The Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE), sometimes known as the Second Jewish–Roman War, was a series of uprisings launched by Jewish diaspora communities in several eastern provinces of the Roman Empire during the final years of Emperor Trajan's reign. Hostilities began while Trajan was engaged in his Parthian campaign in Mesopotamia, creating a favorable opportunity for rebellion. Ancient sources do not specify the motivations, but they were likely shaped by the Roman destruction of the Second Temple during the First Jewish Revolt in 70 CE, long-standing tensions between Jews and Greeks, the fiscus Judaicus tax, messianic expectations, and hopes for a return to the Jewish homeland, Judaea.
The uprisings broke out almost simultaneously in Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus. Rebel attacks were directed mainly against locals rather than Roman authorities, with ancient authors such as Cassius Dio and Eusebius, as well as epigraphic evidence, reporting extreme violence. There is also a reference in Eusebius to Roman actions against Jews in Mesopotamia, though these events appear to have formed part of a broader local resistance to the Roman invasion of the Parthian Empire, rather than another Jewish uprising.
Marcius Turbo, one of Trajan's top generals, was dispatched to suppress the uprisings in Egypt and Cyrenaica. Literary sources suggest that the Jewish population in these regions faced severe reprisals. Meanwhile, General Lusius Quietus quelled the rebellion in Mesopotamia and was subsequently appointed governor of Judaea. It was during this period that the poorly understood Kitos War may have occurred in Judaea, apparently involving unrest among the Jewish population. The diaspora uprisings were likely suppressed before autumn 117, just prior to Trajan's death; however, some unrest may have persisted into the winter of 117–118.
The Diaspora Revolt led to the devastation, and in some cases the annihilation, of Jewish communities in Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus. Significant damage to buildings, temples, and roads is well attested in Cyrene and other parts of Cyrenaica. A festival celebrating victory over the Jews was still being observed eighty years later in the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. The war is also believed to have ended Alexandria's early Christian community, which was largely of Jewish origins; the later non-Jewish Christian community adopted traditions that had originated in the city's Jewish population. Thirteen years after the diaspora uprisings, perhaps seeking to eradicate the seat of Jewish unrest, Emperor Hadrian re-founded Jerusalem as a Roman colony; in response, the Jews of Judaea launched the catastrophic Bar Kokhba Revolt. In the aftermath of the Diaspora Revolt, the largest Jewish diaspora communities were concentrated in Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Italy. Jewish communities reestablished themselves in Egypt, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica during the 3rd–4th centuries CE, though they never reached their former prominence.
Primary sources
The available sources on the Diaspora Revolt are limited, fragmented, and incomplete, making it difficult for historians to reconstruct a comprehensive account of the events. The principal sources—Cassius Dio (writing a century later) and Eusebius (writing two centuries later)—offer only brief coverage, and only a few other, less detailed literary references survive. Scholars therefore rely on archaeological evidence, including ancient documents and inscriptions, to supplement and clarify the limited textual record.
Cassius Dio (c. 155 – c. 235), a Roman historian and senator, addressed the revolt in his Roman History (68.32.1–3); his narrative survives, however, only through a 12th-century abridgment by the Byzantine scholar Xiphilinus. Dio's account provides the most detail on the events in the city of Cyrene, Libya, while offering only brief mention of Cyprus and a passing reference to Egypt. This account attributes responsibility for the uprisings to the Jewish population. Dio also recorded the Roman suppression of unrest in Mesopotamia. Scholars disagree on the extent of changes and bias introduced by the abridgment: classicist Timothy Barnes suggested that Xiphilinus's anti-Jewish sentiment may have influenced and distorted the original text, whereas historian Lester L. Grabbe argued that "there is no reason to assume that it has been extensively distorted or rewritten, only shortened by omission."
Additional descriptions of the revolt come from Eusebius (c. 260–339), a bishop and scholar from late-antique Syria Palaestina, who discussed it in his Chronicon (68.32) and Ecclesiastical History (4.2.1–5). His account centers on the uprisings in Egypt, with additional references to a Jewish rebellion in Mesopotamia and events in Cyprus. Eusebius noted that Greek historians provided accounts of the revolt similar to his own, though he appears to have been unaware of Cassius Dio's version. Whereas Dio placed greater emphasis on extreme atrocities committed by Jewish rebels, Eusebius adopted a more neutral tone. Nevertheless, while his works provide an influential framework for the history of the first centuries CE, they also reflect an apologetic agenda (an effort to defend Christian beliefs and doctrines) that shaped his interpretation of the past. Accordingly, he framed the revolt within a broader theological argument that Jewish suffering was a consequence of their rejection of Jesus, a theme common in early Christian references to the Jewish–Roman wars.
Appian (c. 95 – c. 165), an Egyptian-born Greek historian and lawyer, wrote a first-person account of the revolt that can be found in the surviving portions of his Roman History 2.90. Among several anecdotes, he recounted his narrow escape from capture by Jewish rebels, fleeing a Jewish ship via wilderness paths and boat near Pelusium, and described the destruction of the Pompey monument near Alexandria by Jewish rebels. His tone is neutral, much like Eusebius, who may have relied on Appian as a source. Also active in the 2nd century, Arrian, a Greek author, wrote a now-lost work on the Parthians that reportedly included references to Trajan's actions against the Jews, and is believed to have been used as a source by Eusebius.
A much later source is Paulus Orosius (c. 375 – after 418), a Christian Roman historian and theologian, who discussed the events in his Seven Books Against the Pagans (7.12.6–8), composed around 418. He viewed the Jewish defeats in their uprisings against Rome as divine punishment for the persecution of early Christians by Jews. His narrative draws on Eusebius, likely via Latin translations by Jerome and Rufinus, though Orosius rearranged the material and adopts a more vivid, dramatic rhetorical style. Orosius's account's reliability has been questioned due to chronological and historical inaccuracies, and, according to Judaic scholar William Horbury, his version is derivative, lacking immediacy and "vague" in its presentation.
The uprisings in Egypt are also documented by contemporary papyrological evidence, especially texts in the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (CPJ), a collection of papyri relating to Jews and Judaism in Egypt. These documents illuminate the revolt's chronology, casualties, impact, and aftermath, and show, for example, that local Egyptians fought against the Jews rather than supporting them, as was suggested earlier. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence also clarifies the events in Cyprus and Cyrenaica, with Latin and Greek inscriptions from Cyrenaica recording the reconstruction of buildings damaged during the "Jewish uprising", thereby revealing the scale of destruction and subsequent rebuilding programs.
The Diaspora Revolt also finds echoes in rabbinic literature composed in later centuries, based on earlier oral traditions. The Jerusalem Talmud, a 4th–5th-century Galilean commentary on the Mishnah, refers to the revolt in tractate Sukkah 5:1, which preserves three stories about it, including accounts of the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Alexandria and the massacre of Jews by Trajan. These narratives, which focus on Roman actions rather than the Greeks or Egyptians, were likely influenced by the heightened anti-Roman sentiment following the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which occurred about fifteen years later and had disastrous consequences for the Jews of Judaea. While the stories contain historical kernels, they also incorporate legendary elements that limit their reliability as historical sources. Nonetheless, they reflect contemporary rabbinic debates about Jewish life in the diaspora in the aftermath of the Jewish–Roman wars, highlight hostilities and tensions between Jews and Romans, and reveal continuing hope for the coming of the Messiah.
Background
The motivations behind the diaspora uprisings are complex and difficult to discern, owing to the lack of direct sources on their underlying causes. The Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, at the height of the First Jewish Revolt, was a deeply traumatic event whose effect was exacerbated by the simultaneous introduction of the fiscus Judaicus, a humiliating, punitive tax imposed on all Jews across the empire. The post-revolt period also saw widespread messianic expectations—a belief in the imminent coming of a redeemer, a descendant of David, who would bring transformative change and restore the Davidic kingdom in Israel—as well as a longing for the re-establishment of the Jewish state. Contemporary Jewish texts, such as the Third Sibylline Oracle, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch, reflect these themes, emphasizing anticipation of a messianic figure, the ingathering of the exiles (the biblical promise that Jews dispersed in exile will be restored to their ancestral land) and the eventual rebuilding of the Temple. The messianic aspect of the revolt is perhaps suggested by Eusebius's reference to Lukuas—the leader of the Jewish rebels in Roman Libya—as "king", suggesting that the uprising evolved from an ethnic conflict into a nationalist movement with messianic ambitions for political independence.
Inter-ethnic tensions and local conditions also fueled the unrest, especially in Egypt, where longstanding social, economic, political, and ideological frictions between Jews and Greeks had intensified since the 3rd century BCE. The situation deteriorated under Roman rule, leading to sporadic violence in various eastern cities, including severe riots in Alexandria in 29 BCE, 38 CE, 41 CE, and 66 CE. The Jewish defeat in the First Jewish Revolt amplified hostility toward the Jews of Egypt, leading to their violent exclusion from civic positions and the imposition of higher business fees. It also intensified anti-Jewish rhetoric in Egypt, greatly exacerbating tensions between Jews and Egyptians. In the years leading up to the Diaspora Revolt, incidents of anti-Jewish violence by Greeks occurred in 112 and the summer of 115 CE. These attacks, especially the latter, were likely direct catalysts for the Jewish uprising in Egypt. In Cyrenaica, earlier disturbances in 73 CE, which resulted in the deaths and dispossession of many wealthy Jews, may have weakened the moderating influence of the Jewish elite, allowing more radical elements in Jewish society to gain prominence and push for revolt. Additionally, the destruction of the Jewish landholding aristocracy exacerbated economic hardships for Jewish tenant farmers, pushing them into cities and worsening their plight.
William Horbury wrote that the revolt was influenced by a strong national hope and local interpretations of messianic expectations, particularly the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the Temple. He added that Jews in the diaspora may have been influenced by the ideals of "liberty" and "redemption", which were central to the First Jewish Revolt and spread to communities in Egypt, Cyrene, and possibly Cyprus through refugees and traders from Judaea in its aftermath. This idea is supported by Josephus's account of Jews belonging to the radical Sicarii faction who migrated to Cyrene after the war, the discovery of First Jewish Revolt coinage in Memphis, Egypt, and near Cyrene, as well as traces of these themes in diasporic literature.
Classicist E. Mary Smallwood suggested that the revolutionary movement during the Diaspora Revolt can be viewed as an early form of Zionism, seeking the return of Jewish exiles from North Africa to Palestine. She posits that the movement of Jewish rebels from Cyrenaica east into Egypt may have been intended as the first phase of a large-scale migration further east to Judaea. Archaeologist Shimon Applebaum wrote that the movement aimed at "the setting up of a new Jewish commonwealth, whose task was to inaugurate the messianic era." Christian biblical scholar and historian John M. G. Barclay likewise argued that the extensive damage to Cyrenaica's infrastructure during the uprising implies that the Jews involved intended to leave the province, probably aiming ultimately to reach Judaea. Horbury similarly concludes that the Jewish forces likely aimed to return to and defend Judaea.
Uprisings
The Jewish uprisings erupted almost simultaneously across several eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. In Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus, Jewish actions were directed primarily against local populations rather than Roman authorities. By contrast, the rebellion in Mesopotamia appears to have been part of a broader resistance to Roman expansion into areas ruled by the Parthian Empire. There is no evidence that Jewish communities in Asia Minor participated in the revolt, and the Jewish community in Rome also did not join the uprising. Eusebius links the revolts in Cyrenaica and Egypt, while late Syriac sources mention Jews from Egypt fleeing to Judaea. However, there is no definitive evidence of coordinated action among the diaspora communities in revolt.
Cyrenaica
In Cyrenaica, Jewish rebels launched attacks against their Greek and Roman neighbors, led either by Andreas (according to Dio/Xiphilinus) or Lukuas (according to Eusebius). These could have been two separate individuals or a single person known by both names—a common practice at the time. Eusebius referred to Lukuas as "king", a title that has prompted some scholars to suggest a possible messianic motivation behind the uprising, though evidence supporting this theory remains limited. Eusebius wrote that the Jews of Cyrenaica collaborated with the Jews of Egypt, forming a symmachia (military alliance). He also mentioned that, at one point, the Jews of Cyrenaica moved into Egypt.