Kitos War

Kitos War
Roman Empire after 120
Date 115–117 Location Cyprus, Libya, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Judea, Syria Result Revolt defeated
Belligerents
Roman Empire	Jews of Iudaea
Commanders and leaders
Lusius Quietus	Lukuas or Andreas
Casualties and losses
Roman & Greek deaths: 200,000 in Cyrene, 240,000 in Cyprus (per Cassius Dio). Unknown deaths in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Judea, and Syria.	?

The Kitos War (115–117) (Hebrew: מרד הגלויות: mered ha'galuyot or mered ha'tfutzot (מרד התפוצות), translation: Rebellion of the exile) is the name given to the second of the Jewish-Roman wars. Major revolts by diasporic Jews in Cyrene (Cyrenaica), Cyprus, Mesopotamia and Aegyptus spiralled out of control resulting in a wide spread slaughter of Roman citizens and others by the Jewish rebels. The rebellions were finally crushed by Roman legionary forces, chiefly by the Roman general Lusius Quietus, whose nomen later gave the conflict its title, as "Kitos" is a later corruption of Quietus.

Revolt

In 115 the emperor Trajan was in command of the eastern campaign against the Parthian Empire. The Roman invasion had been prompted over the imposition of a pro-Parthian king on the throne of Armenia after a Parthian invasion of that land. This encroachment on the traditional sphere of influence of the Roman Empire— the two empires had shared hegemony over Armenia since the time of Nero some 50 years earlier — could only lead to war.

As Trajan's army advanced victoriously through Mesopotamia, Jewish rebels in its rear began attacking the small garrisons left behind. A revolt in far off Cyrenaica soon spread to Egypt and then Cyprus, inciting revolt in Judea. A widespread uprising centred at Lydda threatened grain supplies from Egypt to the front. The Jewish insurrection swiftly spread to the recently conquered provinces. Cities with substantial Jewish populations – Nisibis, Edessa, Seleucia, Arbela – joined the rebellion and slaughtered their small Roman garrisons.

Cyrenaica

In Cyrenaica, the rebels were led by one Lukuas or Andreas, who called himself "king" (according to Eusebius of Caesarea). His group destroyed many temples, including those to Hecate, Jupiter, Apollo, Artemis, and Isis, as well as the civil structures that were symbols of Rome, including the Caesareum, the basilica, and the thermae. The Greek and Roman populations were murdered on sight.

The 4th century Christian historian Paulus Orosius records that the violence so depopulated the province of Cyrenaica that new colonies had to be established by Hadrian:

"The Jews ... waged war on the inhabitants throughout Libya in the most savage fashion, and to such an extent was the country wasted that, its cultivators having been slain, its land would have remained utterly depopulated, had not the Emperor Hadrian gathered settlers from other places and sent them thither, for the inhabitants had been wiped out."

Dio Cassius states of Jewish insurrectionaries:

"'Meanwhile the Jews in the region of Cyrene had put one Andreas at their head and were destroying both the Romans and the Greeks. They would cook their flesh, make belts for themselves of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood, and wear their skins for clothing. Many they sawed in two, from the head downwards. Others they would give to wild beasts and force still others to fight as gladiators. In all, consequently, two hundred and twenty thousand perished. In Egypt, also, they performed many similar deeds, and in Cyprus under the leadership of Artemio. There, likewise, two hundred and forty thousand perished. For this reason no Jew may set foot in that land, but even if one of them is driven upon the island by force of the wind, he is put to death. Various persons took part in subduing these Jews, one being Lusius, who was sent by Trajan."

The Jewish Encyclopedia says this about the Cyrene massacres:

"By this outbreak Libya was depopulated to such an extent that a few years later new colonies had to be established there (Eusebius, "Chronicle" from the Armenian, fourteenth year of Hadrian). Bishop Synesius, a native of Cyrene in the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of the devastations wrought by the Jews ("Do Regno," p. 2)."

The Jewish Encyclopedia also says that Dio Cassius's accounts are most likely embellished:

"For an account of the Jewish war under Trajan and Hadrian Dion is the most important source (lxviii. 32, lxix. 12-14), though his descriptions of the cruelties perpetrated by the Jews at Cyrene and on the island of Cyprus are probably exaggerated."

Egypt

Then Lukuas moved towards Alexandria, entered the city which had been abandoned by the Roman troops in Egypt under the leadership of governor Marcus Rutilius Lupus, and set fire to the city. The pagan temples and the tomb of Pompey were destroyed. Trajan sent new troops under the praefectus praetorio Quintus Marcius Turbo, but Egypt and Cyrenaica were pacified only in autumn 117.

Cyprus

In Cyprus a Jewish band under a leader named Artemion had taken control of the island, killing thousands of civilians. "Under the leadership of one Artemion, the Cypriot Jews participated in the great uprising against the Romans under Trajan (117), and they are reported to have massacred 240,000 Greeks (Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32)." A small Roman army was dispatched to the island, soon reconquering the capital. After the revolt had been fully defeated, laws were created forbidding any Jews to live on the island.

Mesopotamia

A new revolt sprang up in Mesopotamia, while Trajan was in the Persian Gulf. Trajan reconquered Nisibis (Nusaybin in Turkey), the capital of Osroene Edessa, and Seleucia on the Tigris (Iraq), each of which housed large Jewish communities.

A pro-Roman son of the Partian king Osroes I, named Parthamaspatas, had been brought on the expedition as part of the emperor's entourage. Trajan had him crowned in Ctesiphon as king of the Parthians. "Trajan, fearing that the Parthians, too, might begin a revolt, desired to give them a king of their own. Accordingly, when he came to Ctesiphon, he called together in a great plain all the Romans and likewise all the Parthians that were there at the time; then he mounted a lofty platform, and after describing in grandiloquent language what he had accomplished, he appointed Parthamaspates king over the Parthians and set the diadem upon his head." (Dio Cassius). With this done, Trajan moved north to take personal command of the ongoing siege of Hatra.

The siege continued throughout the summer of 117, but the years of constant campaigning in the baking eastern heat took their toll on Trajan who suffered a heatstroke. He decided to begin the long journey back to Rome in order to recover. Sailing from Seleucia, the emperor's health deteriorated rapidly. He was taken ashore at Selinus in Cilicia, where he died and his successor, Hadrian, assumed the reins of government in 118.

After Trajan

The Jewish leader Lukuas fled to Judea. Marcius Turbo pursued him and sentenced to death the brothers Julian and Pappus, who had been key leaders in the rebellion. Lusius Quietus, the conqueror of the Jews of Mesopotamia, was now in command of the Roman army in Judaea, and laid siege to Lydda, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappus. The distress became so great that the patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, who was shut up there and died soon afterwards, permitted fasting even on Ḥanukkah. Other rabbis condemned this measure. Lydda was next taken and many of the Jews were executed; the "slain of Lydda" are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. Pappus and Julian were among those executed by the Romans in the same year.

Lusius Quietus, whom the Emperor Trajan had held in high regard and who had served Rome so well, was quietly stripped of his command once Hadrian had secured the Imperial title. He was murdered in unknown circumstances in the summer of 118, possibly on the orders of Hadrian.

Hadrian took the unpopular but far-sighted decision to end the war, abandoning much of Trajan's eastern conquests and stabilising the eastern borders. Although he abandoned the erstwhile province of Mesopotamia, he installed Parthamaspates – who had been ejected from Ctesiphon by the returning Osroes – as king of a restored Osroene. For a century Osroene would retain a precarious independence as a buffer state, sandwiched between the two empires.

The situation in Judaea remained tense for the Romans, who were obliged under Hadrian to permanently move the Legio VI Ferrata into Judaea.

Further reading and external links

• "BAR KOKBA AND BAR KOKBA WAR" article from Jewish Encyclopedia (public domain)
• "Cyprus: In Roman Times" article from Jewish Encyclopedia (public domain)
• "Cyrene" article from Jewish Encyclopedia (public domain)
• "The revolt against Trajan", from livius.org
• [2], Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4.2.