Numerous Roman coins have been discovered bearing the words Iudea capta (Judea captured), marking the quashing of the Jewish revolt in the year 70 CE. But now archaeologists have discovered one inscribed with the more accurate phrase Iudea recepta (Judea recaptured). Raphael Poch explains what this discovery reveals about the way Vespasian, emperor of Rome, exploited his victory over the Jews:

The chief archivist of the department of archaeology and numismatics at the Israel Museum, Haim Gitler, explained that “in place of newspaper or Internet, the main form of media to spread propaganda in the time of antiquity was the minting of coins. . . . When it comes to the capta coins, it is simple propaganda. Vespasian wanted to make widely known to his people that it was he who conquered the Jews. Rome printed the coins until the year 81 CE [eleven years after the revolt]. . . . This war—and it was a war as opposed to a mere rebellion—was a particularly tough one for Rome, and one whose victory they wanted to highlight.”

Gitler and other scholars point to the fact that to date, only one of these coins has been found, signifying that there were very few minted. They explain the cause of this as being that Vespasian complied with Roman tradition in printing recepta coins for a province already captured, but regretted his decision due to the toll that the war took on the Romans, as well as the need to promote his own victories following the [period of political upheaval in Rome, which his reign brought to an end].

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.