Tacitus, Plutarch and Pliny the Elder describe…

The first imperial university in Chinese history has its foundation in a Confucian school at the capital Luoyang built by Emperor Ming  in 66 for the children of high officials and marquesses.

The children of South Xiongnu nobles also attend.

There has been a long tradition of hostility between the large Hellenized populations of Palestine and the Jews (also a problem in the Diaspora, most notably at Alexandria during the reign of Caligula).

Gessius Florus, the Roman procurator of Judaea, upon taking office in Caesarea in 64 had begun a practice of favoring the local Greek population of the city over the Jewish population.

The Greeks, noticing Florus' policies, have taken advantage of the circumstances to denigrate their Jewish neighbors.

One notable instance of provocation occurs while the Jews are worshiping at their local synagogue and a Hellenist sacrifices several birds on top of an earthenware container at the entrance of the synagogue, an act that renders the building ritually unclean.

In response to this action, the Jews send a group of men to petition Florus for redress.

Florus, despite accepting a payment of eight talents to hear the case, refuses to listen to the complaints and instead has the petitioners imprisoned.

The son of the Kohen Gadol (high priest) Eliezar ben Hanania, in reaction, ceases prayers and sacrifices for the Roman Emperor at the Temple.

Protests over taxation join the list of grievances and random attacks on Roman citizens and perceived 'traitors' occur in Jerusalem.

Joseph returns to Jerusalem on the eve of a general revolt against Roman rule.

Florus further angers the Jewish population of his province by having seventeen talents removed from the treasury of the Temple in Jerusalem, claiming the money is for the Emperor.

In response to this action, the city falls into unrest and some of the Jewish population begins to openly mock Florus by passing a basket around to collect money as if Florus were poor.

Florus reacts to the unrest by sending soldiers into Jerusalem the next day to raid the city and arrest a number of the city leaders.

The arrested individuals are whipped and crucified despite many of them being Roman citizens.

The pro-Roman king Agrippa II has expended large sums in beautifying Jerusalem and other cities, especially Berytus.

His partiality for the latter has rendered him unpopular among his own subjects, and the capricious manner in which he has appointed and deposed the high priests make him disliked by the Jews.

Agrippa fails to prevent his subjects from rebelling, and urges instead that they tolerate the behavior of the Florus.

But in 66 the Jews expels him and his sister Berenice, who, fearing the worst, flee to Galilee.

Urged on by the fanatical Zealots, the Jews oust Florus and set up a revolutionary government in Jerusalem that extends its influence throughout the whole country.

Along with many others of the priestly class, Joseph counsels compromise but is drawn reluctantly into the rebellion.

Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, brings a legion, the XII Fulminata, and auxiliary troops as reinforcements to restore order.

All available troops in autumn 66 are mustered, formed into a column and sent to confront the rebellion’s perceived center.

Ideally, such a show of force would have allowed the Romans to regain the initiative and prevent the rebellion from developing and growing stronger.

Gallus conquers Bezetha, in the Jezreel Valley, soon to be the seat of the Great Sanhedrin (Jewish supreme religious court), but is unable to take The Temple Mount.

The Roman forces invest Jerusalem, then for uncertain reasons, withdraw back towards the coast, closely pursued by rebel scouts.

The organization of the Jews is better than it had been previously.

As the Romans near the pass of Beth Horon, they are ambushed and come under attack from massed missile fire, and are then suddenly rushed by a large force of infantry, twenty-four hundred Zealots led by Eleazar ben Simon.

The Romans cannot get into formation within the narrow confines of the pass and lose cohesion under the fierce assault.

The equivalent of an entire legion is destroyed.

Gallus succeeds in escaping with a fraction of his troops to Antioch by sacrificing the greater part of his army and a large amount of war material.

After the massacre, the Jewish Zealots go through the Roman dead, stripping them of their armor, helmets, equipment, and weapons.

Eleazar, returning to Jerusalem with substantial loot, will use the wealth acquired in this decisive victory as political leverage during the battle for power in Jerusalem in 67-69.

The battle of Beth-Horon is one of the worst defeats suffered by regular Roman troops against a rebelling province in history, encouraging many more volunteers and towns to throw their lot in with the rebels.

A full-scale war is now inevitable.

The rebel government in Jerusalem assigns command of both Galilee and the Golan to Yosef Ben Matityahu (the future Josephus) who (if his own untrustworthy account may be believed), is obstructed in his efforts at conciliation by the enmity of the local partisans led by John of Giscala.

Though realizing the futility of armed resistance, he nevertheless sets about fortifying nineteen of the most important towns of the north against the forthcoming Roman juggernaut.

The mountaintop fortress of Masada occupies the entire top of an isolated mesa near the southwest coast of the Dead Sea, First fortified either by Jonathan Maccabeus or by Alexander Jannaeus, both of the Hasmonean dynasty, the site was chiefly developed between 37 and 31 BCE by Herod the great, as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt.

After Herod's death, the Romans occupied Masada, but a group of Jewish extremists, the Sicarii, overcomes the Roman garrison of Masada in 66.

The steep slopes of the mountain make Masada a virtually unassailable fortress.

Simon bar Giora, who had first become notable when Roman troops marched towards Jerusalem in 66, had helped in defeating the advance by attacking from the north.

He had put the hindmost of the army into disorder, and had carried off many of the beasts that carried the weapons of war, leading them into the city.

However, he had been rejected for a command position by the Jerusalem authorities, for they did not want a popular leader of a rebellious peasantry if they were to moderate the revolt and negotiate with the Romans.

As a result, Simon has gathered a large number of revolutionaries and starts robbing houses of wealthy people in the district of Acrabbene in Samaria.

Nero, the fifth Roman emperor, undertakes a long visit to Greece at the end of the year 66 that is to keep him away from Rome for fifteen months, and during his absence he entrusts the consulate to one of his freedmen.

On this trip, Nero engages in new displays of his artistic prowess, and he walks about garbed as an ascetic, barefoot and with flowing hair.

His enthusiasm for Greek culture also prompts him to free a number of Greek cities in honor of their glorious past.

Vespasian, on returning from Africa, tours Greece in Nero's retinue, but loses Imperial favor after paying insufficient attention (some sources suggest he fell asleep) during one of the Emperor's recitals on the lyre, and finds himself in the political wilderness.

Emperor Ming is known for his generosity and affection for his brothers early in his reign.

This, however, apparently has caused some of them to engage in behavior that is considered taboo at the time and, ironically, causes them to be severely punished by Emperor Ming, leading also to two major mass executions that blot Emperor Ming's record.

The first of these incidents occurs in 66-67 and is relatively bloodless.

The ambitious Prince Jing of Guanglin wants to be emperor, and plots with people under him to rebel.

When he is informed upon, he confesses, and Emperor Ming initially spares him and permits him to remain the Prince of Guanglin but strips from him his political powers.

However, Prince Jing later hires warlocks to curse Emperor Ming.

After this is discovered, Emperor Ming initially takes no action, but in 67 forces Prince Jing to commit suicide.

Emperor Nero had promoted an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile River between 62 and 67, According to Pliny the Elder and Seneca,

Nero's expedition up the Nile, the first exploration of equatorial Africa from Europe in history, fails because water plants had clogged the river, denying Nero's vessels access to the Sudd of Nubia, a vast swamp formed by the White Nile in present South Sudan.

The shock of the defeat at the Battle of Beth-Horon has persuaded the Romans of the need to fully commit to crushing the rebellion regardless of the effort it will require.

Soon after his return, Gallus had died and been succeeded in the governorship of Syria by Licinius Mucianus.

Mucianus, who had been sent by Claudius to Armenia with Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, is recorded around 65 as suffect consul under Nero.

After he, too, fails to put down the Jewish revolt, Nero and the senate, greatly annoyed by the revolt and Gallus’ loss of six thousand men, gives Titus Flavius Sabina Vespasianus (Vespasian), who has held many political and military offices, the command against the rebels.

Vespasian lands at Ptolemais in April 67 with two legions, with eight cavalry squadrons and ten auxiliary cohorts.

Here he is joined by his elder son Titus, who arrives from Alexandria at the head of Legio XV Apollinaris, as well as by the armies of various local allies including that of king Agrippa II.