(southeastern part of Europe) where over time Judaism became the state religion. At their height they and their tributaries controlled most of what is today Southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Caucasus (including Dagestan, Georgia) and the Crimea.

610 CE: The EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE EASES

–into the rule of the Greeks

–and morphs into the (Middle Age) Byzantine Empire a.k.a. Romania or Basileia Romaion.

The Byzantines continue to call themselves Romans, however. This Byzantine–Greek–Roman Empire falls, in turn, to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE, approximately 850 years later.

Consequently, start to finish, if one counts from the beginning of the Roman Republic in 510 BCE (centered in Rome) to the very end (in 1453 CE) of the morphed eastern “Roman Empire” – the Byzantine–Greek–Roman Empire (centered in Constantinople), we are talking about a “run” of well over 2,000 years.

At its territorial peak, under Trajan in 116 CE, (43 years after Masada) Rome controlled c. 2,300,000 square miles of land surface. As a frame–of–reference, modern–day Italy is 116,000 square miles.

610–625 CE: JEWISH REVOLT V

Revolt against Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (reign 610–641 CE). The Jewish revolt originated in Tiberius (Judea).