A new study suggests that the first-century Roman army made dietary accommodations to permit minority soldiers to serve in their ranks. A disturbing consequence is that it is likely that Jewish soldiers took part in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.

A new study published in the Winter 2023 issue of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jewish Quarterly Review reveals that large numbers of Jews, along with other minorities, served in the army of the Roman Empire.

“The Jewish religion, especially its dietary laws, has been seen as an obstacle to Jewish military service in the armies of the Roman Empire and, thus, is used as a main argument by scholars who deny that Jews served in the Roman army in any considerable numbers,” wrote the author, Dr. Haggai Olshanetsky, from the University of Basel’s Department of Ancient Civilizations. “The current essay is the first to examine this claim. Its first part shows that Jews would not have been unique among ethnic army recruits in having dietary restrictions, while the second part presents the diet of the Roman soldier. The third part uses the Jewish soldier as a case study of the capability of any serviceman, no matter his faith or ethnicity, to serve in the army while keeping his customs and traditions with regard to food. Lastly, the article raises the possibility that the Roman logistical system was purposefully structured to ease the service of soldiers from different cultures and ethnicities.”

The presence of religious Jews in the Roman army is surprising. While some 4.5 to 7 million Jews lived in the ancient Roman empire around the first century, accounting for five to fifteen percent of the population, many Jews were exempted from serving in the military in the later part of the first century CE.

“All empires needed men, and they also needed the minorities to serve,” said Olshanetsky. 

One piece of evidence is an inscribed ostracon (piece of pottery) dated to 96CE in which a military man wrote to a colleague about collecting wheat to send “to the Jews.” The shard dates to a time that Flavius Josephus, a 1st-century Roman–Jewish historian and military leader, interpreted to fall in the Jewish month of Nissan, during which Passover occurs. This implies that Jewish soldiers would make matzot (unleavened bread) for the holiday rather than eat the standard issue leavened bread.

“This ostracon is the only one to describe the sending of wheat to Jews, instead of the bread already issued to them or that was supposed to be issued to them,” Olshanetsky wrote. “Jews needed wheat because they abstained from bread and needed to make unleavened bread or other unleavened food,” Olshanetsky wrote. “If this was indeed the reason for this request, it could have far-reaching implications. Primarily, this shows that the Romans acknowledged and respected the demands of some Jewish holidays and that they were even ready to execute special tasks to allow for their observance.”

Olshanetsky wrote that while this does not definitively prove that special dietary needs were accommodated, it appears that the Romans “acknowledged and respected the demands of some Jewish holidays and that they were even ready to execute special tasks to allow for their observance.”

In his analysis of the army rations, Olshanetsky noted that the individual soldiers cooked their own meals including grinding the grains into flour, slaughtering the animals, and baking the bread, though sometimes the bread was made in central camps and distributed to the soldiers in loaves. 

Like most people in the region, the soldiers were largely vegetarian, surviving on a diet largely composed of olive oil, bread, and wine. Vegetables, cheese, and fruit were also part of the soldiers’ diet.

“Jews, like others, were accustomed to the lack of meat,” wrote Olshanetsky.

Animals for consumption were often delivered alive with the expectation that the soldiers would slaughter their own fare, allowing the Jewish soldiers to prepare the meat in a kosher manner. Research shows that if there was meat, beef was the most common type provided. Pork was also served.  Other meat consumed by the Roman soldiers included beef, deer, goat, wild boar, mutton, chicken, goose, duck, hare, and even fish and seafood. 

“It presumably would have been easy for a Jewish soldier to trade his portion of pork for something else,” the author wrote. “Moreover, it is possible that Jewish soldiers were exempted from receiving portions of pork, and received mutton instead, throughout the campaign.”

 Syrians and Egyptians who served in the Roman army also had specific dietary restrictions. The author suggests that this may have led to a decline in pork consumption in the Roman army that began between the years 40 CE and 70 CE.

“It is possible that the Roman army enacted a new regulation allocating a smaller percentage of pork in the supply of the auxiliary compared to the amounts supplied to the legions,” he wrote. “Such a directive would allow for an easy transition in the swapping of units, each of them consisting of individuals with different religious beliefs, without changing the already organized supply lines.”

“If this was indeed the case, then it would mean that to keep a strong army, the Romans had to be cognizant and tolerant toward the needs of a very ethnically, religiously and regionally diverse fighting force, and thus they designed the logistics and supply chain of the armies accordingly,” he wrote.

More significant than the dietary elements, the study raised the disturbing aspect of Jews serving in the Roman army while it was fighting the Jewish nation. The author concluded that Jews probably did serve in much higher numbers in the Roman army than popular history has led the public to believe.

“All wars and our entire history are more complicated than we portray them,” Olshanetsky wrote. “There were Jews in the Roman Army, and Jews fighting against the Roman Army. There were Jews fighting among themselves — that was always a problem.”

He wrote that Jewish soldiers in the Roman army were likely complicit in the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Julius Alexander, a Jewish general, was the second-in-command of the Roman army and oversaw the destruction, Olshanetsky pointed out.