Debating Rebellion in First-Century Sepphoris

Josephus’s portrait of a divided city

During the centuries when it was under Roman control, Palestine was often a politically volatile region. As a result, the citizens of Sepphoris sometimes had to make a difficult decision: Would they side with Jewish forces rebelling against Rome, or would they cooperate with the empire? In 4 B.C.E. many of the city’s inhabitants apparently chose rebellion. Rome’s client king, Herod the Great, had just died, and some Jews, frustrated by years of oppressive rule, seized the opportunity to foment disturbances in various parts of Judea and Galilee. As we learn from the first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus, Sepphoris was the scene of one such disturbance:

“In Sepphoris also, a city of Galilee, there was one Judas … This man got no small multitude together, and broke open the place where the royal armor was laid up, and armed those about him, and attacked those that were so earnest to gain the dominion.”

Josephus, The Jewish War 2.56

Judas’s rebellion was short-lived, however, for Rome’s Syrian legate, Varus, dealt swiftly and severely with the people of Sepphoris:

“Varus sent part of his army presently to Galilee … (and appointed Caius) for their captain. This Caius put those that met him to flight, and took the city Sepphoris, and burnt it, and made slaves of its inhabitants.”

The Jewish War 2.68