From Unpacked, this is Jewish History Nerds, the podcast where we nerd out on awesome stories in Jewish history. I’m Jonathan Schwab.
Yael: And I’m Yael Steiner, and I’m very excited to learn something new today from you,
Schwab: yeah, we’re gonna talk about something new today, a different way of looking at history than we’ve done before, which I think is really interesting.
Schwab: I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks reading about coins, reading about the specific coins we’re going to talk about today, which is the Roman Judea Capta series coins. But when we talk about coins, I had this great moment in doing all of this research of defamiliarization, like thinking about, you know, coins as objects that I’ve seen many, times in my life and realizing like how interesting they are, and in some ways how strange.
Yael: I should connect you with ⁓ this guy that I connected with on a dating app who got really into coins during COVID. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Schwab: Yeah, like people who are into coins are really, really into coins. And I get it. But yeah, yes, that goes along with similar sorts of thing. But I I see why I because they are it is a really rich, no pun intended.
Yael: and trains.
Schwab: Well, area where there’s a lot you can learn from and think about. But coins are really fascinating. I think before we even get into these coins, just a couple observations in thinking about or talking about coins. It’s very strange that coins
Basically have the same form that they have had for several thousand years like the coins we will talk about today are Remarkably similar to the way that like a coin that’s in your pocket or realistically probably not in your pocket like Appears today, even though these coins are 2,000 years old
Yael: It is fascinating that in terms of the convenience of currency, which, you know, obviously a lot of people now use almost exclusively credit cards or Apple Pay or Venmo, much to my father’s chagrin. He thinks, you know, we should always have a little bit of cash on us, you know, because.
Yeah. But even the little bit of cash that you have is paper money. You’re not carrying around coin. That was the second observation I was going to make in listening to this Numismatist, which is a person who studies coins. I don’t know if that was a word you knew. We can add it to our word list.
Yael: I had a friend in college whose mother is a numismatist.
Schwab: Nice. So this numismatist who is whose lecturer I was listening to pointed out that even though coins have changed very little in several thousand years. We are living in a time where this is probably the end of coins like they’re really becoming collectors items more than something that we actually need to use on a daily basis and projecting not a year or two but several decades into the future, like we’re probably not going to be using coins to…
Yael: You may have noticed that I just turned my head because there is a large gallon sized Ziploc bag full of coins sitting next to me that I have been meaning to bring to a bank or a coin star for about five years, Schwab: Yeah, which like yeah classic, yeah, and that’s that’s what this guy who studies coins for a living That’s what he said I you know If I buy something in cash and get change in coins those coins sit in my pocket until the end of the day when I put them in a Jar or a bag or something, you know or on my desk at home to to eventually probably do nothing with Right, and that’s not how coins used to be used certainly to languish forever.
And I’m certain that given that we are talking about these Judea Capta Coins, that they have not languished untouched, unmentioned or unobserved for eternity.
Schwab: Yeah, right. So, let’s talk about the final, you know, just general observation about coins. And then we can get into our main topic, which is that coins are a really, really valuable historical resource. Like they tell us so much about history. We often talk about texts. We’ve talked about art. We talked about buildings, but we’ve found it’s actually really interesting to me that we’ve never talked really about coins before because they can tell us so much about history. They’re made of metal, generally, so they preserve really well. So we have lots of them. They’re valuable, inherently, most of the time. People aren’t throwing coins in the garbage.
Yael: Mm-hmm. And most of the time, unlike many other things, my understanding is that coins appreciate in value. They either maintain or appreciate their value. Like I’ve never heard of a penny depreciating. It’s still worth one cent to my knowledge, even though I understand it costs more than one cent to mint. ⁓ Totally different topic. But as you said, we have these rare coins that people collect that appreciate tremendously in value.
Schwab: And one of the reasons I think behind that appreciation, there’s the rarity, but there’s also because coins are very deliberately made with a specific agenda. And, we don’t really often think about this, but like there there’s a lot that goes into what goes on a coin. And it tells you a lot about the people making it and what message they were trying to get across.
So, especially in more ancient times, coins were the form of mass media, you know, like in the time period we’re talking about in ancient Rome, right? The central authority ruler can dictate what goes on a coin and exactly that they travel, they change hands, people are gonna have a chance to look at them. And there’s no printing press, there’s no newspaper or broadcast or anything. So like, this is a way to get a message out. Yeah.
Yael: They changed hands, more than anything else, I’m assuming. Interesting that reminds me a little bit of you know these commemorate, know, we don’t see them as much anymore as you said coins are have gone out of vogue, but you know in my youth and certainly prior the minting of a commemorative coin was often something you would see with respect to a historical event even something as I mean, it’s important to me, but maybe not important to everyone, like a Super Bowl victory, a team might issue a commemorative coin and you know, people would order, exactly, or from a TV commercial where you could send check or money order. yeah, coins were a way of announcing that something glorious had happened.
Schwab: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. And they order them from the back of your cereal box. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yes, exactly, coins were a way of announcing that something glorious has happened. The perfect way to now segue into what we’re going to talk about, which is the Roman Judea capta coins, ⁓ which if you couldn’t already figure out from your rudimentary Latin or how similar it sounds to the English words was about commemorating the capture of Judea.
Yael: Interesting. Was this, were these coins minted and circulated in Judea or in Rome or both?
Schwab: Yeah, both. This, it started in Rome and the capture really it’s the recapture of Judea. We’ve touched on this a number of times before, but the Jews were under Roman rule. They were the very short version, right? They revolted. Their revolt was initially somewhat successful. And then it was very harshly put down with extreme Roman force. And the temple was destroyed and like the Romans really, yeah, when it was an all-out war they slaughtered thousands and thousands of people took thousands and thousands of slaves we talked about this in just last week’s episode they they looted the temple took the menorah out celebrated you know that looting and part of that the second temple yeah yeah.
Yael: This was the second temple, just to clarify, yeah. So we’ve never really recovered from this, totally.
Schwab: Yeah, and the capture of Judea and the destruction of the temple is I, I’d say the most consequential event in Jewish history, certainly post-biblically, right? Like, this is like just a complete paradigm shift in what, what Jewish practice is, where the center of Judaism lies, like what, what Jews are, how they see themselves. This is a huge major deal. And the Romans celebrated and commemorated that in addition to the Arch of Titus, like we talked about last week, by, you know, making some commemorative coins on the capture of Judea. ⁓
Yael: And were these coins used as currency or were they just?
Schwab: Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are actual coins, which is a great way, like I said, to spread the message. they change hands a lot and people are gonna see them. And this is the way that, They’re gonna hear about this.
And the preservation also, it’s not that interesting of a story because we’re not talking about discovering like three of them. There are thousands of like, this isn’t one object that we’ve uncovered. Like this was the standard coin, you know? Like I guess the easiest way to think about it is like, remember state quarters? Remember that? when that started, you know, when our parents were children, you know? Like it’s just…
Yael: Okay.
And these have.
Of course!
Hmm.
Schwab: That’s just regular quarters and now they’re going to make them more interesting. that’s what this was. The coins feature like exactly like coins now, which to me is so odd when you think about it. The coins had two sides. One side is called the obverse and that features like the profile of a guy, let’s be honest, a guy, right? Almost almost always in history.
Yael: That’s heads. That’s heads. That’s not tails.
Schwab: Yes, I was gonna say the the word that you’re probably familiar with is heads and tails, but the fancy terms are obverse and reverse.
Yael: Obverse. Okay.
Schwab: You know, but we could call them heads and tails. So the head is Vespasian in profile. And the reason that we do profiles on coins is I think it’s it’s much easier to make a flat representation of a person’s head that way rather than facing forward. And then the tail side, and again, because there was a whole bunch of different versions of this, not like one coin, but would have something like the words Judea, Capta would have either the depiction of victory, which is like a specific, like woman in a Roman toga, I think with wings, you know, or a Roman soldier and a palm tree and often a, a another woman who’s supposed to be a Judean woman weeping under the palm tree like just a clear symbology there of just like what it looks like when Romans conquer Judea.
And now I think the, like, the big scholarly question about it is sort of just like, why? Why was Rome making, why was this the thing that they would put on coins, the capture of Judea. Why was that important?
You know, so we’ve talked about this revolt and I think like to us it’s clear why this was an incredibly consequential event in Jewish history, right?
Yael: Right, but they had a whole empire. It’s important to us because it’s the end for us. But they’ve got a whole world to conquer.
Schwab: Yeah, exactly. There’s a whole Roman Empire and Israel or Judea is a tiny little corner of it, right? And this isn’t even a new territory that they conquered. This is a tiny little corner of it, right, that has a revolt. There’s like a relatively short war of a few years and the revolt is put down. That’s the thing you’re gonna make coins about? It seems a little strange.
So the Roman background leading up here, that might be a little familiar to you just because again, this has come up a few times, Vespasian is called after this revolt starts out somewhat favoring the Jews.
Schwab: Vespasian, this very serious military general, is called in to like, you know, take this seriously. Like, let’s get real about this Jewish revolt, put it down. And he has real military experience. He’s called in by the Emperor Nero. Vespasian conquered Britain. Like, he was the Roman general who led the invasion of the British Isles, which I would say, like, that seems like a bigger deal.
But he gets called in to do this. And in addition to his military expertise, another reason that Nero appoints him to the head of this, to take care of the Jewish revolt, is Vespasian is so not a threat at all. No one thinks Vespasian is going to be any sort of future important Roman politician in any way. Except, as you might recall, friend of the show, Josephus, who records that he has this prophecy that Vespasian is the future Caesar.
Yael: I forgot about that. Okay.
Schwab: Yeah.
Right. That’s in the context of Vespasian defeating Josephus in battle in the Galilee. Right. But Vespasian puts down this revolt. The emperor of Rome Nero dies. And then there’s like a ton of tumult in Rome. It’s called the year of the four emperors. There’s just like
Yael: Understood. Okay.
Schwab (25:50)
Emperor after emperor, this person takes over, this person takes over. I think Nero either didn’t have any heirs or like it wasn’t clear who the next person would be. So it’s, it’s up for grabs. Like who can be the next emperor? And Vespasian, who’s loved by his troops, goes back to Rome and calls himself emperor. Like takes some of his troops with him, leaves his son Titus in charge of the Judean campaign, goes back to Rome, calls himself emperor and becomes emperor that way. But because he, where is he coming from? What’s his claim to this title in any way? He’s got to find a way to assert that. he has a, I don’t know, he either thought of this on his own or he had just like an excellent first century media strategist working for him. He like, we gotta come up with, like a propaganda campaign to show people why you’re a great emperor of Rome. Totally makes sense for you.
Yael: Interesting.
Yael: Got it. He wants to publish a stele.
Schwab: Exactly, yeah, it’s exactly like the Merneptah Stele. What is his claim to fame? What has he done? How is he representing the glory of Rome? And he captured Judea. And it’s captured, not recaptured, which is a deliberate choice, you know, to kind of like frame this as like, wow, he conquered this new territory that again already belonged to them.
Yael: Great spin. It’s great spin.
Schwab: Yeah, it is, it is great spin. And he’s also trying to, I don’t know necessarily how much people were aware of it, but like he’s trying to also cast himself as another version of a previous emperor, Augustus from a hundred years prior, who had captured Egypt for the first time legitimately, you know, and he did this, Egypta, Capta, coin series, and he did a whole, there was a whole Roman thing. You’re allowed to have a triumph, which is like a specific type of parade, but it’s only allowed when you conquer new territory. So they like find some very strange justifications for how they’re going to have a triumph for the capture of Judea. Even though like, again, cannot emphasize this enough, they already had it.
Yael: So what did they put on these coins in order to articulate to the world that they had captured Judea?
Schwab: Yeah, yeah. So front of the coin, obverse, the head side is Vespasian’s head, right? And that’s like, he’s the emperor. And then the backside, the reverse, is this, again, either a Roman soldier, which is like emphasizing Roman military power, or the symbol of victory itself, right? Like emphasizing the victory.
Yael: Okay.
Schwab: This weeping Judean woman, right, like showing how like Romans can like put down any enemy.And the palm tree, which I just, there’s a really interesting article. We’ll put it in the show notes of just, like sort of this scholarly question of was the palm tree a symbol of Judea or was the palm tree a symbol of Rome? know, like which, is it a symbol of Roman power or is a symbol of Rome having power over this thing?
Yael: Well, I guess if it’s a symbol of Judea, then it’s clear to me why it’s chosen and how it announces to the people that we captured Judea. If it’s a symbol of Rome, I’m not sure how it does that, but far be it for me to weigh in on this because I’m learning about it now for the first time.
But the weeping Judean woman, how do we know that she is a Judean woman and not just any overly emotional hysterical female?
Schwab: Mm-hmm. That’s a good question. Well, it says Judea capta on it. Yeah, the same way that you would see, like in God, we trust it. It says the words Judea capta. If you were envisioning it’s like, yeah, this is like a symbol. And what’s it supposed to mean? Like, no, in big letters, Judea capta.
Yael: Probably something else that someone’s going to complain about. It says the words?
That is helpful. I was just envisioning this as we see a crying woman and we’re supposed to know.
Got it. Okay, that is really helpful.
Schwab: And in a way that would be mostly readable to us, except this is a real niche history nerds point, except that there’s no J for Judea, as you might recall from the source of all historical knowledge. I believe in Indiana Jones movie. There’s no J. Right. think it’s Indiana Jones.
Yael: Okay, I thought you were gonna say Dr. John Monson, but that would have been my second guess.
Schwab: Right, has to like step on certain tile. This is, I haven’t seen it in a long time, but he has to step on certain tiles to spell out God’s name, but there’s no J in Latin. It’s an I. I don’t know. I could be wrong. I could be thinking of a different movie, but it’s, Judea is spelled with an I at the beginning, because there’s no J in Latin.
Yael: Right. That makes sense.
Schwab: So yeah, it’s, very clear. It’s like we, you know, yeah, it’s not like, maybe this woman is a Jew. It’s we, we beat the Jews coin.
Yeah. Let’s take a break here and then we will come back and talk more about Roman propaganda and why this was so important to Rome.
BREAK
Schwab: During the break, I looked it up. I was exactly right with the Indiana Jones reference and the eye. You can go rewatch Indiana Jones and the search for the Holy Grail.
Yael: Sure. Never need an excuse. I am gonna just to be obnoxious little human say I think you’re referring to Raiders of the Lost Ark because I don’t think it’s actually called Indiana Jones and the search for the Holy Grail. The Last Crusade.
Schwab: No, the third one, what’s the third one called? The Last Crusade, okay, I’m so sorry, you’re right. Okay, so right, so like we were saying before, this obviously, the Roman
capture, recapture of Judea, the destruction of the temple. This is a hugely consequential event in Jewish history. But like, was it in Roman history? Like what, like what, why is this an occasion for making coins? Why was this the thing that Vespasian made a parade about? Yael (02:39)
The only thing I could think of, and it seems totally anachronistic to Roman times, is something we talk a lot about today is, if the Jews do it, then it’s a big deal. Or if it involves the Jews, it’s a big deal. I am not minimizing or maximizing any Jewish action or Israeli political activity or whatever it is, but it seems like anything that the Jews do engenders more outcry, more news, more study than anybody else, but that seems very contemporary to me.
Schwab: Yes. So that’s exactly, the direction I wanted to go of just, why? Why do you care about us so much? Why are we so important to you? scholars are kind of divided on this.
Yael: Like we just wanna be.
Schwab: Of just like, it like we were saying, like, there is this focus on the Jews who made up, you know, like they do, like a very small percentage of the population of the Roman Empire, but loomed disproportionately large for whatever reason, right? Like, reminds me a little bit of like, the Purim story. And Haman is like so bothered that Jews are so different than other people in the Persian Empire. There are so many people in the Persian Empire, but just like, they stick out. They refuse to go along with the flow of what everyone else is doing. They seem like they continue to practice their own customs. They’re not really getting on board with the monoculture program. And therefore, there’s something that really bothers people about them. So yeah, right? And like that, it definitely mixed up in scholars who see it that way.
Yael: Right. They stick in your craw.
Schwab: It’s not the main topic of what we’re talking about here, but I feel like you can’t talk about the Roman revolt and how large it has loomed in history without talking about the fact that the Romans executed, you might have heard of this story, the Romans executed a Jew, in addition to many other Jews, who turned out to later be of some historical importance.
Yael: Right and maybe started a major world religion.
Schwab:
Right. But like scholars are really divided on this. Like, was this a major movement at the time or or was it relatively minor at the time and came to be major later? Like what were they executing lots and lots of people? And and Jesus was one of them. That’s who we’re talking about, by the way, But, you know, or or was it like he did represent something incredibly like countercultural and really disturbing?
Yael: Right. Right.
Schwab: To the Romans. So, so yeah.
My basic understanding is that from a Christian perspective, it doesn’t really matter if it was the Jews who killed Jesus or the Romans who killed Jesus. There are other elements of what happens during that few day period that are much more important to the underpinnings of Christian theology So if it doesn’t matter to the Christians, Why does it matter so much to the Romans?
Schwab: Right. So why does it? Yeah. I think it’s like the questions are kind of connected because I think there is maybe a like a branch of thought within within Christians of saying like, hey, the capture of Judea was a big deal because the Romans did recognize something was going on there of of some importance, you know.
Yael: Mm-hmm.
Schwab: But yeah, so there are two. I want to present the other side because we’ve been presenting this this, you know, one side of just like it was important because the Jews represented something different. The revolt was important. It wasn’t a tax based revolt. wasn’t just about independence. It was about religious freedom. You know, maybe there’s like shades of the Maccabean revolt here. It’s a rejection of, of like it’s not Hellenism anymore, but there’s a rejection of Roman culture. The other side of looking at it is just like it was just really bad timing.
Vespasian needed to make a name for himself. He needed to to like really cement his role as emperor. So he put down this revolt very harshly, had Titus put down the revolt very harshly, burn down the temple, which Josephus says happened by accident, like huge asterisk there of like, I don’t think we trust Josephus as a historically accurate source there, given that, you know, like, side note, Vespasian and Titus are the Flavian dynasty. And like you can remember from our Josephus episode, that’s what he changes his name to. Like he is, he’s Josephus Flavius. He’s like in that, in that dynasty, right? He’s part of that court. Schwab (09:54)
So he’s extremely beholden to them. But yeah, so that the Jewish revolt was just like, man, it was really bad timing because Vespasian was like looking to capitalize on some. And I think without getting too political, I think the like, a comparison that can be drawn here is like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003, for those who remember the feeling at the time, but we want to emphasize American power. We want to show that we are strong. We want to show our military might, you know, aPresident Bush mission accomplished thing like standing under the mission accomplished banner because they defeated you know Iraq is like the Judea captive thing reminded me a lot of that like ⁓ okay like what what was what mission did you did we accomplish here like, recaptured a province that was in revolt, but it’s a way for him, don’t know, for Vespasian to stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, mission accomplished, so that he can be seen as the Roman emperor who’s getting stuff done and bringing glory back to Rome.
Yael: It’s imagery. this was the mass media of the time. This was the 24 hour cable news cycle of President Bush on an aircraft carrier being paraded in front of the world. You know, these coins, changing hands and making their way across trade routes from one merchant to another, from one family to another, everyone being reminded this is what Vespation did and accomplished.
Schwab: Exactly, he’s the conqueror of Judea. And like, let’s gloss over the fact that, again, it had already been conquered. Like this is not new.
Yael: But again, if that had not been amplified on another series of coins, then maybe people don’t really know and they don’t remember. And it’s like everything today. Everything is a clip. And what you see in that moment is what you absorb what you know what you take with you and if this is what’s being put on the coin this is what’s what people are going to remember it doesn’t matter if it was the first capture or the second capture it was a capture
Schwab: Exactly.
Right. Like people associate Vespasian, of this archetypical Judean woman under the palm tree, whatever it is that that means. And this thinking about these like two different ways of looking at it, like why, why was this important to Rome? Why was there a parade about this? Why were there coins about it? It’s not really a historical question, but kind of an emotional one. as a Jew in the 21st century, which
I felt conflicted about, which one of these do I wish was the right answer? You know? Like, is it that like the Jews are important and therefore get a lot of negative attention, like kind of no matter what? Or they were just, like, it was very unfortunate timing, you know? And like, they don’t really loom as large.
Schwab: But before we end I want to tell the like the last part of this story, which I think is so interesting and connects Yeah Yes, and connects to an idea we’ve touched on a couple times this season of This jewish notion of taking symbol as we’ve talked about symbols as we talked about objects taking these symbols that are symbols of oppression and turning them into symbols of of pride of power of
Yael: I’m so excited just based on the look on your face.
Mm-hmm.
Schwab: Like of being the masters of our own destiny in some way. So fast forward several, many centuries, the state of Israel is founded. And in 1958, on the 10 year anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, Israel issues these commemorative coins called the Israel Liberata series. And on one side of the coin, yeah, and so,
Yael: Damn.
Schwab: I really encourage listeners look at the show notes, click on the links for what these Judea Capta coins look at. And then please look at the pictures of these Israel Leporada coins, because hearing this story and seeing those coins and then seeing these new ones like, wow, like fits into this idea of like, what story are we telling? What message are we spreading? But it’s a really, really good one.
So the Israel Liberata coins which say Israel Liberata in in English something herut Israel like in Hebrew ⁓ on one side is ⁓ a perfect facsimile of the Judea Capta coin with sort of just like this chain motif going around it like it’s it is you know showing the Judea Capta coin and then you know with a Roman soldier palm tree in the middle. Weeping woman on one side and then on the other side, same palm tree in the middle, a woman holding up a baby, like not in a threatening way, like in a very proud, like a mother with a baby child and like a very archetypal, like Israeli kibbutz settler with the like old style kibbutz hat planting a tree in the soil. And it’s like, how do we take this exact, like how do we turn this symbol of Judea being captured, Judea being destroyed into this like re-flowering of it, this reclamation of Jewish identity.
Like, it’s 1,900 years later, you know, but like, we are now free, and we’re going to, it’s like, we’re breaking the chains of bondage. We’re, like, showing the exact reverse, you know, of this image.
Yael: Or just, this is numismatic revenge. don’t, right.
Schwab: Literally the reverse because it’s the reverse side of the coin, but not the obverse. Yeah
Yael: Not the obverse. The obverse is the Israel liberata.
I’m not sure which is the obverse and which is the reverse actually that’s why you got to put a face on one side
It’s a, the word liberata is a, you know, it’s a real poke at people who have been dead for thousands of years, but
Schwab: Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Right, at Titus, who’s not around to see it. Yeah, but that’s it reminds me a lot of what we talked about, you know, the menorah and like sort of just like a real emphasis on like the, you know, changing this symbol in the arch of Titus and like Titus is not around to see, you know, like this is only important to us.
Yael: Right. And I think that this is me really putting political aspirations aside. this is our re-reclamation, our retaking of the notion of autonomy. We lost our autonomy to the Romans. We literally had to use currency that said Judea Capti on it. And now we have the opportunity.
Yael: To take that back. And it’s like what you said, it’s the Maghain David, it’s the menorah, it’s using the Arch of Titus menorah as our seal, as opposed to the temple menorah. It’s taking the yellow star and turning it into the centerpiece of our flag. It really is.
Schwab: Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, those are all the parallels I was thinking of, like as we think through this season.
I now understand your excitement about getting to this point in the episode because I think for me, it sheds so much light on why this is important.