Authors: Peter R. Hall
“Rather, they have been sent by an avenging God to purge this place with fire and sword.
Like Sodom and Gomorrah, this seat of corruption will be no more”.
Unable to continue, a distraught Josephus, who was weeping uncontrollably started to turn away. Pausing, he gathered himself for a final pronouncement. “Even now, you undeserving sinners, God will listen to you. His forgiveness, His love, is unconditional. It is forever. Ask for His forgiveness and it will be yours. Ask for His mercy and you will receive it. Return to the God of your fathers and save yourselves. Lay down your weapons and submit not to the Romans but to the will of God”. With these parting words, Josephus left the wall, tears streaming down his face. The rebels, jeering and screaming in anger, hurled stones after the disconsolate figure.
The citizens who had witnessed this event were badly shaken. They were convinced that they were as good as dead and the City lost. With the rebels lining the wall, a large group of these desperate people burst out of the city through a carelessly guarded postern gate, and dashed towards the Roman lines.
Skidding to a halt when faced with a wall of Roman shields, they turned to face the city. Weeping they begged John's men to open the gates to the Romans, and accept the offered peace. This appeal brought a violent reaction from the rebels who, after cursing them for cowards, gave orders for spear throwers to attack the remaining civilians who packed the Temple courts. Catapults and stone throwers were swivelled from their outward facing positions, to add to the carnage. Within minutes the Temple courts were heaped with bodies. The rebels then poured into the sacred precincts, swords in hands, to finish off the wounded.
A furious Titus shouted, “I call on the gods of my fathers to witness that I am not compelling you to desecrate the Temple. If you change the battleground, I will protect the Sanctuary, for we Romans have always respected your right to worship your God in the manner you choose, and in accordance with your Holy Laws”. As Josephus translated this promise, John spat over the wall and turned his back contemptuously on the Roman commander.
A grim faced Titus, unable to bring up his entire army, ordered Mucianus to pick the best twenty five soldiers from every
century
. With a hand-picked centurion in charge of every newly formed
century
and a
tribune
in charge of every thousand, this task force was placed under the command of one of Titus' best generals, Sextus Cerealis, a decorated soldier of proven ability.
His orders were to attack the guard post at dawn. Titus declared he would lead the first wave, an announcement that caused consternation in his high command. It was the threat by Mucianus and Cerealis of instant resignation that persuaded him to step aside. Their argument was that he was needed in the Antonia, from which he could observe the coming battle and direct operations.
In the darkest hour before dawn, Cerealis ordered scouts to creep out, hoping to find the enemy's sentries asleep, but was disappointed. As the alarm was raised, the rest of the rebel guard swarmed out to repel the attackers. With the sentries battling to hold the Romans, the alerted rebels started to arrive in numbers to support their comrades. Spurred on by a mixture of anger and fear, the Jews hurled themselves at the Romans. With shields locked, the Romans charged forward in tightly knit squads. Knowing that in the darkness and confusion of fighting in a restricted area the risk of disorientation was very real, Cerealis had had the foresight to issue a password to his men. The Jews, unable to break the Roman line, pulled back as much as they could and launched a series of darting raids, hoping in this way to find a weakness. In fact, these haphazard tactics resulted in many Jews being injured in the dark by their own comrades, who were slashing wildly in their confused state at anything that moved. Came the dawn and the two sides drew apart, but continued to hurl missiles at each other. Eventually the battle stagnated, neither side able to advance or retreat.
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.
33
F
or
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
tribune
s 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 alive. 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.