>>17867769
It was a Parthian proxy war.
>The Parthians, terrified after having their capital sacked a decade earlier by Trajan, are more than willing to destabilize the region
>A wealthy Jewish diaspora in Babylonia with a grudge after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and that had just witnessed the Romans steamroll their province able to bankroll and finance such a revolt
>Simon Bar Kokhba is well versed in the scriptures, Jewish law, military and political strategy as well as being backed by the priests and rabbis as a legitimate Davidic Messiah.
>Entire cadre of elite able to coordinate mere peasants to wage war for four years against the Romans and establish a parallel bureaucracy to mint coins and run the country
>Nabatean coin hoards found in rebel caves to pay for the smuggling of goods back and forth between the Syrian Desert
>Analyses of hobnails and heavy spears show metallurgy techniques not used in the Eastern Mediterranean
>Weaponry has an ambiguous form, implying that those who designed it either had no experience from forging Roman weaponry or didn't want to trace its creation back to Mesopotamia
>Cassius Dio even admits that foreign nations were involved in the revolt
There's a reason why Hadrian was so harsh, and it's because Judea acted as a flashpoint for the destruction of Roman authority in the Eastern Mediterranean. That region is the artery between Egypt and Syria, cut that off and you're in for a world of trouble. The war was so bad that he didn't even write the famous greeting:
>Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, "If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health."