Each year, millions of tourists descend on the EternalCity and weave their way past the extant remains of ancient Rome. No trip to Rome would be complete without a visit to the Imperial Forum, once the administrative hub of the Empire of 82 million that helped lay the foundation of today’s Europe, Great Britain, North Africa and the Middle East.

Just below where Peter and Paul were executed stands the great Arch of Septimius Severus. At the other end of the Imperial Forum stands the smaller Arch of Titus, named for Emperor Titus, the son of Emperor Vespasian. Known by their family name, Flavian, the father and son made their reputations as military commanders before assuming the role as Caesars. For the Romans of his day, the Flavian Dynasty and the Arch of Titus symbolized the triumph of Rome’s well-oiled military machine and the victory over a province that had become a thorn in Rome’s side: Judea, the small Jewish State where Asia Minor began.

In 66AD, the Zealots and many of the Jews in Judea mistakenly believed they could free themselves from the occupying Roman army. It was a miscalculation that echoes into the 21^st century. It ended with the Destruction of the SecondTemple in Jerusalem on Aug. 29, 70 and a final mopping up operation at the table rock of Masada high above the Dead Sea, a place which still holds a special meaning in Jewish mythology. The Jewish State came to a final end with the mass suicide at Masada in April 73. We know many of the details of what happened from the writings of the Jewish General Josephus, later a friend of the man who leveled Jerusalem and the Temple. Today, all that remains is the foundation, the Wailing Wall.

With the destruction of Judea, the Diaspora began, Christianity spread and it took the Jews 1,878 years to return to their ancient land that they believed God gave to them. It is said that if a Jew walks under the Arch of Titus, they are no longer Jewish, surely an exaggeration but rich in symbolism like everything else associated with the contested sliver of land bordering on the eastern end of a sea that the Romans thought was the middle of the world.

If Titus was magically transported into today’s Rome, he would immediately recognize the core of a revived Rome brought back to life during the Renaissance. If he was asked what became of the nation that he leveled in 70 AD, he would not be shocked to learn the Jews managed to survive in Europe until the Hitler years. The tenaciousness of the Jews would not surprise him. While he thought he brought to a final end the Jewish state and the area was Romanized, in time it reverted back to its old provincial self and some Jews returned. Elsewhere, their co-religionists clung to the belief they would return and Judea would be reborn. He was partly responsible for this. The Destruction of the SecondTemple and what happened at Masada was permanently etched into the Jewish psyche. When they finally returned in 1948, “Never Again” became their national belief, engendering a consensus that nothing should be done to compromise their future. The Bible bound the Jewish people together through history; political Zionism and the Holocaust cemented them together after 1945. Titus would understand this better than most.  He would also understand that one bad decision made by a small people faced with a far greater power can prove fatal.

He would also not be surprised to find the successor state to Judea is still embattled. In the ancient world, this sliver of land was the conduit between the great Empire of Egypt and the succession of empires in what is today Iraq and Iran, Persia until the mid 1930s.  He would learn that Israel has survived due to its might, but also lives under the umbrella of another world power, a modern-day Rome, today engaged in wars at the fringes of its influence.

Titus would be concerned about Israel’s future if he had pangs of conscience. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are relentless in their desire to destroy what the Jews created. He might urge the Israelis to take such threats very seriously or the end of the Diaspora he set into motion could bring an end to Israel and its people, now that the majority of Jewry lives in the sliver of land once a Roman province and later destroyed by the son of Vespasian.

-- Sander Diamond