30-70AD Matthew 24:6 "Wars and rumors of wars"

Adapted from Catalogue of World Disasters Demonstrating Christ’s Kingdom and Coming in Vengeance upon the Roman World by Kurt Simmons,  The Sword & The Plow, Newsletter of the Bimillennial Preterist Association, Vol. XIV, No. 3 – March 2011, http://preteristcentral.com

 

60 AD

  • Britons revolt under Queen Boudicca; one hundred sixty-thousand Romans and Britons are slain: “They hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women and then cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, in order to make the victims appear to be eating them; afterwards they impaled the women on sharp skewers lengthwise through the entire body. All this they did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets and wanton behavior, not only in all their other sacred places, but particularly in the grove of Andate. This was their name for Victory, and they regarded her with most exceptional reverence.” ~ Dio Cassius, LXII, vii

 

62 AD

  • Volageses, king of the Parthians defeats the Romans who temporarily lose Armenia. ~ Tacitus, Annals, XV, xvii.
  • Plautius Silvanus puts down revolts among the Sarmatae. ~ Henderson, Bernard W., The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, p. 225

 

63 AD

  • War with the Parthians resumes. ~ Tacitus, Annals, XV, xxiv

 

64 AD

  • Gladiators revolt in the town of Praeneste. ~ Tacitus, Annals, XV, xlvi.

 

  • Conspiracy to assassinate Nero and place Piso upon the throne is discovered; Nero begins a reign of terror – Lucan, Seneca, and many of Rome’s leading citizens suffer death over several years in a general political purge. ~ Tacitus, Annals, XV, lxviii-lxxii

 

66 AD

  • Vinician conspiracy to assassinate Nero discovered at Breventium; Corbulo and the brothers Scribonius compelled to commit suicide for doubtful participation in the plot. ~ Tacitius, Annals;  Dio Cassius, LXIII, xvii;  Seutonius, Nero, xxxvi
  • Revolt of Jews; destruction of fifth legion under Cestius.  ~ Josephus, War. II, vii-xx
  • Fifty-thousand Jews slain in Alexandria; twenty-thousand Jews slain in Caesarea. Syria turned into an armed camp, and Jews and Greeks slaughter one another, giving vent to long standing hatred between them. Josephus describes Syria as being filled with heaps of dead bodies.  ~ Josephus, War, II, xviii

 

68 AD

  • Beginning this year, the world saw five emperors in the space of one year and twenty-two days – Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian. ~ Dio Cassius, LXVI, xvii
  • Julius Vindex, leads revolt against Nero; 20,000 slain at Vesontio, Gaul. Vindex commits suicide. ~ Dio Cassius, LXIII, xxiv
  • Galba declared emperor by Roman senate; Nero decreed a public enemy; commits suicide (June 9). ~ Dio Cassius, LXIII, 29; Suetonius, Nero, VI, lxvii-ix
  • Galba sentences seven thousand soldiers to death for their part in a mutiny under Nymphidius, who attempted to persuade the praetorians to proclaim him Caesar in place of Galba; rest of mutinous troops decimated (every tenth man beaten to death with rods). ~ Dio Cassius, LXIII, iii; Tacitus, Histories, I vi

 

69 AD

  • Otho declared emperor by praetorian guard; Galba assassinated (Jan. 15); troops loot, and plunder city, murdering and killing at will; Otho was described as being carried to the capital over heaps of dead bodies while the forum still reeked with blood. ~ Tacitus, Histories, I, xlvii
  • Vitellius declared emperor in Germany; forces under Valens march from Germany to Italy, looting and extorting money as they go. Massacre of four thousand citizens at Divodurum. ~ Tacitus, Histories, I, lxiii, lxvi
  • Vitellius’ forces under Caecina in route to Italy plunder the Helvetii, destroying towns, and butchering thousands. ~ Tacitus, Histories, I, lxviii
  • Rhoxolani (Sarmatians) invade province of Moesia. ~ Tacitus, Histories, I, lxxix
  • Otho’s fleet sailed up the north-west coast like a pirate fleet, ravaging and murdering, burning, wasting, and spoiling cities. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, xii
  • The Riviera town of Albintimulium (Ventimiglia), on the frontier between France and Italy, was sacked; citizens tortured. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, xiii
  • Forty-thousand die in battles between Vitellius and Otho near Bedriacum; dead left unburied, were viewed almost forty days later by Vitellius who took joy at the ghastly sight. ~ Dio Cassius, LXIV, x
  • Otho commits suicide (April 16); Vitellius declared emperor by Roman senate. The victorious troops of Vitellius plunder Italy: “But the distress of Italy was now heavier and more terrible than that inflicted by war. The troops of Vitellius, scattering among the municipalities and colonies, indulged in every kind of robbery, theft, violence and debauchery. Their greed and venality knew no distinction between right and wrong; they respected nothing, whether sacred or profane. There were cases too where, under the disguise of soldiers, men murdered their personal enemies; and the soldiers in their turn, being acquainted with the country, marked out the best-stocked farms and the richest owners for booty or destruction, in case any resistance was made. The generals were subject to their troops and did not dare to forbid them.” ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, lvi; Loeb. ed.
  • Revolt to liberate Gallic provinces; Aeduan cantons plundered. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, lxi
  • Leading citizens ruined; whole communities devastated, providing for Vitellius’ banquets and sixty thousand soldiers in route to Rome. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, lxii; lxxxvii
  • Colony of Taurini burned by mutinous soldiers. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, lxvi.
  • Vespasian declared emperor in Syria (July) while making war against Jews. ~ Josephus, Wars, IV, x
  • Vitellius’ soldiers massacre unarmed civilians seven miles outside of Rome. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, lxxxiii
  • Upon entering Rome, all military discipline is abandoned; Vitellius’ troops spread over the city, lodging wherever they liked and doing whatever mischief they pleased; inactivity, debauchery and unhealthy conditions result in disease and many deaths. ~ Tacitus, Histories, II, lxxxviii, xciii

 

70 AD

  • Vespasian’s forces invade Italy; Vicetia, birthplace of Caecina taken; Verona occupied. Antonius gives troops license to plunder civilians in the district around Cremona. ~ Tacitus, Histories, III, xv
  • City of Cremona surrenders; burned; fifty-thousand perished. The soil was so infected by blood of slain, army forced to move three miles away to avoid danger of pestilence. ~ Dio Cassius, LXIV, xv; Tacitus, Histories, III, xxxiv-v
  • Venutius, the king consort, leads British to depose Queen Cartimandua for adultery and attempting to install her lover in the throne; the throne was left to Venutius; the war to the Romans. ~ Tacitus, Histories, III, xlv
  • Germans, Gauls, and Celts revolt; Dio Casius mentions one battle where the river was dammed with the bodies of the fallen. ~ Dio Cassius LXV, iii;  Tacitus, Histories, III, xlvi;  Josephus, Wars, Preface, ii; VII, iv
  • Dacians (Sythians) invade Mysia. ~ Josephus, Wars, The Destruction of Jerusalem, Preface, ii; VII, iv;  Tacitus, Histories, III, xlvi
  • Vespasian suppresses revolt in Pontus. ~ Tacitus, Histories, III, xlvii-iii
  • Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus, besieged in temple of Jupiter Capitolinus by soldiers of Vitellus; capital burned and Sabinus murdered. A.D. 70 thus saw the destruction of the two greatest temples in the world – Jerusalem and Rome. ~ Tacitus, Histories, III lxxi-ii
  • Civil war reaches city of Rome; fifty-thousand slain in siege; city taken; Vitellius murdered (Dec. 22). ~ Dio Cassius, LXIV, xix;  Tacitus, Histories, III, lxxxxv
  • Cologne and Mainze fall to German rebels. ~ Tacitus, Histories, lix
  • Fort at Vetera besieged; four thousand slaughtered by the barbarians after surrendering under promises of security; those who escaped back to the camp were burned alive by Germans. ~ Tacitus, Histories, IV, lx
  • Germany was lost; all Roman forts burned, saved Mainze and Vendonissa. ~ Tacitus, Histories, IV, lxi
  • Spring 70 AD – Eight legions march into Germany and Gaul from Italy, one more from Britain and two from Spain, to retake for the empire. ~ Tacitus, Histories, IV, lxviii
  • Citizens of Cologne, loyal to Rome, massacre German soldiers quartered among them. The famous cohort at Zulpich was invited to a banquet where wine flowed freely; while buried in slumber in their cups, the doors of the banquet house were barred fast and burned to the ground upon them. ~ Tacitus, Histories, IV, lxxix
  • Jerusalem destroyed; its temple burned to the ground; city’s foundations dug up.  ~ Josephus, Wars, VI, ix
  •