Nadene Goldfoot
The home of Mattathias, a priest in the village of Modiʿim (now Modiʿin), 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Jerusalem, quickly became the centre of resistance. With him were his five sons, John Gaddi, Simon Thassi, Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar Avaran, and Jonathan Apphus. Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, gives Mattathias’s great-grandfather the surname Asamonaios. From this title comes the name Hasmonean that was applied to the dynasty that descended from the Maccabees in the following century.
The Hasmonean dynasty ; Hebrew: חַשְׁמוֹנָאִים Ḥašmōnaʾīm) was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BCE, with the empire disintegrating, Judea gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus ("king" or "emperor"). Forces of the Roman Republic conquered the Hasmonean kingdom in 63 BCE and made it into a client state; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BCE.
Most certainly, it is known that in 139 BCE, Simon Maccabeus, brother of Judah Maccabeus, leader, sent a Hasmonean embassy to Rome in order to strengthen his alliance with the Roman Republic against the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom. The ambassadors received a cordial welcome from their coreligionists already established in Rome.
Large numbers of Jews even lived in Rome during the late Roman Republican period (from around 150 BCE). They were largely Greek-speaking and poor. As Rome had increasing contact with and military/trade dealings with the Greek-speaking Levant, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, many Greeks, as well as Jews, came to Rome as merchants or were brought there as slaves.
The Romans appear to have viewed the Jews as followers of peculiar, backward religious customs, but antisemitism as it would come to be in the Christian and Islamic worlds did not exist (see Anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire). Despite their disdain, the Romans did recognize and respect the antiquity of the Jews' religion and the fame of their Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple). Many Romans did not know much about Judaism, including the emperor Augustus who, according to his biographer Suetonius, thought that Jews fasted on the sabbath. Julius Caesar was known as a great friend to the Jews, and they were among the first to mourn his assassination.
In Rome, the Jewish community was highly organized, and presided over by heads called άρχοντες (archontes) or γερουσιάρχοι (gerousiarchoi). The Jews maintained in Rome several synagogues, whose spiritual leader was called αρχισυνάγωγος (archisunagogos). Their tombstones, mostly in Greek with a few in Hebrew/Aramaic or Latin, were decorated with the ritual menorah (seven-branched candelabrum).
Some scholars have previously argued that Jews in the pre-Christian Roman Empire were active in proselytising Romans in Judaism, leading to an increasing number of outright converts. The new consensus is, that this is not the case. According to Erich S. Gruen, though conversions did happen, there is no evidence of Jews trying to convert Gentiles to Judaism. It has also been argued that some people adopted some Jewish practices and belief in the Jewish God without actually converting (called God-fearers).
In 71 BCE, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the 200-kilometer (120 mi) Via Appia from Rome to Capua after the Spartacus Slave Uprising..
According to another book, The New Testament, a Jew by the name of Jesus, was nailed to the Roman's cross by 30-33 CE. It was already said that avenues were lined in these crosses with Jews on them. The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in 30 CE or 33 CE. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and considered an established historical event.
Rome attacked and occupied the land of Judah by The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt (Hebrew: המרד הגדול ha-Mered Ha-Gadol), or The Jewish War, which was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled Judea, resulting in the destruction of Jewish towns, the displacement of its people and the appropriation of land for Roman military use, as well as the destruction of the Jewish Temple and polity.
By 70 CE, Rome had been occupying Judah, and then looted and destroyed the 2nd Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Herod (73 BCE-4 BCE) son of Antipater the Idumean and Cypros, his Nabatean wife, a man made king of Judea by the Roman Senate. He had rebuilt the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale and erected the 2 new cities of Sebaste and Caesarea. Outside Judea, he was regarded as a generous patron and as a spokesman and protector of the Jews. So the beautiful makeover of the Temple lasted about 66 years before his bosses destroyed it. Solomon himself ruled from about 961 to 920 BCE. The 1st Temple he built was destroyed in 586 by the Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians when they had attacked and took away prisoners. The Temple was rebuilt by Jews freed from Persia in 538 BCE who were told to return and rebuild. Later, of course, Herod had his turn.
Herod can be compared to the House of Cards American president-Francis Joseph Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey (fictional character and the protagonist villain) on Netflix. Herod was so evil. When a young governor of Galilee, he executed dissidents. The Sanhedrin was going to punish him for it-by death, but he was saved by the intervention of Hyrcanus and Sextus Caesar, governor of Syria. He married his 2nd wife, the Hasmonean Mariamne, who died in 29 BCE, granddaughter of the high priest, Hyrcanus, son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean (135-104 BCE). She became mother to 3 sons and 2 daughters. Her life was wretched, loathed by Herod's family whom she regarded as upstarts. She hated Herod who had murdered her kinsfolk. Herod's sister, Salome, convinced Herod that Mariamne was an adulteress, so she died, condemned and executed. Doris (Sarah) of Jerusalem is said to be the 1st wife of Herod. Born in Idumea/Edom/Mt. Seir, mother of Antipater III of Judea.
Resource;
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.geni.com/people/Doris-of-Jerusalem-King-Herod-1st-wife-married-him-twice/6000000003645877042
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian_Way
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasmonean_dynasty
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maccabees/Jewish-resistance#ref72913
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Italy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Roman_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus#:~:text=The%20crucifixion%20and%20death%20of,considered%20an%20established%20historical%20event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War
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