In the year 66 things were pretty tense between the Romans and the Jews around the mediterranean. You see there was this guy named Caligula in charge of the Roman Empire at the time and he wasn’t the worst, but he also wasn’t the best. Caligula spent a lot of money on building projects. Practical ones like aqueducts and harbors, cultural ones like theaters and temples, but also weird ones like taking hundreds of Roman merchant ships and using them to build a 2 mile long floating bridge across the Bay of Bauli. What was the bridge for? He used it to gallop back and forth on his horse for a couple days and then had it disassembled. He also threw some pretty awesome parties, but everyone did back then so that wasn’t the main problem.

The main problem is he was spending money faster than the Empire to make it. So to help offset that he would have citizens falsely accused of crimes. Those citizens would be fined if they were lucky. If they weren’t lucky they would be killed and then the Empire would sell their estate so they could make money. (MORE ON THE PODCAST)