jews in a graeco- roman world 105
sacrifices for the wellbeing of the emperor in Rome, and the Temple
remained the focal point of rebellion throughout the four years of inde-
pendence which ended in August 70 ce with the destruction of Jerusalem
by Roman forces. The Jewish state, released from the shackles of Roman
and Herodian domination, issued a series of remarkable coins which
reverted to the Hasmonaean use of palaeo- Hebrew lettering and cele-
brated a new era. The coins refer to the new state as ‘Israel’, apparently
in deliberate contrast to Roman use of ‘Judaea’. Along with numerous
bronze coins which proclaimed the ‘freedom of Zion’ and ‘the redemp-
tion of Zion’, the rebels minted shekels, half- shekels and quarter- shekels
of exceptionally pure silver, with inscriptions referring to ‘Jerusalem the
holy’.^25
The insistence on pure silver even under the constraints of war indi-
cated that the mint authorities were concerned primarily for the pious
use of these coins as offerings in the Temple. In late 67 or early 68 ce
the revolutionary government selected a new High Priest by lot, eschew-
ing the priestly families which had been favoured by Rome, much to the
disgust of Josephus:
The random result of the draw showed up the full depravity of their oper-
ation. The lot fell to one Phanni, the son of Samuel from the village of
Aphthia, a man not only innocent of any high- priestly descent, but such a
country bumpkin that he had no clear idea of what ‘high priest’ actually
meant. Anyway, they dragged this poor man from his rural home and
kitted him out for this alien part like an actor on the stage, robing him in
the sacred vestments and prompting him to do what was required on any
occasion. To them this blatant impiety was a hilarious piece of fun, but the
other priests, watching from a distance this parody of the law, could only
shed tears of anguish at the desecration of the holy offices.^26
The reasons for the outbreak of revolt in 66 ce after some sixty years
of direct Roman rule remain much debated despite (or because of) the
detailed narrative of Josephus. Josephus was at pains to point out the
times when tactless Roman governors had provoked disturbances in
the years before the revolt. But he also pointed to various other causes,
from a class struggle between rich and poor (exacerbated by the unequal
distribution of an increasingly wealthy society) to prickly relations
between the Jewish and gentile populations of the cities surrounding
Judaea, such as Caesarea, and tensions between the generations within
the Judaean elite, with the younger generation at the forefront of the
rebellion against Rome.^27