Antiquity
Crush and repression under procurator Cumanus
49-50·Jérusalem
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Under the procurator Ventidius Cumanus, Rome maintained a garrison in the Antonia Fortress, which overlooked the Temple esplanade, and reinforced its presence during the pilgrimage festivals, when Jerusalem filled with crowds.
During Pessah, a soldier posted on the portico made an obscene gesture toward the crowd. The pilgrims protested, demanded his punishment, and threw stones; Cumanus ordered the troops forward. Panic drove the crowd toward exits too narrow to contain it, and the crush in the alleyways claimed more lives than the weapons themselves.
The episode opened a decade of continuous tensions — an attack on an imperial convoy, the affair of the Galilean pilgrims murdered in Samaria, the recall of Cumanus — leading directly to the Great Revolt.
- Period :
- Antiquity
- Type :
- Military repression
- Region :
- Land of Israel
- Country :
- Terre d'Israël
Flavius Josèphe, *La Guerre des Juifs* et *Antiquités judaïques*.