E70 - Episode 70: The warrior Jews who terrified Rome, with Barry Strauss

Between the outbreak of the Jews’ Great Revolt against Rome in the year 66 CE and the final suppression of the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135, the Jews of the Roman Empire constituted the empire’s single biggest headache. None of the countless conquered peoples controlled by that world power had ever rebelled quite so often or for so long.

Jewish memory, largely forged by the rabbinic account of these revolts as doomed failures, tends to minimize their scale and impact and the chances they had for success.

But a new book...