The Samaritans, under a charismatic messianic figure named Julianus ben Sabar (or ben Sahir) in 529, launch a war, sometimes related as the final Samaritan revolt, to create an independent state.

The Samaritan revolt of ben Sabar is perhaps the most violent of the Samaritan revolts.

Emperor Justinian I, aided by the Ghassanid Arabs, crushes the revolt; tens of thousands of Samaritans die or are enslaved.

According to Procopius of Caesarea, the majority of Samaritan peasants chose to be defiant in this revolt, and "were cut to pieces".

Further, Samaria, the "world's most fertile land, was left with no one to till it."

The Samaritan faith is virtually outlawed hereafter by the Christian Roman Empire; from a population once at least in the hundreds of thousands, the Samaritan community will dwindle to near extinction.