The Jewish rebellion of 68 C.E. was not an isolated phenomenon. For the Jews it formed the beginning of a series of insurrections that did not end till the founding of Aelia Capitolina put a visible seal on the futility of all such attempts. To us the outcome seems so inevitable that the heroism of the Zealots has stood for centuries as a striking example of unrestrained fanaticism. To take a modern instance, if the single island of Cyprus were to attempt, by its unaided strength, to cast off the British rule, it would not seem to be engaged in a more completely forlorn enterprise than were the Jews who undertook to defy the power of the legions. And yet those who began and conducted the revolt were neither fools nor madmen, and the hopes that buoyed them must have been very real when they attempted the impossible. We must first of all remember that a foreign suzerainty was not necessarily incompatible with Jewish theocratic ideals. Tradition had accustomed the Jews to Assyrian and Persian dominance, and their most sacred recollections contained ample warrant for those who would bear the rule of Caesar with complete equanimity. But it had been axiomatic that the rule of a foreign master was a divinely imposed penalty, a trial, a test of submission. At some time the period of trials would cease, and the normal condition of complete freedom from outside control under the sway of God would be restored. The Messianic hope made that situation more and more vividly present to the hearts of men. Nor did actual experience of recorded history make this possibility a vain dream. The vicissitudes of fortune, the sudden rise of obscure nations to supremacy, and their quick destruction, were rhetorical commonplaces. The East knew abundant cases of the kind. Empires had risen and crumbled almost within the recollection of living men. That was particularly so after Alexander, when sudden glories and eclipses were too common to be noteworthy. And we must further reckon with the fact that a potent incentive was the living faith in an actual God, who could and did hurl the mighty from their seat. To these men the destruction of Sennacherib or the triumph of Gideon was no legend, but a real event, which might occur in their days as in the days of their fathers. The attempt, accordingly, to secure the independence of a small portion of the empire need not have seemed to the men that undertook it quite as insensate a proceeding as it does to us.