Trajan (Rome)

Trajan, emperor from 98 to 117, carried the Roman Empire to its greatest size: he conquered Dacia, annexed the Nabataean kingdom as the province of Arabia in 106, and from 114 invaded Parthia, taking Ctesiphon and reaching the Persian Gulf. While he was in the East, in 115–117, the Jews of Cyrenaica, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia rose against Rome. Cassius Dio (68.32) and Eusebius (Church History 4.2) describe the fighting: the rebels of Cyrene, led by Lukuas (called Andreas), marched into Egypt, and rabbinic memory recalls the destruction of the great synagogue of Alexandria. Trajan sent Marcius Turbo to crush them, and his Moorish general Lusius Quietus massacred the Jews of Mesopotamia and was then made governor of Judea.

The Jewish name for the uprising, the "war of Kitos", comes from Quietus. The ancient Jewish communities of Egypt and Cyrene were almost wiped out, and Cyprus barred Jews from the island. Trajan died in 117 on his way back to Rome. His successor Hadrian gave up the eastern conquests, and his reign would bring the Bar Kokhba revolt.