The Romans did not persecute the Jews
Untrue.
In the very early days of the empire, circa early first century, Jews by birth were a distrusted minority but deemed an "
ancestral religion". (That's how highly the ancient Greeks and Romans valued adherence to inherited norms.) As the scholar Frend notes, Jews were not persecuted to the same degree as Christians: "
because they followed their own Jewish ceremonial law, and their religion was legitimized by its ancestral nature".
Even back then, Sejanus - who ruled the empire on behalf of Tiberius later in his reign and controlled the Praetorian Guard - was vociferously anti-Jewish:
Sejanus - Wikipedia
Lucius Aelius Sejanus - alternatively spelled Seianus - (June 3, 20 BC – October 18, AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus(/sɪˈdʒeɪnəs/),[1] was an ambitious soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.
When Tiberius withdrew to Capri in AD 26, Sejanus was left in control of the administration of the empire. For a time the most influential and feared citizen of Rome...
On his anti-Jewish policies, Philo claimed that Sejanus planned to annihilate the Jewish people and implemented an explicitly anti-Judaic environment:
Philo, Legatio 24, 159-161
"Matters in Italy became troublesome when Sejanus was organizing his onslaughts. For Tiberius knew the truth, he knew at once after Sejanus' death that the accusations made against the Jewish inhabitants of Rome were false slanders, invented by him because he wished to make away with the nation, knowing that it would take the sole or the principal part in opposing his unholy plots and actions, and would defend the emperor when in danger of becoming the victim of treachery.
Eusebius, almost quoting Philo and writing in the 4th century, concurred:
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History ii, V.
"...Sejanus, who was then in great favor with Tiberius, had made every effort to destroy the whole nation of the Jews from the foundation, and that in Pontius Pilate under whom the crimes were committed against our Savior, having attempted everything contrary to what was lawful among the Jews respecting the Temple at Jerusalem, which was then yet standing, excited them to the greatest tumults."
He appointed Pilate as prefect of Judea, the only Jewish province in the Empire, to orchestrate the same anti-Jewish agenda:
Pontius Pilate | Biography, Facts, & Death
Pontius Pilate was appointed prefect of Judaea through the intervention of Sejanus, a favourite of the Roman emperor Tiberius. (That his title was prefect is confirmed by an inscription from Caesarea in ancient Palestine.)
Protected by Sejanus, Pilate incurred the enmity of Jews in Roman-occupied Palestine by insulting their religious sensibilities, as when he hung worship images of the emperor throughout Jerusalem and had coins bearing pagan religious symbols minted. After Sejanus’s fall (31 CE), Pilate was exposed to sharper criticism from certain Jews, who may have capitalized on his vulnerability to obtain a legal death sentence on Jesus (John 19:12)
Christians were predominantly native-born pagan Romans
renouncing their ancestral faith and gods, as we both agree.
However, the Roman senate even executed one of its leading consuls (and nephew of the emperor Vespasian) under Domitian's reign, one Titus Flavius Clemens in 95 CE, for converting to Judaism and thereby denying the gods of the Roman pantheon and persecuted many others for the same "
crime". As the Roman historian Cassius Dio explains in his
Roman History (211-233):
Cassius Dio — Epitome of Book 67
And the same year Domitian slew, along with many others, Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was a cousin and had to wife Flavia Domitilla, who was also a relative of the emperor's. The charge brought against them both was that of atheism, a charge on which many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some of these were put to death, and the rest were at least deprived of their property. Domitilla was merely banished to Pandateria. But Glabrio, who had been Trajan's colleague in the consulship, was put to death, having been accused of the same crimes as most of the others.
And by the second century, ancestral Jews were also starting to get quite severely persecuted as relations soured, especially under Hadrian:
Bar Kokhba revolt - Wikipedia
The consul Titus Flavius Clemens was condemned to death by the Roman Senate in 95 CE for, according to the Talmud, circumcising himself and converting to Judaism. The emperor Hadrian (117-138) forbade circumcision.[16] Overall, the rite of circumcision was especially execrable in Classical civilization,[16][21] also because it was the custom to spend an hour a day or so exercising nude in the gymnasium and in Roman baths, therefore Jewish men did not want to be seen in public deprived of their foreskins.[16][21]
As for the anti-circumcision law passed by Hadrian, it is considered by many to be, together with his decision to build a Roman temple upon the ruins of the Second Temple and dedicate it to Jupiter, one of the main causes of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 CE), which was brutally crushed;[22] according to Cassius Dio, 580,000 Jews were killed, and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed.[22][23]
Hadrian's policy after the rebellion reflected an attempt to root out Judaism: he enacted a ban on circumcision,[24] all Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem upon pain of death, and the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina, while Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina.
Also see:
Anti-Judaism - Wikipedia