by
Damien F. Mackey
What a complete mess
is conventional ancient history!
Kingdoms,
dynasties and rulers duplicated, or triplicated.
History and
culture having a “strange afterglow” centuries later.
Impossible “Dark
Ages” procrusteanising time periods by extension.
BC characters and
events mysteriously projected into AD ‘time’.
And, in this case,
the Roman Republic flopping over into its Empire.
Dolly Parton put it well: “It's enough to drive you crazy if
you let it” (9 to 5).
That strange re-duplication, about 60 years later, of the
First Jewish Revolt against Rome was considered in my article:
I Am Barabbas
But it seems that the history books also
‘know’ of a ‘third’ bloody capture of Jerusalem in Roman history – one which is
thought, however, to have preceded the other supposedly two assaults by Rome in
the Neronic and Hadrianic imperial eras. It is considered to have occurred in
Republican times, in 63 BC, when Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey ‘the Great’),
one time ally of Julius Caesar, captured Jerusalem and killed 12,000 Jews.
This is quite a massive event, yet is
often mentioned only in passing. See my:
Strange that it is nowhere referred to in the Bible.
Hence, I suspect that there also needs to be a folding of
some Roman Republican history with early Roman Imperial history. There was, for
example:
- a Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) also at the time of Caligula (see A. Barrett, Caligula – the Corruption of Power, p. 237) about a century after (presumably) the Republican Pompey. And there was then also a
- Marcus Crassus; the same name as the ‘earlier’ Pompey’s fellow consul (see Mackay, p. 135). Moroever, Caligula may have been murdered by a
- Cassius Longinus (Barrett, p. 162); the same name as the chief conspirator against Julius Caesar.All very strange indeed and greatly needing to be explained – but the explanation of which is beyond the scope of this particular article!
No comments:
Post a Comment