What did the Zealots do?

The Israeli Zealots (c. A.D. 6 - A.D. 73) were, above all, poverty-stricken insurrectionists that were disgusted at the conditions imposed on Judea by the Roman Empire and their Jewish collaborators, namely the Herodian Dynasty. They are generally classified as “ruffians,” “bandits,” and “undesirables”. Their poverty is reported to have been brought on by the “foreclosure” mechanisms that were imposed upon poor families that could not pay taxes, levies, and loan interest that was imposed upon them by the Roman Empire and their collaborators. Their primary insurrectionist activity was theft. They weren’t particularly educated or riveting in their political or theological oratory; they simply believed that no man should be called “ruler”, but God, and that he alone is worthy of this title. They were against paying taxes to Rome and deeply resented the Romans’ continued occupation of Judea.

The first Jewish-Roman War of A.D. 66–73 was the ultimate rebellion on the part of the Zealots against the Roman Empire. In A.D. 66, Zealots who had been expelled from their native Galilee migrated south to Jerusalem and revolted, causing much political turmoil. The Zealots, along with the Idumeans, and other various ethnic groups were able to gain ground in their movement by virtue of their fierce desire to resist. Eventually, Emperor Vespasian sent his son, Titus, to quell the revolt, and in the summer of A.D. 70, the walls of Jerusalem were breached, the temple was destroyed, and the rebels were disposed of. The end of the Zealots came about in A.D. 73, when Lucilius Bassus, a military Legatus appointed by Emperor Vespasian to “clean up” the remaining insurrectionists in Judea, led the Legio X Fretensis and several thousand Jewish prisoners to Masada, the last rebel stronghold. By the time this stronghold was circumvented, 960 out of 967 of the rebels had committed suicide.