William Horbury, professor of Jewish and early Christian studies and a fellow of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University, is well known for his investigation of inscriptional material and is a coeditor of The Cambridge History of Judaism, volume 3. In this book he brings his historical meticulousness to the investigation of the two Jewish uprisings that occurred in the second century, the first under Trajan (115–17) and the second under his successor, Hadrian (132–35). Although these uprisings took place fourteen years apart, Horbury argues in his introduction that they should be treated together.

After the introduction, Horbury moves to a thorough treatment of the sources for the uprisings. He first describes the nonliterary sources—coins and inscriptions as well as contemporary letters, deeds, and other documents—before moving on to the early literary notices in Cassius Dio and Eusebius of Caesarea. He gives a full discussion of the rabbinic materials that mention the uprisings, well aware of their later date but holding that they should not be ruled out for historical purposes. Moreover, he notes the way national messianic deliverance is hoped for in apocalypses, as well as the way Josephus's writings can “sometimes be used with caution to shed light on the later risings” (40). The last part of this chapter deals with the way the uprisings have been presented and interpreted from Orosius to Martin Goodman and Seth Schwartz. Horbury finds that, even after all previous work, one still needs to investigate whether there was Roman hostility towards the Jews, and whether “the religio-political Jewish entity [is] essentially incompatible with Roman culture” (99).

The third chapter deals with the antecedents to the uprisings, and is divided into two sections: (1) “Rome and the Jews”; (2) “The Jewish Situation.” In the first, Horbury notes a spectrum of views that Romans held towards the Jews, but concludes that what the Romans did was dictated by political concerns. The Romans emphasized the victory of the Flavian rulers, but did not seek the destruction of Judaism; the imposition of a Jewish tax was to help the imperial coffers, and both it and the desolation of Jerusalem were enacted to punish rather than eradicate. The practice of Judaism and synagogue worship continued to be protected. As for the Jews, Horbury shows that the evidence for a strong military presence in Judea and Galilee argues for unrest in these areas, fostered mainly by the loss of the temple and reflected in apocalypses where Rome is the fourth kingdom. However, there is also evidence of inner Jewish forces working for acceptance of Roman rule. Horbury moreover emphasizes how the loss of the temple led to a stronger attachment to ancestral law, and was fostered by the synagogues and networks of teachers of the law. These latter may not have been central to Jewish society but, for Horbury, they were not marginal either.

The fourth chapter deals with the disturbances under Trajan and Hadrian. Horbury basically accepts Eusebius's account that factional strife between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria and the rest of Egypt as well as in Cyrenaica broke out in 115 CE, during the reign of Hadrian, intensified into war against the Romans in the following year, and ended in 117 CE. Horbury first discusses the war as waged in Cyrenaica, providing a full analysis of the papyrological, inscriptional, and archeological evidence. The leaders seem to have been of lower social class, and there seem to have been outrages against the Jews in Egypt and Alexandria even before 113 CE. Horbury suggests that in 115 CE Egyptian towns and villages saw Jewish groups arming, a factor that was further influenced by the movement of some of the Cyrenian Jewish forces into Egypt. The war was finally put down in 117 CE, and a temple built in Alexandria in honor of Hadrian. Horbury argues that a Jewish remnant remained in Alexandria, but did not regain its former status till the third century. In the Egyptian countryside, confiscation of land owned by Jews, most likely those who were seen as supporters of the uprising, is attested in the papyri. In Cyprus, it is reported that the Jews destroyed Salamis and massacred its gentile inhabitants, and, as a consequence, when order was restored by the Romans, Jews were banned from the island. Horbury also concludes that Jewish agitation took place not only in Mesopotamia but also in Syria. The revolts, according to Horbury, built not only on Jewish anger that the temple had not been rebuilt and Jewish-Greek antagonism in many cities, but on the hope for the end of the Diaspora and a national revival.

The second Jewish uprising most probably began in late 132 CE and was complete by the end of 135 CE. Horbury divides his treatment into three sections: (1) “The Uprising”; (2) “An Israelite Realm”; (3) “Repression.” In the first section, he explores the causes of the revolt and its first success. For Horbury, Hadrian planned, before the revolt, to rename Jerusalem Colonia Aelia Capitolina and settle a colony of veterans there. This would have gone against earlier possibilities that the Jewish temple was to be rebuilt. Some Jews would have accepted the title as an honor, but to others it would have been an insult. It is also likely that the ban on circumcision was not a cause of the revolt, but a punitive measure introduced during the suppression of the revolt. The initial uprising succeeded because of the rebels' preparation of strongholds and underground refuges, rather than through open conflict with the Romans. The rebel bands would have included the distressed, the debtors, and the discontented, and possibly also foreigners from Nabatea. The second section discusses the extent of the territory controlled by Bar Kokhba, and is informed by an analysis of the coins and other documents discovered. His territory was from Bethlehem southwards, and he also had some influence north and west around Emmaus and Modin, but Roman forces will have controlled Jerusalem. Within this territory the documents reveal a level of administration, and rule by both priest and king. Horbury shows how the title nasi’ was a kingly title, and that Bar Kokhba claimed to be reviving the ancestral constitution. Horbury argues that the evidence of the claims on the coins as well as the documents and letters from the time agree with the later patristic and rabbinic views of the messianism of the uprising. “The whole enterprise will have gained energy from the messianic expectations bound up with the constitutional terms; ‘prince’, ‘priest’ and ‘brother’ are closely knit with ‘liberty and redemption’, understood to include recovery of the sanctuary and the land” (388). The third section of this chapter shows how the Roman troops, aided by the Syrian fleet, massacred civilian populations and confiscated property, so that, not by open combat, but by wearing down the population, they finally succeeded. The final defeat, in which Bar Kokhba was killed, took place at Beththera, probably Beitar in the district of Bethlehem, in the late summer of 135 CE. Finally, Horbury notes how the Romans maintained their attitude of protection towards synagogue worship, and reflects on the maintenance of Jewish traditions after the wars and the fact that Christianity at this time still maintained its ties to Judaism.

The intricate and minute probing of all the sources that speak of these wars makes this a book with which all future scholars will have to deal. My only complaint is that Horbury might have provided a timeline in which his conclusions, even if at times tentative, might be easily accessible. The maps he provides either have too little detail or too much so that they do not help forward the argument. This, however, is a richly informative work.