In 70CE, after the war which had flared sporadically for four years, three Roman legions under the future Emperors Vespasian and his son Titus surrounded, laid siege to, and eventually devastated the city of Jerusalem, destroying completely the magnificent Temple which had been built by King Herod only 80 years earlier. Sixty years later, after further very violent rebellions, the destruction of Jerusalem was completed when the otherwise generally tolerant and humane Emperor Hadrian built on top of it the wholly Roman city of Aelia Capitolina, and Jews were forbidden even to enter its territory.

What brought about this extraordinary conflict, with its extraordinary consequences? Before 66CE, the Romans had been generally tolerant of the Jews, as of other subject peoples within their vastly diverse empire. Goodman compares Roman and Jewish beliefs about history, the future and the gods, and attitudes to food, sex, politics and patronage, to explore whether there was anything innately incompatible between the two peoples.