Repression of the revolt against Gallus

Galilee had recovered from the Bar Kokhba war and now concentrated the Jewish life of the Land of Israel: Sepphoris — Diocaesarea to the Roman administration — housed the patriarchate and the school where the Mishna was committed to writing, Tiberias its academy and its Sanhedrin.

The revolt broke out against Gallus, Caesar of the East, whose residence was at Antioch. It was crushed by the general Ursicinus. The sources, brief and hostile, agree on the destruction of Sepphoris and on the reprisals carried out at Tiberias and at Lydda.

The episode marks the beginning of the decline of Jewish institutions in Galilee: a few decades later, the patriarchate would be abolished and the calendar fixed once and for all, so that communities could manage without it.