Of the numerous Syrian communities the Jewish was the least responsive to Romanizing stimuli. The aristocracy was already Hellenized. The Sadducees, who represented the aristocratic party and monopolized the offices, received sup- port from Rome. The Pharisees, who represented the commonalty, adhered to strict orthodoxy and aimed at liberation. Because of the strict monotheism of their religion the Jews had been treated since Pompey's days as a privileged community. Under the emperors they were exempt from military service and the obligation of the imperial cult. They were not required to participate in the sacrificial worship of the Roman ruler. As they maintained their policy of exclusiveness and isolationism, they nourished their national feeling. This led to clashes which broadened into national rebellion in A.D. 66-70 under Nero and in 132-134 under Hadrian. These two rebellions resulted in the final breach between Jews and Christians and in endur- ing disaster to the Jewish society. It was after the first that Titus destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. More than a million Jews are estimated to have perished then, many of them in the amphitheatre battling one another or wild beasts. Judaea as a political state ceased to exist, and the Jews became a stateless, homeless people. Judaism decayed with its adherents, as its narrow national basis and certain features of its ritual rendered it unacceptable to other peoples. One last spark of life appeared in 132, when the Jewish banner of revolt was unfurled by a mysterious leader, Simon Bar Kokba. But Hadrian crushed the rebel- lion and turned Jerusalem into a Roman colony called Aelia Capitolina. More than half a million more Jews reportedly died in this futile uprising.
Syrian influence at Rome penetrated to the throne when the purple fell to Septimius Severus (A.D. 193-211), a Punic-speaking African general whose wife was a remarkable Syrian lady named Julia Domna, daughter of a priest of Elagabal at Horns. She is described as having great beauty,
