WI: Jewish victory in the Kitos war?

What if the Jews did guerilla-esque tactics on the Romans and won the Kitos war? Will it mean a restored Judaea? And will it affect Christianity?
 
What would constitute "winning"? The whole thing looks more like a millenarian outburst than a strategically viable military operation. There is no way a minority of the local population can keep control of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Mesopotamia and Cyprus, even assuming Hadrian was going to allow it. What realistic war aims could there be? Perhaps indeed a restored Judaea (which would not last long), or perhaps independent Jewish territories (not viable, but it may have looked that way at the time).

Not to mention guerilla tactics are not a good way of fighting the Romans. Not unless you can muster the necessary number of fighters, which I doubt the Jewish rebellion can, and not unless you are willing to wager the existence of your population base on your ability to transition from guerilla to regular military force. Otherwise, you'll just have occasional punitive expeditions, repression, mistrust, and random violence, or as they called it in Judaea, Tuesday.
 
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Not to mention guerilla tactics are not a good way of fighting the Romans. Not unless you can muster the necessary number of fighters, which I doubt the Jewish rebellion can, and not unless you are willing to wager the existence of your population base on your ability to transition from guerilla to regular military force. Otherwise, you'll just have occasional punitive expeditions, repression, mistrust, and random violence, or as they called it in Judaea, Tuesday.
Sorry, but that's not true. Guerilla tactics were the only way of fighting romans. The big mistake most insurrect forces did was starting a battle on Roman terms. This was something they could not win even if they had superiority because they all lacked the discipline of the Roman legions.
 
Sorry, but that's not true. Guerilla tactics were the only way of fighting romans. The big mistake most insurrect forces did was starting a battle on Roman terms. This was something they could not win even if they had superiority because they all lacked the discipline of the Roman legions.

while it is well known that the Romans lost all of the provinces to guerrilla insurgents :rolleyes:
 
Sorry, but that's not true. Guerilla tactics were the only way of fighting romans. The big mistake most insurrect forces did was starting a battle on Roman terms. This was something they could not win even if they had superiority because they all lacked the discipline of the Roman legions.
Parthia much? The Romans lost a force of about 45,000 to a Parthian force of about 10,000 at the battle of Carrhae. The Romans also lost a war against Pontus in the east (and came dangerously close to loosing all their provinces east of Italy in another). The Romans, wern't some unbeatable force on the battlefield, though they did have advantages over all other opponents.
 
Guerrilla war may not work against against a superpower that has no qualms about using genocide. If for example, a series of towns in a district were the locus of insurgency, Rome could simply march in, depopulate the area, burn the towns and salt the fields. Lather, Rinse Repeat until the rebellion peters out. A Greek comment about the Romans was "They create a desolation and call it peace"
 
Hmm, could it be possible that if they are somehow more successful against the Romans, the Jews could get a buffer state somewhere else?

This is probably crazy but I'm thinking along the western Arabian coast. There were Jews in a number of those cities. Could they form a small state there? Or would they forever be trying to attack Judea so Rome would have to smash them?
 
Parthia much? The Romans lost a force of about 45,000 to a Parthian force of about 10,000 at the battle of Carrhae. The Romans also lost a war against Pontus in the east (and came dangerously close to loosing all their provinces east of Italy in another). The Romans, wern't some unbeatable force on the battlefield, though they did have advantages over all other opponents.
The other great powers could beat Rome in battle, the normal insurgents however could not. They had to be creative. Arminius for example defeated Rome in a running battle in an aera which did not support Roman tactics. Other insurgents became too confident and tried to beat Rome in battle with the superiority of numbers and lost, because that was that Rome wanted.
Later Rome lost its provinces because civil war had diminished its legions and thus had not enough legions to put down rebellions in the provinces or stop invading barbarians.
So the best way to beat Rome is:
- hit them hard in places where it will hurt them (e.g. destroy their colonies, raid their supplies)
- avoid the legions in areas which support Roman tactics
- pray, that Rome has enough problem elsewhere, so that at that moment retaliation is unlikely

So, to make the Jews win Kitos War other events have to become worse for Rome. The war against the Parthians has to tie more Roman legions in Mesopotamia than IOTL so that Trajan could not send Legio III Cyrenaica and Legio VII Claudia against the insurgents in Judea and Cyprus.
 
The other great powers could beat Rome in battle, the normal insurgents however could not. They had to be creative. Arminius for example defeated Rome in a running battle in an aera which did not support Roman tactics. Other insurgents became too confident and tried to beat Rome in battle with the superiority of numbers and lost, because that was that Rome wanted.
Later Rome lost its provinces because civil war had diminished its legions and thus had not enough legions to put down rebellions in the provinces or stop invading barbarians.
So the best way to beat Rome is:
- hit them hard in places where it will hurt them (e.g. destroy their colonies, raid their supplies)
- avoid the legions in areas which support Roman tactics
- pray, that Rome has enough problem elsewhere, so that at that moment retaliation is unlikely

So, to make the Jews win Kitos War other events have to become worse for Rome. The war against the Parthians has to tie more Roman legions in Mesopotamia than IOTL so that Trajan could not send Legio III Cyrenaica and Legio VII Claudia against the insurgents in Judea and Cyprus.

#1: Will inspire more savage reprisal.

#2: Only works if you're in a place where that works. Heavily forested Germania is better than Judea.

#3: Will merely delay retaliation. Rome accepting a rebellion will happen only after a lot of time and effort is spent crushing it.

If Trajan can't send the two legions in question after Judea and Cyprus, he'll pry loose two others to do it.
 
I'm not sure I totally agree with you Elf, but Egypt at least simply cannot be lost by Rome. It just can't. Better to let the Persians pour into interior Anatolia than lose Egypt.
 
I'm not sure I totally agree with you Elf, but Egypt at least simply cannot be lost by Rome. It just can't. Better to let the Persians pour into interior Anatolia than lose Egypt.

This is true.

I'm not sure a Kitos war victory is absolutely impossible, but I can't see Rome just happily accepting a rebellion instead of doing everything possible to stomp it out.
 
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