Person · 3836–3898 AM · 76 CE — 138 CE
Hadrian
Roman emperor: the Wall, the Pantheon—and the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt
The persecution of his time is the one in which Rabbi Akiva and the Ten Martyrs died, and the one in which Yehudah ben Bava ordained five elders between Usha and Shefaram under a decree by which "whoever ordains shall be killed and whoever is ordained shall be killed". Dio Cassius reports five hundred and eighty thousand dead and nine hundred and eighty-five villages destroyed—a Roman historian's figures, with nothing to check them against.
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Sanhedrin 14a — the decree on ordination and the story of Yehudah ben Bava
Documents of the period
- Dio Cassius, Roman History LXIX — the casualty figures of the Bar Kokhba revolt
Basis: documents and evidence.