From the top of the Antonia Titus, observing and directing his forces, now set in motion his strategy to take the city. For months he had been strengthening the numbers of the pioneer corps which now stood at twenty thousand men. The officer engineers who commanded them had also been reinforced, by experts drawn from Tiberius’ Egyptian legions.
Weeks in advance, Titus had warned them that they should plan where and how his main force would enter the Holy City. He now gave the order for that work to begin. Under the protection of a wing of cavalry and a large contingent of auxiliary archers, they had built a wide road from their main camp, aimed straight at the heart of the city. Entry would be through the wall over the tunnel John had dug. Cerealis’ men had used this opening to launch their attack, and had established a firm foothold.
To gain access to the Temple area, the engineers began to tear down part of the Antonia itself. The Jews, who were doggedly holding on, fought even harder when they saw part of the Antonia crumbling before their eyes. In desperation they torched the western colonnade, where it joined the Antonia, and demolished another large section with crowbars.
The Romans began to position their four platforms. One opposite the north-west corner of the Temple’s inner court, one between the two gates, a third stationed opposite the western colonnade of the outer court and the fourth deployed against the wall near the tomb of a former High Priest.
The Roman engineers then set fire to the colonnades, to open up a route for the road they had built. With the burning colonnades shooting flames a hundred feet into the air, the Jews decided to tear down the staircases that joined the rapidly diminishing Antonia to the Temple, around which the battle raged without let-up. In fact, the rebels never ceased in their fight to continuously inflict casualties on their enemy. Finally, in desperation, they filled the roof space of the remaining western colonnade with flammable material, packing the area between the joists and the ceiling with bundles of wood coated in tar, and hauling up kegs of bitumen before retreating.
As the battle raged around the colonnades John, who had been waiting for an opportunity to get rid of Simon, struck. In the confusion Simon, momentarily isolated from his bodyguard, had a blade slipped between his ribs. Unnoticed, his body slipped to the floor to be trampled by the milling crowd.
The death of Simon led the way for Gioras to form an uneasy alliance with John of Gischala.
Meanwhile, legionaries, unaware of the trap set in the western colonnades, chased after the retreating Jews. When it was packed with legionaries, they set it alight at both ends, bowmen firing volley after volley of fire arrows to ensure a quick result.
Surrounded by roaring flames, with no escape some legionaries jumped down, rather than burn to death. A few survived, suffering terrible injuries. Others committed suicide, preferring a quick death from a blade to the horror of burning alive.
The next day the Romans assembled in the ruins, swearing to avenge the blackened lumps, no longer recognisable as their comrades, which crusted the stone flags.
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For a week, the powerful battering rams had been pounding the wall incessantly, to no avail. Against stone blocks thirty feet long, ten feet high and ten feet deep, bonded so perfectly it was impossible to get a leaf between the joints, they made no impression.
Frustrated, the legionaries decided an attempt to scale the wall would be made using assault ladders; an attempt that was violently repulsed. Using poles the Jews pushed the ladders backwards, toppling them and the men on them onto their companions below. A variation of this was to push the tops of the ladders sideways, with much the same affect, luckless legionaries falling to their death or suffering serious injury. So Titus decided to call off the use of assault ladders. Instead, he set fire to the huge gates.
The Jews, who had anticipated that eventuality, knew they would be forced to retreat and now did so in an orderly manner, abandoning the outer court of the Temple to make a stand in the inner courts.
Not prepared to lose more men in what had become a war of attrition, Titus summoned his senior generals. These were the tribunes Sextus Cerealis, Larcius Lepidus who had replaced Trajan, Titus Phrygius, Aeternius Fronto, Marcus Julianus (Gessius Florus’ successor as procurator of Judaea) and his second-in-command General Gaius Licinius Mucianus.
He invited opinions as to how the sanctuary should be regarded and how it should be treated, the latter being a question of a political nature. The overall reaction was non-committal, the strongest reaction was that it should be razed to the ground, otherwise it would always be a rallying point for Jews not just in the region, but worldwide. More moderate voices had argued that it was an architectural wonder and should be spared. Also, attempting to destroy it could prove costly. The Jews could be relied on to defend it to the last man.
Titus could see both points of view. He agreed that it would be fiercely defended, so he thanked his generals, telling them he would think about what they had said and adjourned the meeting. Not in a hurry to come to a decision, he gave orders that the army was to be given time off to recuperate. Those kept at their posts against surprise attacks were to be frequently rotated.
The Jews, however, were in good heart having rested for a day, launched a series of probing attacks against the Roman forces holding the outer court of the Temple. The alert Romans held their position, but being light in numbers they were vulnerable. Sensing an opportunity, the Jews sent in extra men and pressed home their attack.
Titus, who was watching from a high point in the Antonia, knew that his outnumbered men could not hold out indefinitely. Without hesitation he ordered a cavalry troop to intervene, though the circumstances were not best suited for horses. The Jews, however, pulled back under this extra pressure, but whenever the Romans showed any signs of relaxing they resumed the offensive, attacking ferociously. A centurion in charge of the ground troops quickly realised he had to take the offensive. With cavalry support, he gave the order to advance. This sustained and determined effort pushed the Jews back to the inner court, where they formed a defensive line of their own.
When fire suddenly broke out, it caused consternation in the Jewish ranks. Later, they were to claim it was a Roman fire arrow that was the cause. This, however, was not possible, as the Romans had not brought up any archers. With the sanctuary in view and the Jews in some disarray because of the fire, the legionaries renewed their attack on the inner court. As they began to get a foothold, one of the Roman soldiers, in contradiction to standing orders, picked up a piece of burning timber and hurled it through a window of one of the many ante- rooms built round the sanctuary. As the Jews saw a sudden burst of flame in the sacred building, they let out anguished screams. In panic, they stopped fighting. The Romans, not certain of what was happening but quick to take advantage of this change of circumstance, pressed home their attack.
Titus, who was resting, was brought the news by a runner. Horrified, he ran to the building with thoughts of extinguishing the blaze. His staff officers, bewildered by this sudden turn of events and caught unaware by their commander in chief ’s reckless dash to the front line, could do little else but scramble to keep up with him. They were, however, followed by a large body of legionaries, called to arms by an alert tribune.
Very quickly the whole of the Temple mount descended into chaos. A huge number of extra Roman troops charging into the fray were without proper orders and short of officers, while the Jews were desperately trying to do two things at once - fight the fire and contain the enemy. With all the shouting and screaming from both sides, the confusion worsened. Titus, red in the face, couldn’t make himself heard above the din, and his over excited legionaries were slipping out of control.
The two sides, Roman and Jew, jammed together fought each other savagely. They were like two pit bulls that had taken hold of each other; neither would let the other go unless the other was dead. To slip was to die, trampled on by either side. Many stumbled into the still glowing fires of the colonnades and were burnt aliv
e. As the great mass of combatants neared the sanctuary, the legionaries pretended not to hear Titus’ commands. Instead, many of them picked up more burning torches and hurled them into the many chambers attached to the main building. Hundreds of civilians, seeing smoke billowing from the Temple, had run uncaring of their safety to the scene. The rebels, struggling to try and contain the Romans who had gone on the rampage, could do nothing to assist them.
The sudden arrival of hundreds of screaming, arm waving, hysterical citizens triggered an unreasoning rage in the Romans. They went berserk. Flight was impossible. The civilians were slaughtered wherever they ran. The armed rebels, who tried to maintain resistance, were swept aside and crushed. The legions’ battle cry, a thunderous bellow, sounded over and over as they surged forward.
As the slaughter gathered momentum, the heaps of dead bodies around the altar grew higher. A river of blood poured down the sanctuary steps. With the legionaries, like the fire, out of control, Titus entered the Temple as the flames consumed the attached chambers. Realising there might be time to save the main building, he ordered the centurion Liberalius, who was captain of the spearmen in his bodyguard, to lay about him with a javelin shaft in an effort to bring some of the rioting troops to order. Titus was desperate to organise men into firefighting teams. But Liberalius’ efforts were ineffective. His comrades were bent on killing the enemy and looting a building they believed to be bursting with treasure - a view that was reinforced by the fact that the dome on its roof was covered in the precious metal.
When Titus ran to assist Liberalius, some of his men took the opportunity to set fire to the Temple doors. With the sanctuary itself now on fire, Titus had to make a quick decision. Of all the treasures adorning its magnificent interior, in the few minutes remaining to him, what should he save? In this moment of crisis, his legal training came to the fore. He ordered his bodyguard to spread their cloaks and fill them with that which was irreplaceable and the most fragile - the written word. Before they were driven out of the building by the fire, they had salvaged the scrolls of the Torah, the sacred writing of the Law. These scrolls contained the early history of the Jews from the creation of the world to the death of Moses. They also covered a large number of laws governing daily life, including food laws and festivals. With the flames running up the walls, Titus and his bodyguard left the sanctuary, clutching not the solid gold vessels and goblets used in services, but armfuls of parchment rolls.
As smoke poured out of the doors, Titus had a few minutes to reflect on the building that, from its inception by King Solomon to the present day, had for over a thousand years been a place of uninterrupted worship by the Jews to their God.
As the flames roared through the Temple, the anguished screams of the faithful, ordinary Jewish citizens could be heard. With the whole of the Temple complex engulfed in fire, it seemed because of its elevated position as if the whole of Jerusalem was ablaze. The shattering noise that accompanied the conflagration simply added to the horror. A din that grew in volume as the converging Roman legions, roaring their war cry, surrounded the crowd of civilians who were now mingled with the rebels, the whole packed in a tight mass throughout the Temple courts. The screams and shouts from the blazing hill were answered by the crowds, struggling in the corpse choked streets; a primeval sound that echoed from the surrounding mountains.
Yet more horrific than this tumult, was the vision that filled the eye. The Temple, appeared to be dissolving, as from its foundations flames engulfed its walls. Smoke poured from every aperture to form a gigantic plume, swelling to form a menacing black hammerhead in the cloudless sky.
Charging across its terraces carpeted with the dead, the legionaries clambered over the mounded corpses as they pursued their enemy.
Amid the carnage John rallied his men. With death staring them in the face the rebels, with a desperate effort, pushed the Romans back and with a final shove, broke free of the outer court into the ruin of the Upper City, where Gioras and his followers had managed to flee.
The remnants of the civilian population, who still had the strength and the will to do so, took refuge in the remains of the outer colonnades. A refuge that was short lived as the Romans, angered by the burning of the sanctuary, decided to use fire as a weapon, setting ablaze all the remaining buildings in the Temple complex. This included the remaining colonnade where six thousand civilians had sought refuge. This was torched from end to end by packing timber underneath it before setting it alight. There were no survivors. A few, like rabbits in a wheat field flushed by the reapers, were cut down by Roman swords. With the rebels fleeing in all directions, the Romans held a victory celebration. In the midst of the flames, they brought their standards and eagles to the Temple area and erected an altar where, roaring their battle cry, they saluted Titus as imperator.
With their forces beaten, Gioras and John could not escape the city because of the earth wall, the circumvallation Titus had built. With nowhere to go they asked Titus for parley. Surprisingly, in spite of being rebuffed on so many previous occasions, he agreed, taking up a position above the Gymnasium, where he could be seen and heard. From this position his archers could cover the bridge that linked the Temple with the Upper City. With an assassination in mind, Mucianus ordered two thousand picked legionaries to cover the approach to the bridge, with orders to kill anybody who set foot on it.
With the rebel leaders contained, Titus surveyed the dense crowds that had gathered to witness the confrontation. Surrounded by the remnants of their forces and curious civilians, John and Gioras came forward. The Roman soldiers were equally curious as to how Titus would receive their appeal.
With Josephus at his side as his interpreter, Titus spoke first. “You are responsible for the utter ruin of your nation. Without any regard for Roman military might, with self-interest and arrogance, you destroyed your people and your city. You polluted and then brought down the Temple and its Holy Sanctuary. This you have done out of vanity and self-interest, and for this you will answer to your God.
“Your grandfathers took this land from the Canaanites by force of arms. It became the Jews’ as the spoils of war, to do with as you pleased. We took it from you in war. It became ours to do with as we pleased. You killed the Canaanites. We allowed you to live. We placed over you rulers of your own race. We upheld the Laws of your fathers. We gave you absolute control of your internal affairs. Paramount to this, we permitted you to raise taxes for your God. We allowed you to collect a Temple tax, throughout the empire and send this money to the Temple in Jerusalem. And what happened? You declared war on us! Like a mad dog, you bit the hand that fed you.
“When you desecrated your Holy places, I appealed to you to stop, offering you the opportunity to fight elsewhere. All my overtures were treated with contempt. You set fire to the Holy Temple that Jews all over the world reverence. Frankly, you disgust me, but to save further bloodshed, I will make you one last offer. Throw down your weapons and I will spare your lives”.
Silence followed Titus’ speech; the only sound was that of burning buildings. Finally John spoke. “If called upon, all Jews regard themselves as soldiers of God, who will fight the battle He chooses for us. You, our enemy, are in His hands, as we are ourselves. He will dispose of us all, according to His will. We cannot surrender, because we swore on oath not to do so. However, we ask to be allowed to leave this place forever. We ask for free passage through the circumvallation, and to be allowed to go into the desert with our wives and children”.
Titus, out of patience, refused this demand, saying “You must now be prepared to fight to the last man”.
With a nod of acknowledgment, John turned away and with Gioras disappeared into the crowds.
A furious Titus called his senior generals together, and ordered them to give the army permission to sack the city.
The next day, the soldiers set fire to the Council offices and the area known as the Ophel. With dozens of fires set, the resulting blaze swept through the narrow streets, cons
uming the houses packed with the bodies of those who had died of starvation. The legions then charged through the rest of the Lower City, driving the rebels before them and burning it as they went. The surviving rebels, abandoning their cause, scattered and ran.
John and Gioras, finding themselves deserted, had only one hope left - the city’s sewers. They believed that if they hid in them, they would be safe, the idea being to make a complete escape when the Romans left the city. Before disappearing into this subterranean refuge, they sowed more discord and confusion and misery by running through the streets lighting fires at random. When the terrified owners attempted to leave their burning houses, they were murdered and robbed.
Turned loose, the Romans raced across the city sword in hand, cutting down without mercy all they met. Most of the houses they burst into in search of valuables were filled with the stinking dead bodies of the families who had died of starvation; the stench driving them out empty handed.
With the rampaging legions adding to the body count as they scythed across the city, the streets were soon impassable, as new corpses piled up on the older rotting dead. At night the legions rested and the city continued to burn. When the sun rose, it was on a city in flames. Only three massive towers remained untouched in this sea of fire. Phasael, Hippicus and Mariamme.
Eventually the soldiers tired of killing. With starving survivors appearing in large numbers, Titus gave the order to spare anybody not carrying a weapon.
Men in their prime were herded into the remains of the court of women, and held captive. To guard and manage these prisoners, Titus appointed Fronto, the Tribune commanding the two legions from Alexandria. As Fronto sorted through the captives, he identified a few who had taken part in the uprising. He persuaded them, with the aid of a red hot iron, to inform on the rest. He then executed the lot before sorting through the remainder. Picking out the tallest and most athletic looking, he ordered that they be fed. Eventually these would be exhibited in Vespasian’s and Titus’ double triumph in Rome. From his next pickings, a very substantial number were set aside for Titus’ future needs, which meant they would die very soon in the arena, killed either in combat or torn to pieces by wild animals. During the week or so it took Fronto to sort out his prisoners, eleven thousand died of starvation. Some of them died because food came too late, and others refused to eat it.
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