Who really led the Bar Kochba revolt? New research sheds light on rebellion’s enigmas

Jewish veterans from the Roman army — and not Shimon Bar Kochba — may have initially led the 2nd-century Jewish rebellion against the Romans commonly known as the “Bar Kochba Revolt.”

The revolt — launched by outraged Jews protesting Emperor Hadrian’s decision to construct a city dedicated to Jupiter on the ruins of Jerusalem — is one of the events connected to the Jewish holiday of Lag B’Omer, observed on May 15-16 this year.

While Jewish leadership is traditionally attributed to Shimon Bar Kochba, Dr. Haggai Olshanetsky, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, postulated in a recent paper that experienced Roman army veterans launched the revolt, and only later, the extremist self-aggrandizing zealot Bar Kochba took up the reins.

This switch could help explain the myriad of historical mysteries that surround the rebellion, said Olshanetsky. Among the lingering enigmas are why historical sources about the Second Jewish Revolt don’t mention any leader, why the revolt was initially successful and then a failure, and what was its geographical scope.

“One of my main areas of research focuses on Jews serving in ancient armies, including the Roman army,” Olshanetsky told Times of Israel over a video call discussing his study, which was published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly in December.

“As I was going through sources about the Roman army, I came upon a passage about how Jews would manufacture weapons for the army and sometimes were able to keep some for themselves, which spurred many questions,” he said.

Olshanetsky was referring to the works of Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 150-235 CE), who wrote an 80-volume account of the history of Rome, including the Second Jewish Revolt, which ended some 15 years before he was born.

“They purposely made of poor quality such weapons as they were called upon to furnish, in order that the Romans might reject them and they themselves might thus have the use of them,” reads a passage about the event (Dio Cass. 69.12).

Olshanetsky explained that most Roman historians tended to portray the empire as always triumphant, and therefore, it is very significant that Cassius acknowledged that Jewish blacksmiths and soldiers were able to smuggle weapons, a hint at what was really happening in the field.

“I feel that, in general, his record is so unique because he tried to say things that he was not allowed to say,” he said. “The Roman Empire censored what happened in Judaea.”

Dio’s account is the only historical source that provides a detailed chronicle of the Bar Kochba Revolt beyond a brief mention. Yet, the name of Bar Kochba (or Bar Koseba as he was referred to in Jewish sources) is not mentioned in his work.

According to the scholar, one of the main enigmas surrounding the Bar Kochba Revolt is the fact that no Roman source material mentions its leader. This is puzzling to Olshanetsky because Roman historians tended to narrate rebellions against the empire through their upstart leaders.

Where was the revolt, and who else led it?

Another riddle that archaeologists and historians have long tried to solve is the geographical extent of the revolt.

“Bar Kochba coins, one of the major sources of knowledge about the times, were only found in a very limited area in Judaea,” Olshanetsky said. “At the same time, tunnels built for the revolt have been uncovered in many other places, and we have documents left by refugees in the Judean Desert suggesting that the rebellion covered a wider part of the land.”

In the Galilee, for example, archaeologists uncovered underground infrastructure dating to the relevant period. Still, no coins and no signs of destruction were identified.

According to the researcher, this shows that the Romans did not conquer the Galileans by force, as they would later with Judaea.

“Some documents found in the Judean Desert list several Jewish settlements which initially participated in the revolt and then withdrew,” Olshanetsky said. “I believe that something happened that caused them to switch sides to the point that the Romans did not even punish them. In my view, these settlements did not accept Bar Koseba’s leadership.”

Bar Kochba’s intransigency could have alienated many of the initial supporters of the revolt, said Olshanetsky.

As a Jewish zealot, Bar Kochba was very unlikely to have previously served in the Roman army, and if he had, Jewish sources would have likely mentioned it, according to Olshanetsky. And even when he is mentioned in Jewish sources, Bar Kochba is described in contradictory terms.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud, the great sage Rabbi Akiva (who was murdered by the Romans shortly after the revolt) believed that the military leader could be the Messiah.

“When Rabbi Akiva saw Bar Koseba he said, this is King Messiah,” reads the text (Taanit 4:5).

Bar Kochba is also described as presenting himself as a Messiah.

A few lines later, however, the same Tractate described the Sages’ negative consideration of Bar Kochba, as he required his men to cut off a finger to prove their loyalty (mutilation is severely prohibited under Jewish law).

“The Sages asked, how long will you turn Israel into defective persons? He told them, how would it be possible to test them?” the text reads.

An alternative narrative through coins

According to Olshanetsky, coin mintage, which required strong territorial control, demonstrates that the beginning of the revolt was very successful.

Likewise, based on the records of troop movements, the scholar said that up to two Roman legions were completely destroyed by the rebels, or between 5,000 and 12,000 troops.

Olshanetsky explained that Bar Kochba Revolt coins began to be minted at the exact moment when the Galileans chose to cease their participation in the revolt, explaining why no revolt coins were found in the Galilee.

The coins minted during the revolt also suggest that Bar Kochba was not the only leader of the rebellion.

Some coins struck in 132 CE do not carry Bar Kochba’s name but rather that of Elazar the Priest, who initially was his ally but was soon killed by Bar Kochba, possibly because he sought an agreement with the Romans.

Three years later, Bar Kochba was killed by the Romans during the siege of Betar, a town that was razed to the ground, bringing the revolt to a brutal end.

During the first part of the revolt, he said, “The Romans had massive casualties.”

“If the revolt had not been successful, it could not have inflicted so much damage to the world’s most equipped, well-trained, and experienced fighting machine.”

Were the first Jewish rebels trained in the Roman army?

For Olshanetsky, the revolt’s early successes point to an initial Jewish leadership of trained fighters.

“For the Jewish leaders of the revolt, having previous experience in the army would have helped. This happened during the Hasmonean revolts when Jews who served in the Seleucid army eventually fought against it,” he said.

The fact that Jews were even permitted to manufacture weapons implied that the empire trusted them, according to Olshanetsky.

Contrary to what popular myths might suggest, he said, serving in the Roman army remained popular among Jews.

“We have evidence that serving in the army was common before the Second Jewish Revolt and even more so in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE,” he said. “Even the Talmud hints at that.”

Among others, the Talmud mentions that 3rd-century Rabbi Eleazar, the son of Lag B’Omer’s hero Shimon Bar Yochai, also served in the Roman forces for a period.

“The army was also a path to receive Roman citizenship, which most Jews in the land of Israel did not have, and therefore improved a family’s social status,” Olshanetsky said.