James Baquet

Beth Horon, named after a Canaanite deity, is located on an ancient road that leads from Jerusalem to the sea. It is just 22 kilometers from Jerusalem, and is the namesake of two important battles. In 166 B.C. the Jewish nationalists under Judah Maccabee faced off with the Greek-founded Seleucid Empire, as told in books written between the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian ones.

Over 230 years later, in 66 A.D., another battle took place at Beth Horon; this latter battle will be our focus today. It pitted Jewish rebels, fighting Roman rule, against the Roman army under the general — and governor of the Roman province of Syria, which included Judaea — named Cestius Gallus, who had marched into the area to quell the rebels in what became the First Jewish-Roman War. By the end of that war, many Jews were dead or enslaved by the Romans.

The trouble actually began in a conflict between Greek and Jewish residents of the area. The Jews of Caesarea believed that their Greek neighbors had desecrated the Jewish synagogue by sacrificing birds in front of it. They complained to the local Roman authorities, who did nothing, exacerbating the Jews’ dissatisfaction with the Romans — who had taxed them severely.

The Jews of Jerusalem then began random attacks on Roman citizens there, and eventually on the Roman soldiers sent to intervene. Things escalated as Jews in surrounding cities and towns took action.

Gallus’ troops marched on Jerusalem but, being unsuccessful, were withdrawing to the coast to await reinforcements when they were ambushed near Beth Horon. They were marching through a pass at the time, and could not arrange themselves in a proper battle formation. Around 6,000 troops were killed, the equivalent of an entire Roman legion.

Encouraged by the Jewish victory, many more towns joined the rebels. Gallus died in the meantime, and Emperor Nero and the Roman Senate sent four legions under Vespasian, the future emperor, to crush the rebellion, which ended in 73 with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. two things having the same name

2. making something worse

3. treated a holy place disrespectfully

4. a Roman army unit of 3,000-6,000 soldiers

5. killing as an offering to a god or gods

6. a god

7. Jewish place of worship

8. holy books

9. increased in intensity

10. put down, suppress

ANSWERS: 1. namesake

2. exacerbating 3. desecrated

4. legion 5. sacrificing 6. deity

7. synagogue 8. scriptures

9. escalated 10. quell