With an ambition that epitomizes the Romans’ command of the ancient world, Titus instructed his officers to organize the building of a wall around Jerusalem. It was to be an airtight seal that would prevent anyone from leaving the city and foraging for supplies. The statistics of it are staggering: in three days the Roman legions built a wall 7 kilometres (4¼ miles) in circumference and punctuated it with thirteen forts. Little tasks, said Titus, were beneath the dignity of Rome. For excellence and speed in executing this gargantuan task, legion competed with legion, cohort with cohort. As Titus inspected the work on horseback, he observed how ‘the private was eager to please his decurion, the decurion his centurion, the centurion his tribune; the tribunes were ambitious for the praise of the generals; and of the rivalry between the generals, Titus himself was judge.’38 The plan was that when the siege had sufficiently weakened Jewish resistance, only then would the platforms be rebuilt and the assault reignited. According to Josephus’s gruesome account, it was not long before the Roman general reaped his grim rewards.
Starvation was said to have driven a woman to eat her baby, the streets of Jerusalem filled with the dead, and the roofs of houses in view of the Romans were covered with the bodies of men and women too weak even to stand. When the Romans taunted the Jews with displays of food, Simon’s and John’s determination to fight on became so entrenched that they alienated some of their closest subordinates. When a tower commander named Judas gathered ten people and shouted out to the Romans that they wanted to desert en masse, Simon broke into the tower before they could make their move and executed them. Other Jews, pretending to advance for battle, successfully escaped in their hundreds and handed themselves over to the Romans, only to discover that food was more lethal than the hunger they had left behind. Instead of eating little by little and allowing their bodies to grow accustomed to food again, they ate non-stop and thus killed themselves.
Among the people caught up in the horror of the siege were two whom Josephus was most anxious about: his mother and father. He had learnt that they were alive but imprisoned. Perhaps it was out of fear for their lives that Josephus approached the walls and made another plea for the Jews to surrender. This time the rebels hit their target. Josephus was struck on the head by a missile and knocked unconscious. A race to collect the body of the Jews’ most wanted man ensued. The Romans reached it first and rescued their negotiator.
It took twenty-one days for timber to be gathered again and the platforms to be rebuilt. The surrounding countryside reflected the bleak, grinding work: all about were dusty tracts, grassy desert and the sad stumps of dead trees. While the Romans were sapped of all energy by their toils, the armies of John and Simon drew on inhuman reserves of determination. They seemed to rise like ghosts, thriving on famine, fatigue and infighting, only to launch yet another assault and disrupt the Roman preparations. Although these guerrilla sorties often failed, the fact that they persisted gave the Jews a moral victory.
Soon the Romans were once again pounding at the last wall. Protected from the deluge of missiles, stones and arrows by their shields, the workers ground away with rams, hands and crowbars to lever loose the foundation stones of the wall and cut a breach through it. Eventually, it was not Roman grit that provided the breakthrough, but the tunnel dug by John. While it had once allowed the Jews to destroy the platforms, now it yielded an advantage to Romans: the tunnel fell in and the wall suddenly collapsed in a heap of giant stones. Titus ordered his strongest legionaries to take immediate advantage of this. At two o’clock in the morning an advance unit of Romans charged into the disused tunnel and collided with the armies of John and Simon waiting for them. In the close quarters the Romans jabbed mechanically with their short swords, hardly able to tell Roman from Jew and the direction of advance from retreat. Bodies were crushed underfoot and the noise of groaning and screaming filled the confined, fetid space. Eventually, however, the Roman infantry bloodily pummelled their way through, forcing the Jews to retreat to the holiest part of the city, the Temple complex.
Titus had already taken control of the Antonia Fortress that buttressed the colonnade of the Temple complex. He now ordered it to be razed to the ground: a wide, level access would make the driving ascent of four Roman legions much easier. Before he gave the signal, however, Titus had a final offer to make to the rebels. He turned once again to Josephus, who took his stand in full view of the Jews protected by the Temple enclosure and, speaking in Aramaic, addressed John. Surrender, spare the people and the city, he said, and Rome would still pardon him. This was his last chance. If he persisted in fighting and desecrating the Temple, God would punish him. John launched a torrent of abuse at the turncoat Josephus. Stung, the young priest and scholar gave up. Choking with emotion, he shouted, ‘It is God then, God Himself who is bringing with the Romans fire to purge the Temple and is blotting out the city brimful of corruption as if it had never been.’39 With those words, a monster was unleashed.
The Temple complex was the most well-built part of the city. After six days of battering the walls of its outer court, not a dent had been made. Eventually, the silver gates were set on fire, and as the metal melted, the Romans set fire to the colonnade bit by bit and broke in. As the massive assault drew closer to the inner court and the sanctuary, a heated debate took place between Titus and his officers: what should be done about the Temple itself? Some said that it should be destroyed. If it remained standing, there would never be peace in the Roman province of Judaea. The Temple would remain a symbol around which Jews throughout the world would rally. Others disagreed. It should be spared, they said, but only so long as the Jews did not try to defend themselves in it. If that happened, it would cease to be a holy place and become a military fortress. Titus heard all their opinions, but it was perhaps Josephus who influenced his eventual decision. The commander declared the Temple a precious work of art. In saving it, said Titus, he would bequeath a glorious ornament to the emperor and the Roman people.40
In mid-July AD 70, over three months since the start of Titus’s campaign, the battle for the outer court of the Temple raged on. The heavy infantry lines of both Roman and Jewish armies were drawn up and warred with each other under a barrage of spears, arrows and missiles of every kind. Gradually the Roman lines, eight ranks deep, advanced and drove the Jews into the inner court. When, after some days, the Jewish army formations broke down and dispersed, the Romans broke through to the inner court. At that moment the battle boiled over and the legionaries cut loose. After the best part of four long, gruelling years of campaign, the Roman soldiers vented their wild hatred on the enemy. Piling through all the entrances, they no longer distinguished between Jewish soldier and civilian. All were indiscriminately slaughtered. The steps of the Temple were awash with blood. In front of them and near the Holy Altar corpses were piled high, those on the top sometimes slithering to the bottom. The din of butchery, however, was about to get a lot worse.
In the chaos a Roman soldier seized a firebrand and threw it through a small opening into the Temple. Soon the building was on fire. A messenger reported the news to Titus. The general leapt up and, with his guard panting after him, dashed towards the sanctuary. Once inside, he saw that the fire could be stopped. He screamed at the soldiers to put it out, but no one paid him any attention. They were too consumed with greed, with getting their just deserts. The slaughter of Jews had given way to mass looting. Darting through the blazing fires, soldiers raided the treasures of the Temple and carried off whatever they could get their hands on. Ancient cups and basins of pure gold, curtains and bejewelled garments, and, most precious of all, the holy seven-branched candelabrum, the shewbread table and the ritual trumpets all fell into the polluted hands of the Roman soldiers. The most sanctified part of the Temple, the iconic epicentre of the Jewish faith, was cleaned out and left to burn.