plausibility check: A Jewish Roman Emperor?

Titus_Pullo

Banned
Plausible? Most Roman emperors after the Flavians (with the exception of Nerva and several others) have been non-Italians and none Europeans. The Severii were Libyans more or less, who added their own native gods to the Roman pantheon and their own unique style of oriental despotism to the principate. The so-called "barrack room" emperors of the 3rd century military anarchy were a motly assortment of Arab (Philip I) Thracian (Maximus Thrax) Dalmatian (Diocletian) and so on.

Could there have been a time in the period of the 3rd century for a Jew (or a Christian) from Palestine to become emperor? How would it be possible? I've heard that Philip The Arab had been a closet Christian.
 
I really doubt it, the Jews wherent a very large group in the military and most of those emperors had a military background of some kind and under the Byzantines everything was too Christianized for a Jewish emperor to take the throne (unless you wouldnt mind ethnically Jewish who converted).
 
It could be possible, but it would be very unlikely. The only major way for a Palestinian to gain the title would be through warfare or rebellion, and those rarely went well for the Jews.

As for Phillip being a Christian, that's likely not true. He was certainly tolerant towards them, but most of the accounts of him being a Christian are only given by later Christian writers, not contemporary pagans.
 
I think it would depend on what you mean by "Jew". If you are talking about an observannt member of the Jewish community, descended from a Jewish mother and raised in an observant family, the chances are virtually nil. Not only were there very few such Jews in the Roman military and none in the Senate, the prejudice against them was strong. But someone who takes an interest, a "God-fearer", a Roman who worships the Jewish god and, coming e.g. from Neoplatonism, finds an intellectualised version of Judaism in the style of Philo or Josephus attractive, could conceivably ascend to the purple. The question is, would he be Jewish enough to meet your definition of Jew?

Kind of like the question: do Jews eat pork? I know Jews who do, but they are, by the definition of other Jews, not Jews. :confused:
 
Make a PoD sometime before the 1st century Jewish rebellions that makes the Jews not see the Romans as the enemy to be puhed into the sea. As time goes on, the Jews come to see themselves as both Jews and Romans, and their participation in the military goes up. By the 3rd century you have a fair number of Jewish officers in the Roman army, and one of them becomes a general and uses the forces under his command to take the throne. Just prevent the Jews from seeing themselves as enslaved by the empire, and make them feel like a part of the empire instead.
 
There was a significant population of jews in rome, including converts. Some of the converts were even of fairly high social status. So trying to get a palestinian emperor isnt necessary.

However the points others raised about the barriers to a military career, let alone the kind of career that would position one for a shot at the purple, are high.

Early christians, almost until constantine felt army service was incompatible with their faith.

Your best bet, actually, is constantines route. Get someone with a convert mom, who goes into the army and rises to the purple. And THEN converts. In this circumstance, either judaism or christianity would work.


Oh, and lets not forget that heliogabulus made it to the purple with his own wacko version of a not exactly abrahamic semitic religion.
 
This may not be the exact scenario you're looking for, but if the Empire were to tear itself apart from 69 CE, otherwise called the Year of the Four Emperors, and either Vespasian or both him and his son Titus get killed, and various claimants to the Purple start to appear, and in the protracted confusion, various provincial governors start to act independently, this might lead to a long-term division of the Empire.

And in this scenario, if the division in the empire would continue for about a decade, maybe one of the nobles among the Hellenized Jewish communities from either Alexandria or in Syria, one also with Roman Citizenship and a commission in the Roman Army, could with the support of some fellow officers, their cohorts, and the local civilian authorities, could seize control of one of the eastern provinces in either Egypt or Syria, and annex adjacent provinces like Judea, gain the support of the priesthood.

This could be the closest you may get to a Jewish Roman Emperor. Except that he would likely only control a fraction of the whole Empire anyway.
 

Abhakhazia

Banned
This question is kind of like "Can You Have A Black President of the CSA?"

Possibly, yes but the odds are so stacked up against it it's incredible unlikely.

For the first two centuries of the Empire, the Jews were in almost constant revolt, and often times Jews weren't in the Army, for simply that reason, they were largely fighting it. So when the Crisis of the Third Century comes around, there are barely any Jews in military positions, so when becoming Emperor was basically knocking the next guy out of power with your legion, the Jews were particularly disadvantaged here.

Now, the Byzantinophiles can tell you about the Eastern Roman Empire, but what I'm saying that during the united Roman Empire ruled from Rome, having a Jew as Emperor is very unlikely.
 
Perhaps someone like Tiberius Julius Alexander, a nephew of Philo and the son of Alexander the Alabarch of Alexandria, and a one-time Prefect of Egypt, who also served in the First Jewish-Roman War and during the Siege of Jerusalem. Either him, or maybe his son, during a much longer breakdown of central authority in the Roman Empire, could possess enough influence among upper-class Jews and local Roman and Greek officials to pull it off. Especially if the siege of Jerusalem could be averted with the early deaths of both the Flavians.
 
Kind of like the question: do Jews eat pork? I know Jews who do, but they are, by the definition of other Jews, not Jews. :confused:
Sorry, this is flat untrue 95% of the time. If you are born of a Jewish mother(or convert) you are by any and all definitions Jewish and if you have one Jewish parent and are raised in a Jewish household(or convert) you are Jewish according to reform and probably most conservative definitions. Not amount of observance or lack therof can change that, with the possible exception of converts in some of the nuttier orthodox communities. It may make some think ill of then(very often to an unwarranted degree) but it does not make them not considered Jewish. The only way for someone born a Jew to be declared "Not Jewish" is having a ban of excommunication or cherem pronounced on them, which is generally done only in certain divorce cases.
On-Topic: I think this is doable with a less-revolt and civil war prone Judea, since such a Judea may become a strong supplier of soldiers and a more neoplatonic empire may make the army more acceptable to Jews. This could lead to enough Jews in the army that one could make a run for emperor, possibly using his coreligionist as a powerbase.
 
Now, the Byzantinophiles can tell you about the Eastern Roman Empire, but what I'm saying that during the united Roman Empire ruled from Rome, having a Jew as Emperor is very unlikely.

It isnt even that likely in the eastern empire given how it was pretty firmly Christian and the Iconoclast emperors where the closest you would get to "jewish" eastern emperors (they where of semitic descent), the ERE treated its non-christians pretty badly most of the time during this period and as time went on the treatment only got worse since they oftentimes acted as a fifth column to the Sassanids.
 

Zioneer

Banned
What if there's a Jewish heresy that's still recognizably Jewish, but very different from mainstream Judaism as well as pro-Roman? (Also, for the purposes of this idea, Christianity doesn't count).

Maybe an Emperor from that sort of tradition could count.
 
A successful Jewish general could make himself emperor, but there were practically no Jews in high-ranking military positions in the Roman Empire. Perhaps if there were no Hebrew-Roman wars?

The first rebellion in 66 AD was the result of long-standing tensions between Jews and Hellenes in Jerusalem and perceived Roman support of the Hellenes. This resulted in moderate unrest, which were met with Roman crackdowns, which resulted in more serious unrest, resulting in stronger crackdowns, and before you know it Judea's in full revolt.

To avoid this sort of thing happening at some point you need Rome to support Hebrews over Hellenes, Rome to just not bother conquering Judaea (the emperor could be from Alexandria or somewhere), or dumb luck.
 
If the Kingdom of Judea survives as a coherent part of the Empire under the Antipatrid dynasty, given that dynasty's Roman citizenship, longstanding status as friends and allies of the Roman people, and so on, and then you get a member of said dynasty who is educated in Greece or Italy, serves in the Roman army and then gets to a position where he can proclaim himself Emperor in the normal way, I can see it happening. But any such Antipatrid would be very unlikely to be a religious Jew - few of the Antipatrids were especially so (and, as they were Edomites/Idumaeans forcibly converted to Judaism, originally, some might not even count them as Jewish ethnically).

It would mostly require, as I said, a coherent, longstanding Antipatrid government, unlike the rather piecemeal and non-continuous series of Antipatrid-ruled ethnarchies, proconsulates and provinces that made up the true history of that dynasty. Which pretty much means you need, first, for Herod Antipatrides to formulate a coherent succession, almost necessarily including one of his sons (as opposed to killing a number of his sons, which constantly destabilized the succession - combined with his Stalinesque paranoia of overthrow) succeeding unhindered by the Romans, which would require a strengthened position compared to OTL, and for the sociopolitical and religious situation of 1st-1st century Judea to stabilize. The former is difficult; the latter seems practically ASB.

Honestly, though, I can't see any other family in any other situation producing an at least arguably Jewish Emperor, particularly in the case of a PoD after the Diaspora, with identifiable Jews - even the Hellenized - suffering a probably inescapable level of "otherness" due to that nigh-universal inscription, IVDAEA CAPTA. An emperor of limited Jewish heritage isn't impossible, but such a person would be so far displaced by integration into Greek or Roman culture and religion that it would be effectively meaningless IMO.
 

OS fan

Banned
With some major changes to the Jewish religion, making them a true competitor to Christianity, so that one day, a Jew could play the role of Constantine.

Of course, this opens the question of how different a Judaism with active missionaries and a simplified version of the 613 laws would be compared to Christianity.
 
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