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{{Other uses|Sicarius (disambiguation){{!}}Sicarius}}{{Short description|Jewish Zealots who militantly resisted Roman occupation}}The Sicarii (Modern Hebrew: סיקריים siqariyim) were a splinter group of the Jewish Zealots who, in the decades preceding Jerusalem's destruction in 70 CE, strongly opposed the Roman occupation of Judea and attempted to expel them and their sympathizers from the area.BOOK, Martin, Goodman, Martin Goodman (historian), Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, Vintage Books, New York City, 2008, 978-0375726132, 407, The Sicarii carried sicae, or small daggers, concealed in their cloaks.Paul Christian Who were the Sicarii?, Meridian Magazine, June 7, 2004 At public gatherings, they pulled out these daggers to attack Romans and alleged Roman sympathizers alike, blending into the crowd after the deed to escape detection.The Sicarii are regarded as one of the earliest known organized assassination units of cloak and daggers, predating the Order of Assassins and the Japanese ninja by centuries.Pichtel, John, Terrorism and WMDs: Awareness and Response, CRC Press (April 25, 2011) p.3-4. {{ISBN|978-1439851753}}Ross, Jeffrey Ian, Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present, Routledge (January 15, 2011), Chapter: Sicarii. {{ISBN|978-0765620484}} The derived Spanish term sicario is used in contemporary Latin America to describe a hitman.

Etymology

In Latin, Sicarii is the plural form of Sicarius "dagger-man", "dagger-wielder". Sica, possibly from Proto-Albanian *tsikā (whence Albanian thika, "knife"), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱey- ("to sharpen") possibly via Illyrian.BOOK, Orel, Vladimir, Albanian etymological dictionary,weblink 1998, Brill, 9004110240, 477–478, BOOK, Havers, Wilhelm, Die Sprache,weblink 1984, A. Sexl., 84, In later Latin usage, "sicarius" was also the standard term for a murderer (see, e.g., the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficiis),WEB,weblink Definition of sicarius (noun, LNS, sīcārius) - Numen - The Latin Lexicon - An Online Latin Dictionary, 30 September 2014, and to this day "sicario" is a salaried assassin in SpanishWEB, sicario, ria, Real Academia Española,weblink and a commissioned murderer in ItalianWEB, sicàrio, Treccani.it,weblink and Portuguese.WEB, sicário, Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa,weblink

History

{{See also|Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70)|Zealot Temple Siege}}Victims of the Sicarii are thought to have included the High Priest Jonathan, although it is possible that his murder was orchestrated by the Roman governor Antonius Felix. Some murders were met with severe retaliation by the Romans on the broader Jewish population of the region. However, on some occasions, the Sicarii would release their intended victim if their terms were met. Much of what is known about the Sicarii comes from the Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish War by Josephus, who wrote that the Sicarii agreed to release the kidnapped secretary of Eleazar, governor of the Temple precincts, in exchange for the release of ten captured assassins.{{sfn|Smallwood|2001|pp=281f}}{{sfn|Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews||loc=s:The Antiquities of the Jews/Book XX#Chapter 9|Book XX 9]]}}At the beginning of the First Roman-Jewish War, the Sicarii, and (possibly) Zealot helpers (Josephus differentiated between the two but did not explain the main differences in depth), gained access to Jerusalem and committed a series of atrocities in an attempt to incite the population into war against Rome. In one account, given in the Talmud, they destroyed the city's food supply, using starvation to force the people to fight against the Roman siege, instead of negotiating peace. Their leaders, including Menahem ben Yehuda and Eleazar ben Ya'ir, were notable figures in the war, and the group fought in many battles against the Romans as soldiers. Together with a small group of followers, Menahem made his way to the fortress of Masada, took over a Roman garrison and slaughtered all 700 soldiers there. They also took over another fortress called Antonia and overpowered the troops of Agrippa II. He also trained them to conduct various guerrilla operations on Roman convoys and legions stationed around Judea.Josephus also wrote that the Sicarii raided nearby Hebrew villages including Ein Gedi, where they massacred 700 women and children.BOOK, 378–381, The Holy Land, Oxford Archaeological Guides, Jerome, Murphy-O'Connor, Barry, Cunliffe, 5th, Oxford University Press, {{sfn|Josephus, Wars of the Jews||loc=s:The War of the Jews/Book IV#Chapter 7|Book IV 7-2]]}}Ancient battle divides Israel as Masada 'myth' unravels; Was the siege really so heroic, asks Patrick Cockburn in Jerusalem, The Independent, 30 March 1997The Zealots, Sicarii and other prominent rebels finally joined forces to attack and temporarily take Jerusalem from Rome in 66 AD,Levick, Barbara (1999). Vespasian. London: Routledge, pp. 116–119. {{ISBN|0-415-16618-7}} where they took control of the Temple in Jerusalem, executing anyone who tried to oppose their power. The local populace resisted their control and launched a series of sieges and raids to remove the rebel factions. The rebels eventually silenced the uprising and Jerusalem stayed in their hands for the duration of the war.{{sfn|Josephus, Wars of the Jews||loc=s:The War of the Jews/Book II#Chapter 8|Book II 8-11]], s:The War of the Jews/Book II#Chapter 13|Book II 13-7]], s:The War of the Jews/Book II#Chapter 14|Book II 14-4]], s:The War of the Jews/Book II#Chapter 14|Book II 14-5]]}} The Romans returned to take back the city, and making counter-attacks and laying siege to starve the rebels inside. The rebels held out for some time, but the constant bickering and lack of leadership caused the groups to disintegrate. The leader of the Sicarii, Menahem, was killed by rival factions during an altercation. Finally, the Romans regained control and destroyed the whole city in 70 AD.Eleazar and his followers returned to Masada and continued their rebellion against the Romans until 73 AD. The Romans eventually took the fortress and, according to Josephus, found that most of its defenders had committed suicide rather than surrender. In Josephus' The Jewish War (vii), after the fall of the Temple in AD 70, the sicarii became the dominant revolutionary Hebrew faction, scattered abroad. Josephus particularly associates them with the mass suicide at Masada in AD 73 and to the subsequent refusal "to submit to the taxation census when Cyrenius was sent to Judea to make one," as part of their rebellion's religious and political scheme.Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament, was believed by some to be a sicarius.{{citation |title=Judas Iscariot web|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/307411/Judas-Iscariot |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url-access=registration |access-date=30 September 2014}}Bastiaan van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary, Continuum International (1998), p. 167. Modern historians typically reject this contention, mainly because Josephus in The War of the Hebrews (2:254–7) mentions the appearance of the Sicarii as a new phenomenon during the procuratorships of Felix (52–60 AD), having no apparent relation with the group called Sicarii by Romans at times of Quirinius.WEB,weblink Zealots and Sicarii, 30 September 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20141118030318weblink">weblink 2014-11-18, dead, The 2nd century compendium of Jewish oral law, the Mishnah (Makhshirin 1:6), mentions the word sikrin (), perhaps related to Sicarii, and which is explained by the early rabbinic commentators as being related to the (= robbers), and to government personnel involved with implementing the laws of Sicaricon.Rabbi Hai Gaon's Commentary on Seder Taharot, cited in Babylonian Talmud (Niddah Tractate), s.v. Mishnah Makhshirin 1:6; also in The Geonic Commentary on Seder Taharot - Attributed to Rabbi Hai Gaon, vol. 2, Berlin 1924, s.v. סיקריקין. Maimonides, in his Mishnah commentary (Makhshirin 1:6), explains the same word sikrin as meaning "people who harass and who are disposed to being violent."Yosef Qafih (ed.) Mishnah with Maimonides' Commentary (vol. 3), Mossad Harav Kook: Jerusalem 1967, s.v. Makhshirin 1:6 (p. 393) [Hebrew].

See also

• Sikrikim, a modern group inspired by the Sicarii
• Knife attack, tactic used by the group
• List of Jewish civil wars

Notes

{{Reflist|30em}}

References

• BOOK, Josephus, Josephus, translated by William Whiston, 1737, 75, The Jewish War, Wars of the Jews, The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus the Jewish Historian, London,weblink CITEREFJosephus, Wars of the Jews

,

• BOOK, Josephus, Josephus, translated by William Whiston, 1737, 93, Antiquities of the Jews, The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus the Jewish Historian, London,weblink CITEREFJosephus, Antiquities of the Jews

,

• BOOK, Smallwood, E.M., 2001, The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian : a Study in Political Relations, Brill Academic Publishers, Biblical Studies and Religious Studies, 978-0-391-04155-4,weblink 9 February 2018,

Further reading

• BOOK, Brighton, Mark Andrew, 2009, The Sicarii in Josephus's Judean War: Rhetorical Analysis and Historical Observations,weblink Early Judaism and Its Literature, 27, Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature, 9781589834064, 758719597,