian Churches. However, it is possible, indeed it is very probable, that the continuous losses of the European units of the Roman Army in the endless wars in the East, among them mainly against the Jews, inflamed the feelings of the local populations against the Jewish communities in their midst. That resentment must have had a cumulative effect.

The Roman Army had a practice of using Western units in Eastern wars. They were more reliable and also better soldiers. In the final assault on Palmyra, Aurelian used cavalry from Dalmatia, infantry from Moesia, Pannonia, Noricum and Raetia, from the Balkans and Central Europe. In all other Eastern wars there were similar selections of troops, so the cumulative effects of the losses must have been more concentrated in the West than in the East.

Notes:

.

1.	Gordon Childe, What happened ,op. cit. p.72 R. Ghirshman, op. cit. p.58
2.	Idem, p.74 Gordon Childe, What happened ,op .cit. p.89
3.	Gordon Childe, Prehistory of...op. cit. p.100
4.	Gordon Childe, What happened , op. cit. pp. 194 - 195
5.	Idem, pp. 105, 116 - 117 , 159
6.	Cicero, de Republica, II.23.42 Claude Aziza, "Didon, la fiere reine de Carthage",(Historia 556, 3/1993) p.15
7.	B.H. Warmington, "Carthage",(Penguin Book, 1960), pp. 34 - 35 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean, op. cit. Vol.I. p.135
8.	B.H. Warmington, op. cit., pp.44 - 45 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean, op. cit. Vol.I.pp. 236 - 237
9.	Dionysius of Halicarnassus ,I.28, thought that they were indigenous to Italy, but others like Strabo,V.2.4,Herodotus,I.94 and Vergilius thought that they originated in Lydia or in the islands of Lemnos and Imbros
10.	Massimo Pallottino, "The Etruscans",(Penguin Book, 1955),p. 53ff Strabo V.3.2 quoted the Greek historian Ephorus that during the eighth century B.C. the Greeks did not dare to venture into the Western Mediterranean for fear of the Etruscans.
11.	The Etruscans as pirates: Strabo,VI.2.2, ; Colonization of Corsica: Diodorus Siculus V. 13, of Sardinia : Strabo,V.2.7, of the Balearic islands: Ausonius, Epist. XXXI.326 Atlantic islands : Diodorus Siculus, V.19ff ; shipbuilding methods: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I.25, Pliny, Nat.Hist.VII.56.209 There is a dissenting opinion as far as the origin of the Etruscans is concerned: Robert Drews,"The End of the Bronze Ages",(Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993),pp.69-72 claims that our knowledge about the Etruscans came from a stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, who boasted that he repelled a Libyan invasion, helped by northern barbarians, the Sea Peoples. The stele names those people as the Thursha, Shardana,Shekelel and Peleset. Robert Drews claims that they were the Etruscans, Sardinians, Sicilians and Philistines, who joined the Libyans either as allies or as mercenaries. It does not addect their original origins, but according to Drews, at that time they were already in their final countries and not underway there.
12.	Herodotus I. 165 - 167
13.	Pauly's Realencyclopedie der Classischen Altertumwissenschaft "Karthage", (Vol.XX. Alfred Druckenmuller Verlag, Stuttgart, 1919) pp. 2225, 2237 M. Pallottino, op. cit. pp. 77 - 82 , B.H. Warmington, op. cit. pp. 42-43,56
14.	M. Pallottino, op. cit. p.82 quotes Aristotle , Politics,III.9.128a.36
15.	Arnold J. Toynbee, op. cit. Vol.I.pp. 18, 115, 213
16.	Idem, Vol.I. p.115
17.	Idem, Vol.II.,pp. 227 - 228
18.	Idem, Vol. I. pp. 224, 293
19.	Herodotus, I. 26 - 27
20.	R. Ghirshman, op. cit. p.130
21.	Idem, p. 148 Erik Hildinger "The Warriors of the Steppe", (Sarpedon, New York, 1997),pp.37-38
22.	Idem, p.149 Herodotus, V.102 Arnold J. Toynbee, op .cit. Vol.I.p.272
23.	Herodotus VI.14 ; VII.8 , 33 , 89 - 93 R. Ghirshman, op. cit. pp.190 - 192
24.	Herodotus VII. 165 B.H. Warmington, op .cit. pp. 53 - 57 M. Pallottino, op. cit. p. 75, 82 Claude Aziza, op. cit. p.18 Pauly's Realencyclopedia, Karthage, op .cit. p.2227
25.	Ernest Renan, op .cit.p.50
26.	Benzion Netanyahu, op. cit. p.6
27.	Henry Paolucci, op. cit.p.18
28.	W. W. Tarn, "Alexander the Great", (Beacon Press,Boston, 1956) pp.8-9 H. D. F. Kitto, "The Greeks", (Penguin Book,1 951),p.157 Plutarch, "The age of Alexander", (Penguin Book, 1973) ,p.273
29.	Polybius,Hist. III.6.9 - 14
30.	H. H .Scullard, A history of the Roman World..,op. cit. pp. 141 - 158 Polybius, Hist.III.13.1 - 4
31.	Herodotus, VII.24 - when Xerxes built two bridges on the Bosporusto bring his army to Europe, he considerately left a channel open to allow ships to pass .
32.	W.W. Tarn, op. cit. pp. 13 - 14 H..D. F. Kitto, op. cit. pp. 80 - 83 Anthony Andrewes, "Greek Society",(Penguin Books, 1971) pp.97, 109, 111 - 115, 135
33.	P.A. Brunt, "Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic", (Chatto and Windus, London, 1971),pp. 16 - 17, 34 - 35, 78 - 79
34.	W. A .Tarn,op.cit.,pp. 132 - 135 Arrian, "Life of Alexander the Great", (Penguin Book,1951) pp. 91, 151, 155, 163 Modern Colonisation : James Burke and Robert Orenstein, "The Axemakers Gift", (G.P. Putnam's Sons,New York, 1997),pp.220-221
35.	W. W. Tarn,op. cit.pp.78-79 Alexander introduced the Persian custom of prostation, which was unpopular with the Macedonians. Weddings with Persian girls : Plutarch, op. cit. p.327 - 9000 weddings Arrian , op. cit. p.229 - 10000 weddings Fletcher Pratt,op. cit.p.36 - 7000 weddings
36.	Fernand Braudel,A History of Civilization,op. cit.p.44 R. Ghirshman,op. cit.,p.221 for Persian broke away under Antiochus I. - 280 - 261 B.C. Bactria and Parthia broke away in 249 - 248 B.C.
37.	Punic Wars : Roman attitudes Livy,XXI.I.1-3 Cornelius Nepos, XXIII.I. Destruction of Carthage :Polybius XXXIX.4 Diod.Sic.XXXII.23 Pauly's ,Karthage,op.cit. p.2235
38.	Pauly's Realencyclopedie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, "Hannibal",(Vol.XIV,J.B.Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung,Stuttgart, ,1912), pp. 2348 - 2350 Talks with Antiochus and Seleujos:Livy XXXIII.49,Corn.Nepos,VIII.2-4 Warnings for Greece : Livy,XXXVI.15, Diod.Sic. XXIX.3
39.	H .H. Scullard ,Roman World, op. cit. p.277 .
40.	Pauly's Realencyclopedie der Classischen Altertumwissenschaft, "Mithridates VI.Eupator", (Vol.XXX.Alfred Druckenmuller Verlag,Stuttgart,1932),pp.2170 -2172 Appian 28, Plut. Sulla 12,14, Pausan. III.23,3ff
41.	Mithridates' allies : Appian.15,92f, Iustin.XXXVIII 3. 6-7 Killing Romans and Italians : Appian 22,23, Plut. Sulla 24, Cass. Dio Frg.109.8, Florus Book I.XL.7-8 Oswald Spengler,op .cit.p.350
42.	Florus, I. XL, Pauly's, Mithridates,op. cit. pp.2168 -2204 H .H .Scullard "From the Gracchi to Nero",(Methuen & Co., London, 1970) p. 105
43.	H. H. Scullard, From the Gracchi,op. cit.p.106 Josephus Flavius, "The Jewish War" op .cit. ,p.39 Florus, Book.I.XLI
44.	H .H .Scullard, From the Gracchi, op. cit. pp. 127 - 129 R. Ghirshman,op. cit.p.251
45.	R. Ghirshman,op. cit. pp. 252 - 253 Josephus Flavius,op. cit.pp. 54 - 56 H .H .Sculard,From the Gracchi, op. cit., 171 - 175
46.	H. H . Scullard, From the Gracchi,op .cit., pp.174 -177
47.	B .H .Warmington, "Nero: Reality and Legend", (Chatto and Windus, London ,1969),p p.85 - 99
48.	Josephus Flavius, "Antiquities of the Jews", Book XX, Chapter 2
49.	B .H. Warmington, Nero ,op.c it., p.89
50.	B. H. Warmington,Nero.op. cit.pp. 87 - 88 S .C .Scullard, From the Gracchi...op. cit.,pp. 171 - 172 Martin P. Nilsson,"Imperial Rome" ,(Schocken Books New York, 1967) p.8
51.	Martin P.Nilsson, op. cit. pp. 51 - 52 Bernard Lewis, The Middle East,op. cit. pp. 40 - 41 R. Ghirshman,op. cit. p.258 John Matthew, "The Roman Empire of Ammianus", (The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1989),pp. 130, 139 Cassius Dio,LXXV, 33
52.	Edward Gibbon, op cit.Vol.I.pp. 179 - 180 John Matthews, op. cit. pp. 130 , 139 Martin P. Nilsson, op. cit. p.69 R.Ghirshman, op. cit. p. 259 Hist.Aug, Verus VI - VII,Severus XV, Marcus Antoninus VIII - IX
53.	Martin P. Nilsson,op .cit. pp. 74 - 76 Edward Gibbon, op. cit. Vol.I. p. 181
54.	Martin P. Nilsson,op .cit. pp. 74 - 76 Edward Gibbon, op. cit. Vol.I. p. 181
55.	R. Ghirshman, op. cit. p.306 Edward Gibbon, op. cit.Vol.II.pp. 781 - 805 Alfred Guillaume, op. cit. p.19
56.	John Matthews, op. cit. pp. 140 - 141
57.	Fernand Braudel, A History ofCivilization,op .cit.p.44 Oswald Spengler, op. cit. p.276 Henry Paolucci, op. cit.p.34
58.	Marvin Harris, "Cows,pigs,wars and witches", (Vintage Books, New York, 1989), p.155ff
59.	W.F. Albright, op. cit. p.353 Jos. Flavius, The Jewish War, op .cit. Chap.I
60.	Idem, pp. 39 - 41
61.	Sources for the Jewish war : Josephus Flavius, The Jewish War,op. cit. passim H. H. Scullard, From the Grachi, op. cit. pp. 327 - 329 B. H. Warmington, Nero, op. cit. pp. 100 - 107 John Matthews, op .cit. p.145 Suetonius, Vesp. 4 - 6 Henry Paolucci, op. cit. p.76
62.	Jewish revolt in Egypt 115 A.D. Martin P. Nilsson,op. cit. pp. 51, 344 R. Ghirshman, op. cit. p.258 Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, op. cit.pp.40 - 41 Oswald Spengler, op. it. p.276 Benzion Netanyahu,op. cit. p.18 Victor Tcherikover, "The Jews in Egypt in the Hellenistic Roman age in the light of the papyri", (Hebrew, 1945),pp. 206 - 229 Eusebius, Hist.Eccl. 4.2, Dio Cass, LXVIII.32, LXIX,13 - 14 Orosius, VII.12, Hist.Aug. Hadrian XIV
63.	Martin P. Nilsson, op. cit. p.52 Hist.Aug.Hadrian V.2, Dio Cass. LXIX. 13 - 14
64.	John Matthew, op. cit. n.2,p.484
65.	Edward Gibbon,op. cit.,Vol.II pp.785 - 786
66.	Marvin Harris, Cows,pigs,...op. cit.pp. 201 - 202
67.	Suetonius, Divus Aug.23.2 : "Quinctili Vare, legiones redde"
88.	Tacitus, Histories, V.2
69.	Jacob Burckhardt, "The age of Constantine the Great" (Doubleday Anchor, New York, 1956), pp. 99 - 100
70.	Dio Cass. LXIX.14.1-3
71.	Jacob Burckhardt,op. cit.,pp.85, 104 - 105 Martin P. Nilsson,op.cit. pp.83 - 85 D.F.Buck , "The reign of Aurelian in Eunapius' Histories", (University of Prince Edward Island,Vol.9.2),pp.86 - 92 Jacqueline F.Long, "Vaballathus and Zenobia" (An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors),p.1ff John Matthews, op.cit.p.350 Pauly's Realencyclopedie der Classischen Altertumwissenschaft, "Zenobia", (Alfred Druckenmuller Verlag Stuttgart, 1972) Vol. XIX/II , pp. 1 -6 "L.Domitius Aurelianus" (J.B.Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1903), Vol.IX,pp.1363 - 1392 Edward Gibbon, op.cit.Vol.I. pp. 262 - 269
72.	Hist.Aug.The deified Aurelian,XXXI. 5 - 6
73.	Jacob Burckhardt, op .cit. pp.106 - 107 Martin P. Nilsson,op .cit. pp. 89 - 90 Edward Gibbon, op. cit. Vol.I.pp. 316 - 317
74.	Martin P. Nilsson,op cit. p.344 wrote that apart from Egypt and the Middle East, the Jews were numerous in Asia Minor, Italy, Africa, Southern France and Spain.
75.	Benzion Netanyahu,op. cit.pp. 3 - 27

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