Free The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities by Matthew White Page A
Authors: Matthew White
his order to make an exception for Jews. Unfortunately, Hadrian also chose this moment to start rebuilding Jerusalem as a modern Roman city with a temple of Jupiter where the temple of Yahweh had stood.
The Jews would not accept any of this, and they rose up under Simon ben Kosiba, who gained the messianic nickname Bar Kokhba, “Son of the Star.” 2 The rebels were strongest in the countryside, where they built fortified strongholds interlaced with hidden access tunnels. The Romans sent three legions to put down the rebellion. It was a hard campaign, and one of the legions disappears from the history books after this, probably wiped out by the rebels. The war is said to have destroyed fifty strongholds and 985 villages. It was so destructive that we still don’t have the whole story or too many relics, just a few caves discovered in the cliffs near the Dead Sea. These caves housed the last of the rebels, and archaeologists named them after their most distinctive contents: the Cave of Scrolls, the Cave of Arrows, the Cave of Letters (including some written by Bar Kokhba), and the Cave of Horrors (forty skeletons, entire families dead of starvation), among others.
When the fighting was over, most of the Jews in Palestine were killed, exiled, or enslaved, and this time the Romans made certain there would not be a next time. The Romans depopulated much of the territory and restocked it with more cooperative ethnicities. The Jews were exiled from Palestine, and the Diaspora, the scattering of Jews across the globe, began.
Death Toll
Ancient historians claim that as many as 2 million Jews were killed in these and other revolts. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus reported that 1,197,000 people were killed during the siege of Jerusalem in the first revolt, although Tacitus estimated a death toll of half that: 600,000. 3 Cassius Dio 4 reports that a total of 580,000 Jews were killed in battle during the second revolt. Ancient historians report the death toll for other rebellions by Jewish minorities in Cyrene and Cyprus (not included here) as 220,000 and 240,000. 5 These unbelievable claims are usually held up as the perfect example of why not to trust the numbers in ancient histories.
Realistically, maybe one-fifth to one-half of the inhabitants of Palestine died in each of the revolts, but that’s still not a complete answer because no one knows how many people lived there to begin with. Estimates of the pre-revolt population of Palestine run anywhere from 0.5 million to 6 million. Religious historians tend to favor the high numbers, which are based on written sources like the works of Josephus; archaeologists favor the low numbers, which are based on land use and population densities. 6 In any case, a reasonable estimate would be something like 350,000 deaths all told, which would be around one-third if the original population was 1 million, or one-half if it was 700,000, or one-fourth if it was 1.4 million. No matter what anyone says, it’s unlikely that the ancient population of the area came anywhere close to 2 million, which was the number of inhabitants at the time of independence in 1948.
THE THREE KINGDOMS OF CHINA
Death toll: 34 million missing
Rank: 25
Type: failed state
Broad dividing line and Major state participants: Wu vs. Wei vs. Shu
Time frame: 189–280 CE
Location: China
Other state participants:Han (before), Jin (after)
Who usually gets the most blame: eunuchs, Cao Cao
Another damn: Chinese dynasty collapsing
The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been . . .
—opening lines of Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Story in One Hundred Words or Less
As the Han dynasty grew more corrupt, peasant revolts unleashed chaos. Warlords carved up the empire among themselves. From this turmoil, three kingdoms gradually emerged:
1. The Kingdom of Wei, led by the devious Cao Cao (pronounced “tsow-tsow”)
2. The Kingdom of Wu, led by the
The Jews would not accept any of this, and they rose up under Simon ben Kosiba, who gained the messianic nickname Bar Kokhba, “Son of the Star.” 2 The rebels were strongest in the countryside, where they built fortified strongholds interlaced with hidden access tunnels. The Romans sent three legions to put down the rebellion. It was a hard campaign, and one of the legions disappears from the history books after this, probably wiped out by the rebels. The war is said to have destroyed fifty strongholds and 985 villages. It was so destructive that we still don’t have the whole story or too many relics, just a few caves discovered in the cliffs near the Dead Sea. These caves housed the last of the rebels, and archaeologists named them after their most distinctive contents: the Cave of Scrolls, the Cave of Arrows, the Cave of Letters (including some written by Bar Kokhba), and the Cave of Horrors (forty skeletons, entire families dead of starvation), among others.
When the fighting was over, most of the Jews in Palestine were killed, exiled, or enslaved, and this time the Romans made certain there would not be a next time. The Romans depopulated much of the territory and restocked it with more cooperative ethnicities. The Jews were exiled from Palestine, and the Diaspora, the scattering of Jews across the globe, began.
Death Toll
Ancient historians claim that as many as 2 million Jews were killed in these and other revolts. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus reported that 1,197,000 people were killed during the siege of Jerusalem in the first revolt, although Tacitus estimated a death toll of half that: 600,000. 3 Cassius Dio 4 reports that a total of 580,000 Jews were killed in battle during the second revolt. Ancient historians report the death toll for other rebellions by Jewish minorities in Cyrene and Cyprus (not included here) as 220,000 and 240,000. 5 These unbelievable claims are usually held up as the perfect example of why not to trust the numbers in ancient histories.
Realistically, maybe one-fifth to one-half of the inhabitants of Palestine died in each of the revolts, but that’s still not a complete answer because no one knows how many people lived there to begin with. Estimates of the pre-revolt population of Palestine run anywhere from 0.5 million to 6 million. Religious historians tend to favor the high numbers, which are based on written sources like the works of Josephus; archaeologists favor the low numbers, which are based on land use and population densities. 6 In any case, a reasonable estimate would be something like 350,000 deaths all told, which would be around one-third if the original population was 1 million, or one-half if it was 700,000, or one-fourth if it was 1.4 million. No matter what anyone says, it’s unlikely that the ancient population of the area came anywhere close to 2 million, which was the number of inhabitants at the time of independence in 1948.
THE THREE KINGDOMS OF CHINA
Death toll: 34 million missing
Rank: 25
Type: failed state
Broad dividing line and Major state participants: Wu vs. Wei vs. Shu
Time frame: 189–280 CE
Location: China
Other state participants:Han (before), Jin (after)
Who usually gets the most blame: eunuchs, Cao Cao
Another damn: Chinese dynasty collapsing
The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been . . .
—opening lines of Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Story in One Hundred Words or Less
As the Han dynasty grew more corrupt, peasant revolts unleashed chaos. Warlords carved up the empire among themselves. From this turmoil, three kingdoms gradually emerged:
1. The Kingdom of Wei, led by the devious Cao Cao (pronounced “tsow-tsow”)
2. The Kingdom of Wu, led by the
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