ENEMIES OF ROME 63an unruly populace. In other provinces the local ruling class had greater
continuity with that of the pre- conquest era, and the problem of legitimizing
their power will have been proportionately less.^17
These revolts required massive military effort to suppress them,
particularly when, as in Germany in AD 9 and Judaea in 132–5, the rebels
avoided both pitched battles and sieges. The main method used to prevent
recurrence was terror. Roman actions against foreign people were often
vicious, even on initial conquest – thus many of those who fought against
Rome in Pannonia and Dalmatia in 13 and 12 BC were sold into slavery (Dio
54.31.3–4). Punishment could be far more horrifi c after rebellion. Hundreds
of thousands of Jewish captives were killed in public shows in Caesarea in
the autumn of AD 70 (Jos. B.J. 7.37–40). Such Spanish rebels in 19 BC as were
not slaughtered were forcibly resettled in a different region where geography
would be less favourable to dissent (Dio 54.11.5–6). The Jews of
Cyprus were forbidden to set foot on the island after AD 117 (Dio 68.32–3).
More drastically still, Judaean Jews were entirely excluded from the
region around the holy city of Jerusalem after the defeat of Bar Kochba in
AD 135 (Justin Martyr, I Apol. 47). It was important for this policy of
deterrence that suppression should be seen to be thorough, hence
the extraordinary efforts made to subdue the last remnants of Judaean
resistance: witness the operations at Masada in AD 73–74, as revealed by the
huge ramp erected in the middle of the desert, the legendary fate of Bethar
after the defeat of Bar Kochba, and rabbinic traditions of a period of
persecution for such religious behaviour as the observance of the sabbath
and circumcision.^18
The success of control through terror is not always very clear; Dalmatia
and Pannonia rebelled again in 11 and 10 BC , Spain in 16 BC and Judaea in
132 AD , despite the previous measures described above. In some areas the
Roman army became in effect a permanent police force for the control of
disaffection. In the most extreme cases this involved the stationing of legions
to deter revolt, such as Legio X Fretensis quartered in Jerusalem after AD 70.
Most legions of the empire were, at least ostensibly, directed against forces
external to the limes , but the ability of the state rapidly to bring trained
soldiers of the huge and underemployed standing army to any province
where trouble fl ared discouraged those tempted to express their continued
opposition. In the border areas of Africa and Syria-Palaestina it can be
argued that the block forts built to protect roads were intended as much
to ward off local as foreign attackers. Occasionally colonies of Roman
citizens were planted in rebellious areas as bastions of loyalty. This
technique was more common immediately after conquest, as at Cologne and
Colchester, than at a later period, but in Judaea the colonies of Ptolemais-
Akko in the 50s AD and Aelia Capitolina after AD 135 evidently had such a
function. In general, however, land confi scated after rebellion was sold off
to the highest bidder rather than being kept either by the Roman state or by
the emperor.^19