So, I've been thinking about this thing I did in a Shared Worlds project I'm doing, which is making me wonder: How would Rome be able to integrate Judaea into its Imperial system without causing three Jewish revolts and ending up enslaving large portions of Judaea, and how would this have affected Rome and the Jews alike?
Like, client states existed, but is it possible for Judaea to remain so long-term, or to return to being a client state in the chaos of, say, the Year of the Four Emperors (possibly headed by a Sanhedrin based in Jerusalem)?
One scenario that would at least postpone the revolts a little bit is to have Herod Agrippa live longer. He was only in his mid-50s when he died, possibly from poison, and popular both with Claudius and the Jewish Sages. If he lived as long as his grandfather, Judea would remain an independent client kingdom for another 15 years. His son Agrippa II would be in his 30s in this TL, and not a teenager like OTL, and might be entrusted by Nero or whatever emperor replaces him to become King of Judea and not just the Galilee, further pushing back the date of direct Roman control until the end of the 1st century CE.
The real problem with keeping Judea semi-independent for an extended duration is the shift in the method Rome used to control its subject people. Luttwak claims that the existence of client kingdoms was a deliberate difference between the Julio-Claudians and later dynasties, where the Julio-Claudians preferred to minimize the use of force and to use client kingdoms as a buffer to absorb damage from foreign invaders and the Flavians and Antonians annexed the client kingdoms and created a system of limes to centralize defense, discourage incursions and go on the offensive.
Wheeler postulates that by consolidating eastern client kingdoms, the Flavians were reacting to the Neronian era deal with the Parthians that put an Arsacid prince on the throne of Armenia. With the Roman East no longer sheltered by a friendly client kingdom, Parthia now directly threatened Asia minor and Syria, bringing back memories of the Parthian incursion on 40 BCE and the ghastly Roman defeat at Carrhae. Vespasian even created a super-province that comprised of 3/4 of Asia Minor, a most unusual occurrence for the time.
So, if we believe these hypothesizes, then perhaps continuing the Julio-Claudian line, say by have Brittanicus succeed Claudius in the place of Nero, and a more successful Roman outcome of the war of Parthian succession could preempt the need to annex all the eastern client kingdoms, keeping Judea ruled by Herodians until some alt-Third Century Crisis.
And I think that this is a sustainable outcome. I like finding analogues in history to bolster my ideas, and in OTL there was an almost exact counterpart to the Jews just a few dozen miles north, the Samaritans. And the Samaritans managed to live reasonably peaceably in Judea under Roman domination for a couple more centuries. There is even some numismatic evidence that they were allowed to rebuild their temple. It is plausible to me that Herodian client kings or a more tolerant Roman administration would be able to keep Judea from exploding into the turmoil that was the Great Revolt and the resulting catastrophes.
And how would this affect Judaea? How would this affect the already extant Jewish diaspora of the region?
For starters, Judea and the Galilee would remain majority Jewish. And Jerusalem would be a focal point in Jewish life. For the Sholosh Regalim, the pilgrimage festivals, Jews would continue to travel to Jerusalem from all over the Roman and Persian worlds. The half-shekel Temple tax would continue to be paid to the Temple in Jerusalem, and there would be no Fiscus Judaicus levied as a penalty on all Jews and used to rebuild the Capitoline Temple to Jupiter in Rome. The Sanhedrin would still be sitting in the Chamber of Unhewn Stones.
I'd guess there would be diversity in Jewish thought. Sadducees and Boethusians would continue to exist, as the priestly elite still service the Temple. So would Essenes, and I have to imagine that there would still be Zealots unpleased with the arrangement, but with less popular support in a world with a sympathetic Jewish client king ruling Jerusalem and less of the countless Roman affronts to the Temple and Jewish beliefs. I think the Pharisees would remain the most popular movement, but Rabbinic Judaism as we know it would be very different. Traditionally, Yehuda HaNasi only wrote down the Mishnah because he feared the traditions would be lost (see the introduction to the Rambam's Mishneh Torah), but in this world that's not as much of a concern. I think eventually the Oral Torah would be written down, but it would vary significantly from what we have.
In OTL the Jewish diaspora in the East was almost completely annihilated during the Diaspora revolt. In this world, Alexandria would remain 1/3 Jewish, the breakaway Temple at Leonontopolis would still be around, Jewish communities in Syria and Cyrprus and Cyrenia would still compose large portions of the population.
And how would this affect the Roman Empire as a whole? For that matter, how would a surviving Second Temple affect early Christianity?
For starters, no Colosseum. But I think this Julio-Claudian Roman empire with its pre-Flavian policy permitting the continual existence of client states would have some fundamental differences from ours. I could see over time the reinforcement of the idea that only a descendant of Augustus can become Emperor, buoyed perhaps by more examples of the progeny of hereditary client monarchs being fostered in Rome. This could lead to a situation where succession is more typical and familial, changing the entire dynamics of the later
of military Emperors.
And I frankly know very little about Christianity, so I'll pass on this part.
I don't know if Roman rule and the Jewish belief systems as they existed, pre-revolts and their crushing, were compatible.
One classmate of mine in a college 'History of Rome' class said 'Rome wasn't anti-semitic, it was anti-Zionist' ...because it was anti every subject people's political nationalism. Maybe there was something to what he was saying. Whatever rituals Rome wanted from subjects, it also didn't care about people's souls and beliefs, their orthodoxy, they wanted expressions of civic orthopraxy.
anti-semitic meant not liking the existence of Jewish people or Jewish religious beliefs or customs.
There was definitely at least some anti-Judaism sentiment attested in Roman sources. Tiberius expelled the Jews from Rome "abolished foreign cults, especially the Egyptian and the Jewish rites, compelling all who were addicted to such superstitions to burn their religious vestments and all their paraphernalia" (Suetonius). Just 20 years later, Claudius also expelled the Jews from Rome. Seneca the Younger, Nero's chief advisor, had a rather dismal view of certain innocuous Jewish traditions, "But let us forbid lamps to be lighted on the Sabbath, since the gods do not need light, neither do men take pleasure in soot." and of Jewish practices entirely "Meanwhile the customs of this accursed race have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. The vanquished have given laws to their victors". And all these sources are from
before the revolts.
But there was also some philo-Judaic sentiment as well, as the large population of Romano-Hellenestic God-fearers can attest.
Now after all this talk about Judea and Rome I'm tempted to have a go with restarting my long moribund timeline on the subject.
