Jewish Revolt Coins and the Judaea Capta Coins of Vespasian: Response/Call/Response (15 min)

Presenters

Arielle Suskin, Case Western Reserve University

Abstract

Although many of our surviving primary sources describing the peoples and places conquered by Rome derive from a Roman perspective, in the case of the late first century C.E. Jewish Revolt in Judaea, we have a rare glimpse into the self-definitions of a conquered people through the writings of Flavius Josephus. However, a key element of the Jewish autonomy—the minting of new coinage types in Jerusalem by groups operating within the revolt—is absent from Josephus’s narrative. This paper analyzes the relationship between the images on Jewish Revolt coins and the Judaea Capta coins issued under Vespasian prior to his Judean triumph in 71 C.E. Although scholars have examined the Jewish and Vespasianic coins separately, both coin groups resulted from interactions between the Roman administration and residents of Jerusalem and it is critical to examine the coinages together to understand how they worked to define and inform competing Roman and Jewish identities.

I analyze the iconography of coinage circulating in Judea immediately prior to the revolt, coinage produced in Jerusalem during the revolt, and Flavian coinage that co-opted motifs of the Jewish Revolt coins to demonstrate how each issue reflects attempts by Romans and Jews to define Judaea from the inside and the outside. Ultimately, I argue that the Roman and Jewish coins, when examined with an approach combining elements of both Jewish studies and classical studies, reveal intensive iconographic dialogue between Rome and Judea. Coinage from Jerusalem during the war signals community priorities, including a relationship with Rome, while the Flavian images consist of the (re)development and dissemination of a particular concept of Judaea throughout the empire. Comparing the Judaea Capta coins to the Jewish Revolt coins uncovers how and why symbols of Judaean self-presentation became warped into symbols of colonialism under the Roman imperial regime.