To the Death (25 page)

Eventually the killing madness lifted. Men weary with the effort of wielding swords, stopped in mid stroke. Like sleepers awakening from a deep sleep, they looked at their hands and arms black with blood, their bodies blooded to the chin. In a daze they came together, suddenly aware of what they had done and were ashamed.

Later, one of the zealot leaders, Benjamin, came to the Idumaeans to ask for a meeting. “I am deeply sorry” he said, “for the part I have played in these events, as are many of my brothers. I think” he continued after a pause, “I think in the heat of the moment, we went too far. You answered our call for help in good faith, for which you have our thanks. But what” he continued soberly “has happened here was not what was intended and for which we must answer to God.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the Idumaeans. Eventually their Chief, Simon of Cathla, spoke “The allegation of treason was not proved. We acted in haste and are guilty of many excesses that were jointly committed. We came in good faith to help you in your hour of need. We leave you filled with sorrow at your lack of respect and evil behaviour.”

In the Roman camp, deserters brought before Titus gave him detailed information of these internal divisions. Such news was welcomed, Titus' comment to his men being “While the Jews kill each other with such ferocity, they do our job for us. We would be foolish to distract them.”

When his men begged him to march on the city, he answered “To do so would only give them cause to reunite.” Titus preferred to let the civil war run its course, saying “The gods, even the Jewish God, is handing the Jews over to us without our having to lift a finger. They must” he concluded with a grin “have managed to displease both, so calamitous is their situation.” Titus was also grateful for the Jews fighting each other, because as they grew weaker he grew stronger, able at last to rest his legions which had been fighting in Judaea for four years, only being taken out of the line when the opportunity presented itself.

From the news the deserters brought him Titus knew the Jews were not using this time to continue manufacturing weapons, reinforce their defences and train the refugees. Instead they were being weakened by dissention and the civil war they were waging. Just as keen as the Romans were to capture deserters alive, the warring factions wanted them dead, so escape had been made difficult. Every exit was guarded and anybody attempting to leave the city was summarily executed. The exceptions were the lucky and the wealthy. The latter could buy their way over the walls. The poor died. Hedges of dead bodies lined the main roads. Many who would have fled the city stayed knowing they would die. They stayed in the hope of a burial in Jerusalem.

Amid the horrors of the city, pity itself died. Paralysed with fear, the starving citizens envied the dead. They were at peace.

Even in death, there were priests and men of learning who reminded any who would listen of the ancient prophecy “
If the people turn against each other and pollute the Temple, it will be destroyed and God's Holy City will be conquered in war.
”

The Zealots, disbelieving the truth of this, refused to change their course, believing that in the end they would triumph.

John was prepared to die, trying to fulfil his ambition of being the sole ruler of the nation. To further these ends he gradually built up a separate army, recruiting the cruellest, most vicious and brutal criminals who would fight and kill for money. Everything he did was aimed at securing sole sovereignty. Many gave way to him through fear. Some were genuine followers for he was skilled at persuading people to his cause and generous with the money he had stolen. However, many of his followers left him, as the alliance with the zealots began to break up. Many hated the idea of a King, so they opposed him. The one thing the rebels had in common, irrespective of their allegiances, was that every man chose to face the war with all its miseries, rather than give up his liberty.

The city was now at the mercy of three momentous calamities - war, tyranny and fundamentalism. Now a fourth calamity was coming, in the form of Gioras, who had holed up in Masada.

As lawlessness spread, every local headman turned minor warlord began plundering the neighbourhood with impunity, before disappearing with his supporters into the desert bad lands. In fact, every corner of Judaea was going the same way as the capital, as Jew killed Jew, murdering blood relations without a second thought.

24

T
he
Arab mercenaries were facing west, their faces lit by the sunset. The image of the mountain and the dying light falling on its flanks was reflected in their eyes. They waited quietly, patiently; night ambushes were not a thing to rush. Outside the walls of Gabara, a few gaunt, mange stained camels settled in the dust. A boy leading some scurvy donkeys hurried to a gate before it was slammed shut for the night, the evening air redolent with the indistinguishable smells that accompany humans in tight quarters. Soon it would be owl light.

They squatted on their haunches, waiting, watching. Sharp faced men, lean and hard, who fought for money. Their sullen eyes betrayed their meanness of character, their hard jaws their lack of pity. At the last moment they would enter the town, their task to murder the guards of the western gate and open it to Vespasian's army. Their reward – anything they could steal.

Clad in black from head to toe with only their eyes uncovered, they flitted silently as shadows to a chosen spot of the town's defensive wall. At a hand signal from their leader, a rope attached to a muffled grappling iron had them on top of the wall in minutes. Invisible in the shadows they waited for the patrolling guards who, peering outwards, died silently from a blade thrust from behind.

Minutes later, Vespasian's men stepped over the dead guards and crept into the town. The gate through which they had gained entrance was not the main gate, but a minor portal used principally by garbage carts.

Vespasian's soldiers, surprised to find the walls virtually without sentries and the main gate guarded by old men, had it open in seconds and a hundred archers through it in a heartbeat.

In minutes, Vespasian's army had marched into town. In hours they had sacked it. The able bodied males were taken as slaves; the rest of the population were put to the sword. After ransacking the town for anything of value, which included its food stores, it was burnt.

Meanwhile Josephus, who had journeyed to Tiberius, found himself unwelcome. When they suggested he would betray them to Rome to save his own skin, he decided to write to the authorities in Jerusalem. His letter would be an objective analysis of the situation. If they agreed with him, then the logical thing to do would be to sue for terms. If that was the case, he would be prepared to act as the nation's advocate. If they were set on continuing to fight the Romans, they must send him trained recruits.

Vespasian, sensing the tide was with him, was now keen to attack the city of Jotapata, for his intelligence had informed him that a large number of the enemy had taken refuge there. They had done so because the town was a natural fortress that Josephus had reinforced with new walls and towers.

He immediately despatched a legion to force-march ahead of his main army. With them went a substantial number of specialist engineers and road builders, charged with turning a tortuous stony mountain track into a road. Meanwhile Josephus, who had left Tiberius a week earlier, slipped into Jotapata just in time to lift the spirits of the despondent Jews. When Vespasian learned of this from a deserter, he was delighted. Without hesitation he ordered Placidus to take a thousand horsemen to put a ring around the town a mouse couldn't get through. This was done with the express purpose of preventing Josephus escaping.

The next day, Vespasian and the entire army arrived after force marching until dusk, taking his army to the high ground north of the town, three quarters of a mile from its walls, to ensure the Jews would see just how big an enemy they would be up against. His aim was to dampen the spirits of those inside.

Vespasian, satisfied that his ploy had worked, rested his troops who were weary after twelve hours of marching; although he did place a double line of archers around the town, with a third ring of cavalry, to deter any attempt at leaving. With no hope of escape, and determined not to surrender, the Jews did not give way to despair. On the contrary they vowed to sell their lives dearly. The next morning the Jews formed up outside the city walls in a direct challenge to the Roman forces.

Vespasian responded by deploying his archers, slingers and long range artillery, ordering them to keep up a steady barrage. Using this as cover, he then ordered heavy infantry to assault the wall at its weakest point. Josephus, seeing the danger, ordered the whole Jewish garrison to storm the advancing Roman infantry, driving them back from the wall in hand to hand fighting. With neither side willing to give ground, they both suffered heavy losses. The Jews with nothing to lose and the Romans filled with pride were locked in mortal combat, hacking and stabbing at each other in a kind of madness that lasted the whole day.

At nightfall the combatants staggered apart bearing their wounded away. They left behind a battlefield muddy with blood and carpeted with body parts. The fallen, heaped in grotesque mounds, bore silent witness to the animal courage displayed by both sides.

The next day, with the stars paling in the east, both sides readied themselves to resume hostilities. The Jews, seeing the forces ranged against them, prepared to march out and do battle. Shivering in the cold air, men coughed to clear their lungs before strapping on their armour. They met like pit-bulls, mad with the scent of blood, both sides determined to carry the day.

In a desperate attempt to gain the advantage, more and more men were committed to the madness in front of Jotapata's walls, but to no avail. Neither side would give an inch. The combatants stood on the bodies of the fallen to get at each other. Neither would respond to the orders of their commanders to disengage. Throughout the day Roman and Jew fought each other breast to breast, eye to eye, in a primordial frenzy. Only darkness once again forced the adversaries apart.

For five more days the two sides engaged one another, the Jews' determination and fighting spirit never wavering. The Romans, their pride hurt, knew that their honour was at stake. For them there was no possible outcome other than death or victory, though the difficulty of taking the town was becoming more and more apparent.

Jotapata is perched on the edge of a cliff, a precipice of sheer rock protected on three sides by deep ravines. Josephus had taken advantage of this when he built the town's walls. A circle of natural rock curtains shielded the town so effectively as to become part of its fortifications.

Vespasian, knowing he had to come up with a new strategy, had called a meeting of his senior officers where it was decided that they would build platforms against the most approachable section of wall. Ten thousand soldiers were ordered into the countryside to collect materials. The hills were scalped of trees, and mountains of stones were collected and hauled back to the site.

A second force of legionaries was ordered to make large mobile shields from timber and animal hides. These would be used to protect their fellow soldiers from the missiles being hurled at them from the tops of the walls. The Romans then organised a third working party of some five thousand men to dig vast quantities of earth, and transport this in panniers on the backs of mules to the waiting builders.

In response, the Jews hurled huge lumps of stone onto the enemy's shelters in an attempt to disrupt the building work. To protect his men, Vespasian organised a ring of artillery. By using every piece available to him, he was able to assemble two hundred engines to bombard the Jews on the wall. These were used to mount a synchronised attack of devastating power. Catapults fired lances two metres in length. Arab archers volleyed flights of arrows that turned the sky black. Stone throwers of various kinds hurled a mixed freight into the air. Stones, weighing a hundredweight or more were launched, along with fire brands and nets full of smaller missiles.

Under this onslaught the Jews were driven not only from the wall, but the section of town immediately inside it. To help clear the streets and squares immediately behind the wall, the Romans hurled javelins high into the air, to plummet down in a rain of random killing.

The Jews, beaten back from the top of the wall, sallied forth in company strength, smashing the shields that protected the working parties and putting them to the sword. Then, without drawing breath, they charged the main platform the Romans were building and set fire to its uprights and shields.

Vespasian countered this by strengthening the earthworks and bringing up additional numbers of troops, to help the men toiling to build other platforms. The Jews, seeing these rising higher and higher, soon to be level with their battlements, began to lose heart.

Josephus, ever inventive, ordered the town's stonemasons to raise the wall higher. When they refused, on the grounds that the constant barrage of missiles made it impossible, he ordered his men to erect posts along the walls and fix wet ox hides to them, so that stones hurled against them would be turned away, the wet hides giving without splitting when struck. Other types of missiles would either glance off or be stopped. Firebrands would simply fizzle out against the wet leather.

With this protection, the builders toiled day and night to raise the wall by thirty feet. They also built towers along it and finished the whole project with a strong wooden platform. The Romans, who fancied themselves already in the town, were despondent. Vespasian, exasperated by this stratagem, was even more irritated when the Jews resumed night sorties against him. He was mildly alarmed when they had the nerve to engage him in company strength during the day.