| Author | : Bill Kochman |
| Publish | : Jun. 14, 2025 |
| Update | : Jun. 14, 2025 |
| Parts | : 25 |
|
Reference
|
Action
|
Action Detail
|
| 4.658-663; Life 416 |
Dec 69 - Early 70 Vespasian dispatches Titus to Judea. |
Vespasian, the new Emperor, dispatches son Titus from Alexandria to finish the war in Judea. Titus marches to Caesarea with 2000 Alexandrian troop and 3000 Euphrates guards under command of Tiberius Alexander (Jewish apostate). Josephus accompanies them. |
| 5.40-66 | Titus nears Jerusalem; first fight. | Legion XV and XII join Titus; and encamp at Gibeah of Saul, 30 stadia (3.5 mi, 5.5 km) north of Jerusalem. While Titus reconnoiters with 600 horsemen,the Judean fighters attack, but Titus bravely plunges through them to safety. |
| 5.67 | The Legions assemble and camp at Jerusalem. | Legion V joins Titus by way of Emmaus. The camp is moved to Mt. Scopus, overlooking Jerusalem. Legion X soon joins them, making a separate camp on the Mt. of Olives, east of the city across the Kidron valley. |
| 5.25; 5.71 | The factions awake to the danger. | In Jerusalem, the factions have continued fighting. Nearly all of the grain stored in the city has been burnt during the conflict. When confronted with the reality of the three Roman camps, the factions at last make an uneasy alliance among themselves. |
| 5.72-97 | Daring Judean attack on Titus. | A group of Judean soldiers dash across Kidron in a surprise atttack on the Xth Legion. Titus and picked troops come to the rescue, driving the Judeans back down the ravine, Titus at times singlehandedly keeping them from advancing. "Thus, if without a syllable added in flattery or withheld from envy, the truth must be told, Caesar personally twice rescued the entire legion when in jeopardy..." (5.97) |
| 5.98 ff; 5.248-257 | John of Gischala controls the Temple. | John of Gischala (Josephus' old rival in Galilee) defeats Eleazar's Zealots and gains control of the inner court of the Temple. The factions are reduced to two. Simon son of Gioras (the popular leader from the countryside) has 10,000 Judeans plus 5,000 Idumeans, John has 6,000 of his original men plus 2,400 of Eleazar's that have joined him. Simon controls the Upper City and the Third Wall to the Kidron valley at the southeast corner, and part of the Lower City. John controls the Temple and environs and the Kidron valley. The region between has been reduced to ashes. |
| 5.114 | Josephus begins negotiations. | Josephus conveys to the rebels Titus' invitation to peace negotiations, but receives no response. |
| 5.106-130 | Approach to the city walls levelled. | Titus orders the leveling of gardens, walls, plantations of the suburbs, flattening the space from Scopus almost to the city walls. A Judean pretense at negotiations ends in an ambush of several Roman soldiers. |
| 5.133; 5.567 |
May 1, 70 Nissan/Xanthicus 14 Titus moves camp to NW Jerusalem. |
Titus and three legions move camp to the northwest corner of Jerusalem, two stadia (1/4 mile) from the tower Psephinus. The Xth Legion remains on the Mt. of Olives. |
| 5.261 | Titus, Josephus and Nicanor reconnoiter. | Titus circles the walls to select an assault point, accompanied by Nicanor and Josephus in an attempt to negotiate with the rebels. Nicanor (and old friend from Galilee) is wounded by a rebel arrow in the left shoulder. |
| 5.260 | Assault point chosen. | Titus decides to make assault "opposite the tomb of John Hyrcanus" in the northwest in order to capture the Upper City and the Antonia fortress. The Legions are ordered to build earthworks. |
| 5.262-274 | Both sides begin artillery fire. | Simon places previously captured Roman artillery on the walls opposite the works, but his men are inexperienced with their use. Titus positions artillery in front of his engineers for protection. The Xth Legion has the best artillery, capable of sending a one-talent (75 pound/34 kg) stone a distance of two stadia (one-quarter mile/370 meters). The Judeans place observers on the walls to warn of the incoming missles, which are clearly visible white stones, allowing time for their men to take cover. The Romans respond with stealth technology: they paint the stones black. |
| 5.275-289 | The battering rams begin to act on the walls. | The ramps having been completed to within ramming distance, Titus orders the battering rams into action. The tremendous noise of the battering spurs the rival Judean factions into a truce, and they jointly attack the rams from the walls with fire and projectiles. In a ground sortie, Judeans set fire to the Roman works -- "Jewish daring outstripped Roman discipline" -- but Titus drives off the attackers and the fire is extinguished. In this attack one Jewish prisoner is taken and crucified in sight of the walls to frighten the populace. An Idumean general, John, is killed by an arrow. |
| 5.292 | Roman tower collapses. | The next night a fifty-cubit-high Roman siege tower collapses; the troops panic, believing the rebels had invaded. Titus calms them. |
| 5.300-302 |
May 25 Artemisius/Iyyar 7 Outermost wall breaks. |
After 15 days of battering, Jersualem's outer (Third) wall begins to break from the rams. The insurgents abandon the wall without much concern, in favor of defending the other two. The Romans raze a large part of the wall and the northern quarter of the city. |
| 5.303-315 | Romans move camp to the Second Wall. | Titus moves the camp to within the Third Wall. Among the Judeans, John defends the Antonia fortress and the north portico of the Temple, Simon occupies the approach to the tomb of John Hyrcanus and the wall near the Herodian tower Hippicus. They stage quick sorties against the Romans and "still cherish hopes of salvation;" Simon in particular is revered. Judeans "thought only of the injury which they could inflict, and death seemed to them a trivial matter if it involved the fall of one of the enemy. Titus, on the other hand, cared as much for his soldiers' safety as for success...he ordered his troops to prove their manhood without running personal risks." |
| 5.317-330 | False negotiations by Castor. | Titus brings the battering ram against the central tower of the north portion of the Second Wall. The Judean deceiver Castor delays Titus with false peace negotitations, but a suspicious Josephus refuses to take part. Castor attacks one of the negotiators; when the battering is resumed, Castor sets fire to the tower and escapes. |
| 5.331-347 |
May 30 The Second Wall cracks. Titus enters but is forced back. |
Jerusalems's Second Wall is breached five days after the Third Wall. Titus with picked troops recklessly enters the breach in the Second Wall and into a crowded market district, asking the citizens to surrender peacefully so as to preserve the city. But the Judean militatnts attack, many soldiers are wounded, "and the entire invading force would probably have been annihilated, had not Titus come to their relief, covering them as the soldiers are forced back through the wall. |
| 5.347 |
June 4 The Second Wall is razed. |
After battling four more days, the Romans finally master the Second Wall and raze its northern portion. |
| 5.348 | A pause in the siege. | Titus suspends the siege and dramatically lines the soldiers up to receive their pay in sight of the wall, a process that takes four days, impressing upon the rebels the numbers and arms of the Romans. The rebels do not surrender. |
| 5.356; 5.466 |
Early June (c. Artemesius 12) Romans begin building earthen banks at two locations, Antonia and the Hyrcanus monument. |
Titus splits his forces to build four embankments: Legions V and XII build earthworks against the Antonia Fortress so as to attack the Temple, and Legions X and XV build works in the northern part of this city across from John Hyrcanus' monument in order to take the Upper City. The rebels fire on them with hundreds of artillery pieces. |
| 5.361-419; Life 1-7, Life 414-417 | Josephus appeals to the rebels to surrender. | Titus, seeking to avoid the destrucion of the city, delegates Josephus to speak to the rebels in their native language and persuade them to surrender. Josephus circles the walls as he speaks to the rebels. He implores them to spare themselves, the people, the country and the Temple. The Romans, he says, have done more to protect the Temple than they. It is rational to give in to superior arms, and the Romans were masters of the world because, clearly, the will of the Deity was with them. The city's forefathers had surrendered to the Romans knowing this. The Romans knew that famine was raging in the city, its fall was inevitable, yet they would be treated well if they surrendered now, while none would be spared if all offers were rejected. The Bible demonstrates that when the Deity supports the Jews, success is obtained without warfare, while if war is waged against superior powers the result is always defeat and destruction for the Jews. "Thus invariably have arms been refused to our nation, and warfare has been athe sure signal for defeat." Josephus compares himself directly to Jeremiah: "For, though Jeremiah boldly proclaimed that they were hateful to God..and would be taken captive unless they surrendered the city" they did not put Jeremiah to death, but in contrast the rebels now "assail me with abuse and missiles, while I exhort you to save yourselves." Miracles, moreover, greeted the Romans: the pool at Siloam, which had been dried up, now filled with water at Titus' approach. In the end, Josephus makes a personal appeal: "I have a mother, a wife, a not ignoble family, and an ancient and illustrious house involved in these perils; and maybe you think it is on their account that my advice is offered. Slay them, take my blood as the price of your own salvation! I too am prepared to die, if my death will lead to your learning wisdom." |
| 5.420-445 | Horrific famine seizes Jersualem. | Although Josephus "with his tears thus loudly appealed to them," the insurgents do not yield. However, non-compbatants are inspired to desert; they sell their possessions for gold, then swallow the gold coins to hide them as they escape to the Romans. The deserters give the Romans pitful reports of increasing famine in the city and attacks by insurgents performing house-to-house searches for food, beating and torturing those within. The wealthy are robbed and murdered by the forces of John and Simon. "To narrate their enormities in detail is is impossible; but, to put it briefly, no other city every endured such miseries, nor since the world began has there been a generation more prolific in crime." |
| 5.446-451 | Mass crucifixions. | As the construction of the embankments proceeds the Romans capture escapees from the city, as many as 500 a day. Prisoners are tortured, killed, then crucified before the walls to intimidate the populace. Titus is saddened by thie necessity of the crucifixions. "So great was their number, that space could not be found for the crosses nor crosses for the bodies." |
| 5.458-459 | The Judeans swear to fight Romans with their last breath, even if it means the destruction of the Temple. | The cruelty of the Romans has the reverse effect of discouraging desertion. Titus continues to exhort the rebels to surrender peacefully and thus save the city and the Temple. The Judeans reply by expressing negative opinions of Titus and the Emperor, and declare they prefer death to slavery, will fight the Romans with their last breath, and "that the world was a better Temple for the Deity than this one." [A radical concept too shocking for Josephus to contemplate: that the Temple might not be necessary.] The result of the conflict, they say, in any case is up to the divine will, not to them. |
| 5.466-490; 5.522-526 |
June 16 Artimesius 29 The rebels destroy the earthworks. |
On the seventeenth day of the building of the works, John undermines the Antonia earthworks built by the Vth Legion and sets fire to the supporting timbers, causing the tunnels to collapse and the whole works to burn. Two days later Simon's men set fire to the other works and battering engines. The Roman soldiers are dispirited at the loss of so much hard work and also at the lack of timber to rebuild, for all the trees around the city had been cut down for a distance of 90 stadia (10mi / 16 km). |
| 5.491-534 | Titus decides to starve the city. | Titus holds a difficult consultation with his officers. Unable to rebuild the works, but unwilling to wait indefinitely, Titus decides to blockade the city completely to prevent food supplies entering. At the same time he will rebuild the embankments at one position only, against Antonia. Enthusiastic troops build an earthen wall (or trench) completely around the city in three days. All hope of escape being cut off, the famine within the city intensifies. Burials are neglected, bodies pile up. Insurgents continue the trials of prominent persons, execute eminent men and imprison Josephus' father. |
| 5.541-547 | Josephus knocked unconscious by a rebel missile. | As Josephus continues his exhortations at the wall, he is struck in the head with a stone and knocked unconscious. The Romans rescue him. Militants think him dead and rejoice. Josephus' mother, in prison, laments his death. But Josephus quickly recovers and appears before the walls, vowing revenge. "The sight of him animated the people and filled the rebels with dismay." |
| 5.548-561 | Deserters cut open for their gold. | Syrian troops discover some deserters have swallowed gold coins. The rumor spreads that all deserters are filled with gold. Arabs and Syrians cut open all who escape the city. "In one night no less than two thousand were ripped up." Josephus interprets this as another example of divine retribution. |
| 5.562-566 | John plunders the Temple. | John melts down the Temple vessels for gold and distributes sacred wine and oil to his men. He reasons they can employ "divine things on behalf of the Divinity." |
| 5.567-572 | Hundreds of thousands dead. | Deserter Mannaeus ben Lazarus is assigned by the Romans to watch a city gate. He counts 115,880 bodies carried through the gate during the siege, in the period from Xanthicus 14 to Panemus 1 (May 1 to July 20). Reports from within the city give the total dead among the lower classes at 600,000. |
| 6.1-22 |
July 20 Panemus/Tammuz 1 New earthworks ready. |
The Antonia earthworks are completed in 21 days. These are heavily guarded, as all timber had been used within 10 miles of the city. John makes a strong attempt to destroy the constructions but fails. |
| 6.23-32 | Antonia is breached, but to no effect. | The Romans, under heavy fire, bring siege-engines against the Antonia Fortress. Armored engineers undermine the foundation. Suffering the pounding of the battering rams, a portion of the wall collapses -- it has been weakened by the tunnel previously dug by John's men to attack the earlier works. But the Romans are dismayed to discover John has built another wall behind it. |
| 6.33-53 | Titus encourages the soldiers. | Titus exhorts the dispirited troops, saying: The Deity is on their side -- it is more glorious to die in battle than of disease -- fallen warriors immediately take their place among the stars rather than reside in the underworld -- the new wall will be easily overthrown and once Antonia is taken the city is theirs. |
| 6.54-67 |
July 22 Panemus/Tammuz 3 First attack fails. |
Inspired by Titus, Sabinus of Syria leads an impressive attack to scale the wall, but at the summit trips and is killed. |
| 6.68-92 |
July 24 Romans take Antonia. |
Two dozen soldiers, acting on their own initiative, lead a daring night attack and seize Antonia. The rebels fall back into the Temple grounds, battle fiercely and prevent further Roman advances. |
| 6.93-129 |
August 5 Panemus/Tammuz 17 Temple sacrifices end. |
The daily sacrifices in the Temple are halted. |