Tarichaea (), alternative spellings Taricheæ/Tarichaeae/Tarichee; Tarichese; Tarichess, is the Greek place name for a historic site of disputed location. It was situated along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and mentioned in the writings of Josephus (Ant. 14.120; 20.159; The Jewish War 1.180; 2.252; Vita 32, et al.). Tarichaea was one of the first villages in Galilee to have sustained an attack by Rome, during the First Jewish-Roman War. The village (κώμη) attracted to it the seditious from the outlying regions east of Galilee, who mixed with the local townsfolk and who relied upon some 230 boats on the Sea of Galilee for protection in the event of an assault upon the village. When the village was eventually overrun by the Roman army, the population surrendered.
Etymology
In the first few centuries of the Common era, many places along the Egyptian coast had borne this name, , Tarichéai, this being a Greek loan-word derived from the people's employment in the preservation of fish, or what some called in , meaning, "pickled fish". The name was applied to a site along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, where the townsmen are thought to have occupied themselves in the same trade. Albright thought the name to mean "Fish-curing plants", or in modern parlance, "Fish canneries." Suetonius (Til. 4.3) mentions Tarichaea and Gamala as being "potent Judean cities" (Latin: urbes Iudaeae validissimae).
History
Roman invasion (52 BCE) to 54 CE
In ca. 52 BCE, Judea was invaded by the Roman governor of Syria, Gaius Cassius Longinus, who fell upon the town of Tarichæa and carried away thirty thousand Jews into slavery.
Roughly one-hundred years later, in the first year of Emperor Nero's reign (54 CE), a stupendous gift was added to Agrippa II's realm, when Nero entrusted him with the government of a certain part of Galilee, Tiberias and Tarichæa.
First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) In the 12th-year of Nero's reign (66 CE), when war broke out between Rome and the Jews of Judea, Josephus was appointed governor of the Galilee by the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, and took care to build the wall of Tarichæa, as well as the defensive walls of other towns in Galilee, in anticipation of a Roman assault against these cities.
At that time, Josephus chose Tarichæa for his place of residence. When certain young men of the village Dabarittha had robbed the king's steward of six-hundred pieces of gold, no small number of silver vessels and of many costly garments, at a time when he passed through their region of the country, Josephus retrieved the money and items when they came to him at Tarichæa, secretly hoping to return such items to the king, and withal blamed them for the violence they had offered the king. However, thinking that Josephus was not of like mind with them and that he secretly entertained notions of betraying them to the king who was allied with the Romans, they raised a commotion in all the neighboring cities, saying that Josephus had designs of betraying the people to the Romans. At this accusation, some one-hundred thousand armed men came to him at Tarichæa, which multitude was crowded together in the town's hippodrome (a place that should rather be considered as a race course devoid of monumental construction), and they raised a clamor against Josephus. Josephus' repartee and skill at oration was able to save himself from imminent danger, by suggesting that he had retrieved the money, not to return to the king, but to finish building the wall of Tarichæa. The indigenous people of Tarichæa, numbering then forty thousand, rose up to his defense and prevented his bloodshed. When the people of Tiberias eventually revolted against Josephus, Josephus devised methods to detain many of the city's governors and principal persons (among whom was Justus of Tiberias), having them transported by boats to Tarichæa where they were incarcerated.
With the exception of Jesus ben Shafat and his party who escaped from Tiberias and joined the seditious in Tarichæa, the people of Tiberias received the Roman army into their city and made peace with the Romans.