The situation in Judea remains tense for…

The Jewish revolt, having spread from the mainland cities to Cyprus, badly damages the city of Salamis.

The rebels slaughter all non-Jews (two hundred and forty thousand are said to have been killed) and sack the city, but the Romans finally suppress the revolt, killing every one of the thousands of Jews on the island. (From this time forward, the Romans will never allow Jews to land on the island. Even if a Jew was shipwrecked, he will be killed on site.)

Although Salamis had ceased to be the capital of Cyprus from the Hellenistic period onward when it was replaced by Paphos, its wealth and importance have not diminished.

The city is particularly favored by the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian, who restore and establish its public buildings.

Trajan marches from Armenia to Mesopotamia following his successful Roman military campaign against Parthia in present-day Iraq, and in 116 establishes  the new Roman province of Assyria, one of three provinces (with Armenia and Mesopotamia) he has created.

Coins are issued announcing that Armenia and Mesopotamia have been put under the authority of the Roman people.

Despite Rome's military victory, Trajan's new province is plagued with difficulties from the start.

A Parthian prince named Sanatruces, the son of Mithridates IV (mentioned as an ephemeral Parthian king in CE 115 by sixth-century writer John Malalas, in his Chronographia), organizes an armed revolt by the natives in the new Roman provinces.

Roman garrisons in Assyria and Mesopotamia are driven from their posts, and a Roman general is killed as his army tries unsuccessfully to stop the rebellion.

While many sources cite the creation of a province named Assyria during Trajan's Parthian campaign, some disagreement exists regarding its exact location.

Theodore Mommsen wrote that it was located north of the Roman Mesopotamia province, stretching into western Persia (in an area called Media Atropatene) in present northwestern Iran, but some modern scholars argue that the Assyria Provincia was located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in present-day central Iraq, a location that is corroborated by the text of the fourth-century Roman historian Festus.

However, other sources contend that the province was located near Armenia and east of the Tigris, in a region formerly known as Adiabene, which had long before been a Neo-Assyrian kingdom.

In early 116, however, Trajan began to toy with the conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia, an overambitious goal that will eventually backfire on the results of his entire campaign: One Roman division crosses the Tigris into Adiabene, sweeping south and capturing the fortress of Adenystrae (location most uncertain), the principle stronghold of Adiabene’s ruler Mebarsapes, forcing Mebarsapes to flee; …

…a second follows the river south, capturing Babylon; while …

…Trajan himself sails down the Euphrates, then drags his fleet overland into the Tigris, capturing Seleucia and finally, the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon.

Trajan continues southward to the Persian Gulf, receiving the submission of Athambelus, the ruler of Charax, whence he declares Babylon a new province of the Empire, sends the Senate a laureled letter declaring the war to be at a close and bemoaning that he is too old to go on any further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great.

A province of Assyria is also proclaimed, apparently covering the territory of Adiabene, as well as some measures seem to have been considered about the fiscal administration of the Indian trade.

However, as Trajan leaves the Persian Gulf for Babylon—where he intends to offer sacrifice to Alexander in the house where he had died in 323 BCE—a sudden outburst of Parthian resistance, led by a nephew of the Parthian king, Sanatruces, imperils Roman positions in Mesopotamia and Armenia, something Trajan seeks to deal with by forsaking direct Roman rule in Parthia proper, at least partially.

The emperor, after defeating a Parthian army in a battle where Sanatruces is killed and retaking Seleucia in 116, formally deposes the Parthian king Osroes I later in the year.

Parthamaspates, a pro-Roman son of Osroes who has spent much of his life in Roman exile, has accompanied Trajan on the latter's campaign to conquer Parthia.

Trajan had originally planned to annex Parthia as part of the Roman Empire, but ultimately decides instead to place Parthamaspates on his father's throne as a Roman client, doing so in 116.

That done, he retreats north in order to retain what he can of the new provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia.

It is at this point that Trajan's health starts to fail him.

The fortress city of Hatra, on the Tigris in his rear, continues to hold out against repeated Roman assaults.

He is personally present at the siege and it is possible that he suffered a heat stroke while in the blazing heat.

Shortly afterwards, the Jews inside the Roman Empire rise up in rebellion once more, as do the people of Mesopotamia.

Trajan is forced to withdraw his army in order to put down the revolts.

Trajan sees it as simply a temporary setback, but he is destined never to command an army in the field again, turning his Eastern armies over to the high ranking legate and governor of Judaea, Lucius Quietus, who in early 116 had been in charge of the Roman division that had recovered Nisibis and Edessa from the rebels.

Trajan reconquers Nisibis (Nusaybin in Turkey), …

…Edessa, the capital of Osroene, a small Roman client state between Asia Minor and Syria, …

…Seleucia on the Tigris (Iraq), each of which houses large Jewish communities.

The anti-Roman upheavals spread from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia, where the Jewish communities contribute to the anti-Roman uprising in 116.