[Sidenote: [62-67 A.D.]]
The Jewish heart had been kindled to a successful revolt under Judas
Maccabæus. The memory of this triumph and of the cruelties that had
forced it upon the unwarlike people, ripened the national heart for an
effort against even the mighty empire of Rome. The struggle was one
of the bravest and one of the most horrible in the world’s annals. It
found a splendid chronicler in Josephus, who was one of the generals,
and fought bravely, and yet, like his Grecian prototype, Thucydides,
won his immortality by his pen instead of by his sword. Josephus’
account is, however, a voluminous work in itself, and we must be
content with some of the most brilliant pages, turning to Ménard for a
briefer sketch of the general story.[a]
In Judea, the temper of the nation had long given warning of
approaching revolt. It broke out at length when Gessius Florus was
appointed procurator through the influence of his wife, who was a
friend of Poppæa’s. His vexatious measures and rapacity wore out the
patience of the Jews; on this point Tacitus is at one with Josephus.
Disorders first occurred at Cæsarea on the occasion of Nero’s decree;
then the action of Florus in taking seventeen talents out of the
temple treasury provoked a riot at Jerusalem. The soldiery spread
through the streets, plundering the houses and massacring the peaceable
inhabitants, not sparing even women and children; after which the
procurator withdrew to Cæsarea, leaving only one cohort in the tower
of Antonia. The Zealots promptly occupied the temple precincts. When
a government flees before the mob it may safely be predicted that
the most excited and violent party will impose its will on the rest.
In vain did Agrippa II and his sister Berenice, who happened to be
at Jerusalem at the time, endeavour to allay the popular frenzy.
They could gain nothing, in spite of the respect felt for the last
descendants of the ancient kings. A band of men left the city, seized
the fortress of Masada, and massacred the garrison.
The moderate party, composed of the wealthier classes and the priests,
would have recoiled from an insensate struggle against the power of
Rome, but Eleazar, the leader of the party of action, made the rupture
final by refusing to offer in the temple the victims which were wont
to be sacrificed there by the emperor’s command for the prosperity of
Rome and of the empire. The friends of order sent to entreat Agrippa
and Florus to come with all speed to protect them against the rebels.
Agrippa sent three thousand horsemen, who took possession of the upper
city, while the Zealots, robbers, and _sicarii_ occupied the temple and
the lower city. Florus returned no answer. According to Josephus, he
wished the insurrection to grow to a head, and, when it was exhausted
by its own violence, to extinguish it in blood. Such are the habitual
tactics of military leaders in time of revolution. Such deliverers
deserve, as Lamennais says, to be execrated in the present and in the
future.
The insurgents, who were masters of the temple, refused entrance to the
partisans of peace, made their way into the upper city, and set fire to
the palace of Agrippa and Berenice. They also burnt the archives, in
order to destroy all vouchers of credit and so bring over the debtors
to their side. They were commanded by Manahem, the son of Judas the
Gaulonite, and by Eleazar, the son of the high priest Ananias, who
was one of the principal leaders of the opposite party, for civil war
had set division even between members of the same family. The tower
of Antonia was taken and burnt by the revolutionaries, who allowed
Agrippa’s horsemen to depart unmolested. The Romans, for their part,
took refuge in the three towers of the old wall. Ananias, who, with
his brother Hezekiah, was found hidden in an aqueduct, was slaughtered
by Manahem. Then Eleazar, enraged at the assassination of his father
and uncle, stirred up the people against Manahem, who now gave himself
the airs of a tyrant. “It was not worth while,” he said to them, “to
cast off the yoke of Rome in order to stoop to that of the least among
yourselves.” Manahem was stoned in the court of the temple. Such of his
partisans as could make their escape took refuge in the fortress of
Masada. The Romans asked for terms of capitulation. They were promised
their lives, but they had no sooner given up their arms than Eleazar
and the Zealots fell upon them and slew them all but one, who consented
to be circumcised. The rest died, to a man, without asking for mercy,
only crying out upon the sanctity of their oaths. These imprecations
filled the people with dire forebodings, all the more so because this
perjury had been committed on the Sabbath day.
The same day and hour, as if by the working of divine vengeance, says
Josephus, a massacre of the Jews took place at Cæsarea; of twenty
thousand men not one was left, for those who escaped were captured by
Florus and sent to the galleys. This massacre roused the whole nation
to such a pitch of fury that they ravaged the towns and villages of the
Syrian frontier, Philadelphia, Heshbon, Gerasa, Pella, and Scythopolis,
with fire and sword. They then sacked Gadara, Hippos, and Gaulonitis,
burned Sebaste and Askalon, and demolished Anthedon and Gaza. They slew
all that were not Jews. Then, as was to be expected, terrible reprisals
followed. An epidemic of carnage raged all over southern Syria and
extended to Egypt. Every mixed city became a battle-ground. If we are
to trust Josephus, the Jews were never the aggressors. That is hard to
believe. It is possible that the rabble, seeing Judea rebel against
Rome, concluded that they might massacre the Jews with impunity. But it
is also very probable that the insurrection had roused to the highest
pitch the fanaticism of Jews settled elsewhere than in Judea, and that
they were desirous of imitating the exploits of their brethren at
Jerusalem. In Alexandria, as a sequel to a discussion in the theatre,
the Jews armed themselves with torches and threatened to burn all the
Greeks alive. The governor of the city was Tiberius Alexander, the
Jewish convert to Hellenism who had formerly been procurator of Judea.
He tried to make his compatriots listen to reason, but without success.
He was obliged to send for the Roman legions. The Jewish quarter,
known as the Delta, was heaped with corpses; Josephus speaks of fifty
thousand slain. At Damascus the Syrians cooped the Jews up in the
gymnasium and slew ten thousand of them. They had carefully concealed
their design from their wives, nearly all of whom professed the Jewish
religion.
After they had succeeded in retaking Jerusalem, the Zealots occupied
the fortresses of the Dead Sea district. They massacred the Roman
garrison of the castle of Cypros, which commanded Jericho; that of
Macherus capitulated. At length Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria,
determined to take up arms against the insurrection. He started from
Antioch with his legions and some auxiliary troops furnished by
Agrippa, who accompanied him on this expedition, and by the kings
of Commagene and Ituræa. Galilee and the seaboard were subdued, and
Cestius advanced to Gabao, two leagues from Jerusalem. The city was
full of pilgrims who had come up to the Feast of Tabernacles. Although
it was the Sabbath day, an immense multitude marched forth, and the
irresistible onset of this troop of anarchists triumphed over Roman
discipline. Simon, the son of Giora, one of the bravest leaders of the
Zealots, pursued the fugitives and dispersed the Roman rear-guard.
Agrippa endeavoured to induce the insurgents to submit by promising
them an amnesty in the name of Cestius; one party among the people was
desirous of accepting terms, but the anarchists killed the ambassadors.
Cestius again advanced upon Jerusalem and took possession of the
outskirts of the city. The insurgents had abandoned the new city and
fallen back upon the temple. If he had attacked immediately, the war
would have come to an end. A member of the family of Ananus, who was
at the head of the party of order, offered to open the gates to the
Romans; the Zealots flung him from the walls. For five days Cestius
endeavoured to storm the temple precincts. The soldiers were at work
sapping the walls, sheltering themselves under their shields, in
the formation known as the “tortoise” (_testudo_). The anarchists,
losing heart, began to take to flight, and the moderate party were
about to open the gates, when Cestius, deceived by false reports, or
perhaps seduced by bribery, sounded the retreat, withdrew to Gabao,
and--pursued and harassed by the Jews, who killed six thousand of his
men--escaped under cover of night, leaving his baggage and engines of
war behind.
The partisans of peace, seeing that in spite of their efforts they were
embarked upon the conflict, resolved to set themselves at the head
of the movement, so as to keep it within bounds if that were still
possible. “Ananus,” says Renan, “took more and more the position of
head of the moderate party. He still had hopes of bringing the mass
of the people over to peaceful counsels; he endeavoured secretly to
check the manufacture of arms, and to paralyse resistance while seeming
to organise it. This is the most dangerous of all games to play in
time of revolution; Ananus was, no doubt, what revolutionaries call
a traitor. In the eyes of the enthusiasts he was guilty of the crime
of seeing clearly; in those of history he cannot be absolved from the
guilt of having accepted the falsest of false positions, that which
consists of making war without conviction, merely under pressure from
ignorant fanatics.” Among the peace party were some who held aloof
lest they should be involved in a destruction which they regarded as
inevitable. Such, for example, were some of the Pharisees, and certain
doctors, careless of politics and absorbed in the study of the law, the
adherents of the Herod family, and the members of the Christian church,
who, since the death of James, had begun more and more to regard their
cause as distinct from that of the Jews.
Munk, though he says nothing of the rabbis who emigrated to Jabneh
before the final struggle, deals somewhat harshly with the Herodians
and Christians. “Only such,” he says, “as rated their personal
interests above those of their country, or sought the melancholy
satisfaction of seeing in its ruin the triumph of their political or
religious opinions, fled in the hour of peril. The friends of Agrippa
openly betrayed their country by going over to the Roman side and
paying court to Cestius and the emperor Nero. Among the fugitives were
also the Christian Jews, following the advice given by Jesus Christ
to his disciples (Matthew xxiv. 16). Preoccupied with the kingdom of
Heaven, which they then seriously looked for, the Christians did not
feel it their duty to meddle with earthly matters nor to take part in
the defence of their unhappy country; led by Simeon, their bishop, they
withdrew beyond Jordan, far from the clash of arms, and sought a refuge
in the city of Pella.”
Cestius died, of disease or grief, shortly after his defeat. Nero
handed over the command to Vespasian, an experienced general, who
had given proof of his military capacity in Germania and Brittany.
Vespasian proceeded to Syria by way of Asia Minor, while his son
Titus went to Alexandria to fetch two legions and lead them into
Palestine. Agrippa and some other petty kings from the country round
about, Antiochus of Commagene, Sohemus, and Malchus the Arab, brought
auxiliary troops to Vespasian, and at the end of the winter of the year
67, an army of sixty thousand men marched into Galilee. The government
of that province had been committed by his fellow-countrymen to
Josephus, the historian to whom we owe the account of the whole war;
and though he was one of the peace party, he had neglected no measures
for putting the country in a state of defence. The defence, which he
relates in detail, was heroic. The little city of Jotapata held out
with amazing resolution against arms and engines of war. Forty thousand
men succumbed during the siege.[c]
Both as a vivid narrative and as a type of the ferocity of assault,
resistance and revenge marking the battles of that time, the account by
Josephus of his own ingenious and desperate defence of Jotapata is well
worth citing at length. He speaks of himself, like Cæsar, in the third
person.[a]
THE DEFENCE OF JOTAPATA DESCRIBED BY JOSEPHUS
Jotapata, he says, is almost all of it built upon a precipice, having
on all the other sides of it every way valleys immensely deep and
steep, insomuch that those who would look down would have their sight
fail them before it reaches to the bottom. It is only to be come at
on the north side, where the utmost part of the city is built on the
mountain, as it ends obliquely at a plain. This mountain Josephus had
encompassed with a wall when he fortified the city, that its top might
not be capable of being seized upon by the enemies. The city is covered
all round with other mountains, and can no way be seen till a man comes
just upon it. And this was the strong situation of Jotapata.
Vespasian, therefore, in order to try how he might overcome the natural
strength of the place, as well as the bold defence of the Jews, made a
resolution to prosecute the siege with vigour. To that end he called
the commanders that were under him to a council of war, and consulted
with them which way the assault might be managed to the best advantage;
and when the resolution was there taken to raise a bank against that
part of the wall which was practicable, he sent his whole army abroad
to get the materials together. So when they had cut down all the trees
on the mountains that adjoined to the city, and had gotten together a
vast heap of stones, besides the wood they had cut down, some of them
brought hurdles, in order to avoid the effects of the darts that were
shot from above them. These hurdles they spread over their banks, under
cover whereof they formed their bank, and so were little or nothing
hurt by the darts that were thrown upon them from the wall, while
others pulled the neighbouring hillocks to pieces, and perpetually
brought earth to them; so that while they were busy three sorts of
ways, nobody was idle. However, the Jews cast great stones from the
walls upon the hurdles which protected the men, with all sorts of darts
also; and the noise of what could not reach them was yet so terrible,
that it was some impediment to the workmen.
Vespasian then set the engines for throwing stones and darts round
about the city; the number of the engines was in all a hundred and
sixty; and bade them fall to work and dislodge those that were upon the
wall. At the same time such engines as were intended for that purpose,
threw at once lances upon them with great noise, and stones of the
weight of a talent were thrown by the engines that were prepared for
that purpose, together with fire, and a vast multitude of arrows, which
made the wall so dangerous, that the Jews durst not only not to come
upon it, but durst not come to those parts within the walls which were
reached by the engines; for the multitude of the Arabian archers, as
well also as all those that threw darts and slung stones, fell to work
at the same time with the engines. Yet did not the others lie still
when they could not throw at the Romans from a higher place; for they
then made sallies out of the city like private robbers, by parties,
and pulled away the hurdles that covered the workmen, and killed them
when they were thus naked; and when those workmen gave way, these cast
away the earth that composed the bank, and burnt the wooden parts of
it, together with the hurdles, till at length Vespasian perceived that
the intervals there were between the works were of disadvantage to him;
for those spaces of ground afforded the Jews a place for assaulting the
Romans. So he united the hurdles, and at the same time joined one part
of the army to the other, which prevented the private excursions of the
Jews.
And when the bank was now raised, and brought nearer than ever to the
battlements that belonged to the walls, Josephus thought it would be
entirely wrong in him if he could make no contrivances in opposition
to theirs, and that might be for the city’s preservation; so he got
together his workmen, and ordered them to build the wall higher; and
when they said that this was impossible to be done while so many darts
were thrown at them, he invented this sort of cover for them:
He bade them fix piles, and expand before them raw hides of oxen
newly killed, that these hides, by yielding and hollowing themselves
when the stones were thrown at them, might receive them, for that the
other darts would slide off them, and the fire that was thrown would
be quenched by the moisture that was in them; and these he set before
the workmen; and under them these workmen went on with their works
in safety, and raised the wall higher, and that both by day and by
night, till it was twenty cubits high. He also built a good number of
towers upon the wall, and fitted it to strong battlements. This greatly
discouraged the Romans, who in their own opinions were already gotten
within the walls, while they were now at once astonished at Josephus’
contrivance and at the fortitude of the citizens that were in the city.
And now Vespasian was plainly irritated at the great subtilty of this
stratagem, and at the boldness of the citizens of Jotapata; for taking
heart again upon the building of this wall, they made fresh sallies
upon the Romans, and had everyday conflicts with them by parties,
together with all such contrivances as robbers make use of, and with
the plundering of all that came to hand, as also with the setting fire
to all the other works; and this till Vespasian made his army leave
off fighting them, and resolved to lie round the city, and to starve
them into a surrender, as supposing that either they would be forced to
petition him for mercy by want of provisions, or if they should have
the courage to hold out till the last, they should perish by famine:
and he concluded he should conquer them the more easily in fighting,
if he gave them an interval, and then fell upon them when they were
weakened by famine; but still he gave orders that they should guard
against their coming out of the city.
Now the besieged had plenty of corn within the city, and indeed of all
other necessaries, but they wanted water, because there was no fountain
in the city, the people being there usually satisfied with rain-water;
yet it is a rare thing in that country to have rain in summer, and at
this season, during the siege, they were in great distress for some
contrivance to satisfy their thirst; and they were very sad at this
time particularly, as if they were already in want of water entirely,
for Josephus, seeing that the city abounded with other necessaries,
and that the men were of good courage, and being desirous to protect
the siege to the Romans longer than they expected, ordered their drink
to be given them by measure; but this scanty distribution of water by
measure was deemed by them as a thing more hard upon them than the
want of it; and their not being able to drink as much as they would,
made them more desirous of drinking than they otherwise had been; nay,
they were so much disheartened hereby as if they were come to the last
degree of thirst. Nor were the Romans unacquainted with the state they
were in, for when they stood over against them, beyond the wall, they
could see them running together, and taking their water by measure,
which made them throw their javelins thither, the place being within
their reach, and kill a great many of them.
Hereupon, Vespasian hoped that their receptacles of water would in no
long time be emptied, and that they would be forced to deliver up the
city to him; but Josephus being minded to break such his hope, gave
command that they should wet a great many of their clothes, and hang
them out about the battlements, till the entire wall was of a sudden
all wet with the running down of the water. At this sight the Romans
were discouraged, and under consternation, when they saw them able
to throw away in sport so much water, when they supposed them not to
have enough to drink themselves. This made the Roman general despair
of taking the city by their want of necessaries, and to betake himself
again to arms, and to try to force them to surrender, which was what
the Jews greatly desired; for as they despaired of either themselves
or their city being able to escape, they preferred a death in battle
before one by hunger and thirst.
However, Josephus contrived another stratagem besides the foregoing, to
get plenty of what they wanted. There was a certain rough and uneven
place that could hardly be ascended, and on that account was not
guarded by the soldiers; so Josephus sent out certain persons along
the western parts of the valley, and by them sent letters to whom
he pleased of the Jews that were out of the city, and procured from
them what necessaries soever they wanted in the city in abundance;
he enjoined them also to creep generally along by the watch as they
came into the city, and to cover their backs with such sheepskins as
had their wool upon them, that if any one should spy them in the
night-time, they might be believed to be dogs. This was done till the
watch perceived their contrivance, and encompassed that rough place
about themselves.
[Sidenote: [67 A.D.]]
And now it was that Josephus perceived that the city could not hold
out long, and that his own life would be in doubt if he continued in
it; so he consulted how he and the most potent men of the city might
fly out of it. When the multitude understood this, they came all round
about him, and begged of him not to overlook them while they entirely
depended on him, and him alone; for that there was still hope of the
city’s deliverance if he would stay with them, because everybody would
undertake any pains with great cheerfulness on his account, and in that
case there would be some comfort for them also, though they should
be taken: that it became him neither to fly from his enemies, nor to
desert his friends, nor to leap out of that city, as out of a ship that
was sinking in a storm, into which he came, when it was quiet and in
a calm; for that by going away he would be the cause of drowning the
city, because nobody would then venture to oppose the enemy when he was
once gone, upon whom they wholly confided.
Hereupon, Josephus avoided letting them know that he was to go away
to provide for his own safety, but told them that he would go out of
the city for their sakes; for that if he stayed with them, he should
be able to do them little good while they were in a safe condition;
and that if they were once taken, he should only perish with them to
no purpose; but that if he were once gotten free from this siege, he
should be able to bring them very great relief; for that he would then
immediately get the Galileans together, out of the country, in great
multitudes, and draw the Romans off their city by another war. That
he did not see what advantage he could bring to them now, by staying
among them, but only provoked the Romans to besiege them more closely,
as esteeming it a most valuable thing to take him; but that if they
were once informed that he was fled out of the city, they would greatly
remit of their eagerness against it. Yet did not this plea move the
people, but inflamed them the more to hang about him.
Accordingly, both the children and the old men, and the women with
their infants, came mourning to him, and fell down before him, and
all of them caught hold of his feet, and held him fast, and besought
him, with great lamentations, that he would take his share with them
in their fortune; and I think they did this, not that they envied his
deliverance, but that they hoped for their own; for they could not
think they should suffer any great misfortune, provided Josephus would
but stay with them.
Now, Josephus thought, that if he resolved to stay, it would be
ascribed to their entreaties; and if he resolved to go away by force,
he should be put into custody. His commiseration also of the people
under their lamentations, had much broken that of his eagerness to
leave them; so he resolved to stay, and arming himself with the common
despair of the citizens, he said to them:
“Now is the time to begin to fight in earnest, when there is no hope of
deliverance left. It is a brave thing to prefer glory before life, and
to set about some such noble undertaking as may be remembered by late
posterity.”
Having said this, he fell to work immediately, and made a sally, and
dispersed the enemies’ out-guards, and ran as far as the Roman camp
itself, and pulled the coverings of their tents to pieces, that were
upon their banks, and set fire to their works. And this was the manner
in which he never left off fighting, neither the next day nor the day
after it, but went on with it for a considerable number of both days
and nights.
Upon this, Vespasian, when he saw the Romans distressed by these
sallies (although they were ashamed to be made to run away by the Jews;
and when at any time they made the Jews run away, their heavy armour
would not let them pursue them far; while the Jews, when they had
performed any action, and before they could be hurt themselves, still
retired into the city), ordered his armed men to avoid their onset, and
not to fight it out with men under desperation, while nothing is more
courageous than despair; but that their violence would be quenched when
they saw they failed of their purposes, as fire is quenched when it
wants fuel; and that it was most proper for the Romans to gain their
victories as cheap as they could, since they are not forced to fight,
but only to enlarge their own dominions. So he repelled the Jews in
great measure by the Arabian archers, and the Syrian slingers, and by
those that threw stones at them, nor was there any intermission of the
great number of their offensive engines. Now, the Jews suffered greatly
by these engines, without being able to escape from them; and when
these engines threw their stones or javelins a great way, and the Jews
were within their reach, they pressed hard upon the Romans, and fought
desperately, without sparing either soul or body, one part succouring
another by turns, when it was tired down.
When, therefore, Vespasian looked upon himself as in a manner besieged
by these sallies of the Jews, and when his banks were now not far from
the walls, he determined to make use of his battering-ram. Now, at the
very first stroke of this engine, the wall was shaken, and a terrible
clamour was raised by the people within the city, as if they were
already taken.
And now, when Josephus saw this ram still battering the same place, and
that the wall would quickly be thrown down by it, he resolved to elude
for a while the force of the engine. With this design he gave orders to
fill sacks with chaff, and to hang them down before that place where
they saw the ram always battering, that the stroke might be turned
aside, or that the place might feel less of the strokes by the yielding
nature of the chaff. This contrivance very much delayed the attempts
of the Romans, because, let them remove their engine to what part they
pleased, those that were above it removed their sacks, and placed them
over against the strokes it made, insomuch that the wall was no way
hurt, and this by diversion of the strokes, till the Romans made an
opposite contrivance of long poles, and by tying hooks at their ends,
cut off the sacks.
Now, when the battering ram thus recovered its force, and the wall
having been but newly built, was giving way, Josephus and those about
him had afterwards immediate recourse to fire, to defend themselves
withal; whereupon they took what materials soever they had that were
but dry, and made a sally three ways, and set fire to the machines,
and the hurdles, and the banks of the Romans themselves; nor did the
Romans well know how to come to their assistance, being at once under a
consternation at the Jews’ boldness, and being prevented by the flames
from coming to their assistance; for the materials being dry with the
bitumen and pitch that were among them, as was brimstone also, the fire
caught hold of everything immediately; and what cost the Romans a great
deal of pains, was in one hour consumed.
And here a certain Jew appeared worthy of our relation and
commendation; he was the son of Sameas, and was called Eleazar, and was
born at Saab, in Galilee. This man took up a stone of vast bigness,
and threw it down from the wall upon the ram, and this with so great a
force that it broke off the head of the engine. He also leaped down and
took up the head of the ram from the midst of them, and without any
concern, carried it to the top of the wall, and this, while he stood as
a fit mark to be pelted by all his enemies. Accordingly, he received
the strokes upon his naked body, and was wounded with five darts; nor
did he mind any of them while he went up to the top of the wall, where
he stood in sight of them all, as an instance of the greatest boldness:
after which he threw himself on a heap with his wounds upon him, and
fell down, together with the head of the ram. Next to him, two brothers
showed their courage; their names were Netir and Philip, both of them
of the village of Ruma, and both of them Galileans also; these men
leaped upon the soldiers of the tenth legion, and fell upon the Romans
with such a noise and force as to disorder their ranks, and put to
flight all upon whomsoever they made their assaults.
After these men’s performances, Josephus, and the rest of the multitude
with him, took a great deal of fire, and burnt both the machines, and
their coverings, with the works belonging to the fifth, and to the
tenth legion, which they put to flight; when others followed them
immediately, and buried those instruments and all their materials under
ground. However, about the evening the Romans erected the battering-ram
again, against that part of the wall which had suffered before; where
a certain Jew that defended the city from the Romans, hit Vespasian
with a dart in his foot, and wounded him a little, the distance being
so great, that no mighty impression could be made by the dart thrown so
far off.
But still Josephus and those with him, although they fell down dead
one upon another by the darts and stones which the engines threw upon
them, yet did not they desert the wall, but fell upon those who managed
the ram, under the protection of the hurdles, with fire, and iron
weapons, and stones; and these could do little or nothing, but fell
themselves perpetually, while they were seen by those whom they could
not see, for the light of their own flame shone about them, and made
them a most visible mark to the enemy, as they were in the day-time,
while the engines could not be seen at a great distance, and so what
was thrown at them was hard to be avoided; for the force with which
these engines threw stones and darts made them hurt several at a time,
and the violent force of the stones that were cast by the engines was
so great, that they carried away the pinnacles of the wall, and broke
off the corners of the towers; for no body of men could be so strong
as not to be overthrown to the last rank, by the largeness of the
stones; and any one may learn the force of the engines by what happened
this very night; for as one of those that stood round about Josephus
was near the wall, his head was carried away by such a stone, and his
skull was flung as far as three furlongs. In the day-time also, a woman
with child had her belly so violently struck, as she was just come out
of her house, that the infant was carried to the distance of half a
furlong; so great was the force of that engine.
The noise of the instruments themselves was very terrible, the sound
of the darts and stones that were thrown by them, was so also; of the
same sort was the noise the dead bodies made, when they were dashed
against the wall; and indeed dreadful was the clamour which these
things raised in the women within the city, which was echoed back at
the same time by the cries of such as were slain; while the whole space
of ground whereon they fought ran with blood, and the wall might have
been ascended over by the bodies of the dead carcasses; the mountains
also contributed to increase the noise by their echoes; nor was there
on that night any thing of terror wanting that could either affect
the hearing or the sight: yet did a great part of those that fought
so hard for Jotapata fall manfully, as were a great part of them
wounded. However, the morning watch was come ere the wall yielded to
the machines employed against it, though it had been battered without
intermission. However, those within covered their bodies with their
armour, and raised works over against that part which was thrown down,
before those machines were laid by which the Romans were to ascend into
the city.
In the morning Vespasian got his army together, in order to take the
city by storm. But Josephus, understanding the meaning of Vespasian’s
contrivance, set the old men, together with those that were tired
out, at the sound parts of the wall, as expecting no harm from those
quarters, but set the strongest of his men at the place where the wall
was broken down, and before them all, six men by themselves, among
whom he took his share of the first and greatest danger. He also gave
orders, that when the legions made a shout they should stop their
ears, that they might not be affrighted at it, and that, to avoid the
multitude of the enemies’ darts, they should bend down on their knees,
and cover themselves with their shields, and that they should retreat
a little backward for a while, till the archers should have emptied
their quivers; but that, when the Romans should lay their instruments
for ascending the walls, they should leap out on the sudden, and with
their own instruments should meet the enemy, and that every one should
strive to do his best, in order not to defend his own city, as if it
were possible to be preserved, but in order to revenge it, when it was
already destroyed; and that they should set before their eyes how their
old men were to be slain, and their children and their wives to be
killed immediately by the enemy; and that they would beforehand spend
all their fury, on account of the calamities just coming upon them, and
pour it out on the actors.
And thus did Josephus dispose of both his bodies of men; but then for
the useless part of the citizens, the women and children, when they
saw their city encompassed by a threefold army (for none of the usual
guards that had been fighting before were removed), when they also saw
not only the walls thrown down, but their enemies with swords in their
hands, as also the hilly country above them shining with their weapons,
and the darts in the hands of the Arabian archers, they made a final
and lamentable outcry of the destruction, as if the misery were not
only threatened, but actually come upon them already.
But Josephus ordered the women to be shut up in their houses, lest
they should render the warlike actions of the men too effeminate, by
making them commiserate their condition, and commanded them to hold
their peace, and threatened them if they did not, while he came himself
before the breach, where his allotment was; for all those who brought
ladders to the other places, he took no notice of them, but earnestly
waited for the shower of arrows that was coming.
And now the trumpeters of the several Roman legions sounded together,
and the army made a terrible shout; and the darts, as by order, flew
so fast that they intercepted the light. However, Josephus’ men
remembered the charges he had given them, they stopped their ears at
the sounds and covered their bodies against the darts; and as to the
engines that were set ready to go to work, the Jews ran out upon them,
before those that should have used them were gotten upon them. And
now, on the ascending of the soldiers, there was a great conflict,
and many actions of the hands and of the soul were exhibited, while
the Jews did earnestly endeavour, in the extreme danger they were in,
not to show less courage than those who, without being in danger,
fought so stoutly against them; nor did they leave off struggling
with the Romans till they either fell down dead themselves, or killed
their antagonists. But the Jews grew weary with defending themselves
continually, and had not enow to come in their places to succour
them--while, on the side of the Romans, fresh men still succeeded those
that were tired; and still new men soon got upon the machines for
ascent, in the room of those that were thrust down; those encouraging
one another, and joining side to side with their shields, which were a
protection to them, they became a body of men not to be broken; and as
this band thrust away the Jews, as though they were themselves but one
body, they began already to get upon the wall.
Then did Josephus take necessity for his counsellor in this utmost
distress (which necessity is very sagacious in invention, when it is
irritated by despair), and gave orders to pour scalding oil upon those
whose shields protected them. Whereupon they soon got it ready, being
many that brought it, and what they brought being a great quantity
also, and poured it on all sides upon the Romans, and threw down upon
them their vessels as they were still hissing from the heat of the
fire: this so burnt the Romans, that it dispersed that united band,
who now tumbled down from the wall with horrid pains, for the oil
did easily run down the whole body from head to foot, under their
entire armour, and fed upon their flesh like flame itself, its fat and
unctuous nature rendering it soon heated and slowly cooled; and as the
men were cooped up in their head-pieces and breast-plates, they could
no way get free from this burning oil; they could only leap and roll
about in their pains, as they fell down from the bridges they had laid.
And as they were thus beaten back, and retired to their own party, who
still pressed them forward, they were easily wounded by those that were
behind them.
However, in this ill success of the Romans, their courage did not
fail them, nor did the Jews want prudence to oppose them; for the
Romans, although they saw their own men thrown down, and in a miserable
condition, yet were they vehemently bent against those that poured
the oil upon them, while every one reproached the man before him as a
coward, and one that hindered him from exerting himself; and while the
Jews made use of another stratagem to prevent their ascent, and poured
boiling fenugreek upon the boards, in order to make them slip and fall
down; by which means neither could those that were coming up, nor
those that were going down, stand on their feet; but some of them fell
backward upon the machines on which they ascended, and were trodden
upon; many of them fell down on the bank they had raised, and when
they were fallen upon it were slain by the Jews; for when the Romans
could not keep their feet, the Jews, being freed from fighting hand to
hand, had leisure to throw their darts at them. So the general called
off those soldiers in the evening that had suffered so sorely, of whom
the number of the slain was not a few, while that of the wounded was
still greater; but of the people of Jotapata no more than six men were
killed, although more than three hundred were carried off wounded. This
fight happened on the twentieth day of the month Desius (Sivan).
Hereupon Vespasian comforted his army on occasion of what had happened,
and as he found them angry indeed, but rather wanting somewhat to do
than any further exhortations, he gave orders to raise the banks still
higher, and to erect three towers, each fifty feet high, and that they
should cover them with plates of iron on every side, that they might
be both firm by their weight, and not easily liable to be set on fire.
These towers he set upon the banks, and placed upon them such as could
shoot darts and arrows, with the lighter engines for throwing stones
and darts also; and besides these, he set upon them the stoutest men
among the slingers, who not being to be seen by reason of the height
they stood upon, and the battlements that protected them, might throw
their weapons at those that were upon the wall, and were easily seen by
them. Hereupon the Jews, not being easily able to escape those darts
that were thrown down upon their heads, nor to avenge themselves on
those whom they could not see, and perceiving that the height of the
towers was so great, that a dart which they threw with their hand could
hardly reach it, and that the iron plates about them made it very hard
to come at them by fire, they ran away from the walls, and fled hastily
out of the city, and fell upon those that shot at them. And thus did
the people of Jotapata resist the Romans, while a great number of them
were every day killed, without their being able to retort the evil upon
their enemies; nor could they keep them out of the city without danger
to themselves.
But as the people of Jotapata still held out manfully, and bore up
under their miseries beyond all that could be hoped for, on the
forty-seventh day (of the siege) the banks cast up by the Romans were
become higher than the wall; on which day a certain deserter went to
Vespasian, and told him, how few were left in the city, and how weak
they were, and that they had been so worn out with perpetual watching,
and also perpetual fighting, that they could not now oppose any force
that came against them, and that they might be taken by stratagem,
if any one would attack them; for that about the last watch of the
night, when they thought they might have some rest from the hardships
they were under, and when a morning sleep used to come upon them, as
they were thoroughly weary, he said the watch used to fall asleep;
accordingly his advice was, that they should make their attack at that
hour.
But Vespasian had a suspicion about this deserter, as knowing how
faithful the Jews were to one another, and how much they despised any
punishments that could be inflicted on them; this last, because one
of the people of Jotapata had undergone all sorts of torments, and
though they made him pass through a fiery trial of his enemies in his
examination, yet would he inform them nothing of the affairs within the
city, and as he was crucified, smiled at them!
However, the probability there was in the relation itself did partly
confirm the truth of what the deserter told them, and they thought he
might probably speak the truth. However, Vespasian thought they should
be no great sufferers if the report was a sham; so he commanded them to
keep the man in custody, and prepared the army for taking the city.
According to which resolution they marched without noise, at the hour
that had been told them, to the wall; and it was Titus himself that
first got upon it, with one of his tribunes, Domitius Sabinus, and had
a few of the fifteenth legion along with him. So they cut the throats
of the watch, and entered the city very quietly. After these came
Cerealis the tribune, and Placidus, and led on those that were under
them. Now when the citadel was taken, and the enemy were in the very
midst of the city, and when it was already day, yet was not the taking
of the city known by those that held it; for a great many of them were
fast asleep, and a great mist, which then by chance fell upon the city,
hindered those that got up from distinctly seeing the case they were
in, till the whole Roman army was gotten in, and they were raised up
only to find the miseries they were under; and as they were slaying,
they perceived the city was taken.
And for the Romans, they so well remembered what they had suffered
during the siege, that they spared none, nor pitied any, but drove
the people down the precipice from the citadel, and slew them as they
drove them down; at which time the difficulties of the place hindered
those that were still able to fight from defending themselves; for as
they were distressed in the narrow streets, and could not keep their
feet sure along the precipice, they were overpowered with the crowd of
those that came fighting them down from the citadel. This provoked a
great many, even of those chosen men that were about Josephus, to kill
themselves with their own hands; for when they saw that they could kill
none of the Romans, they resolved to prevent themselves being killed by
the Romans, and got together in great numbers, in the utmost parts of
the city, and killed themselves.
And on this day the Romans slew all the multitude that appeared
openly; but on the following days they searched the hiding-places, and
fell upon those that were under ground, and in the caverns, and went
thus through every age, excepting the infants and the women, and of
these there were gathered altogether as captives twelve hundred; and
as for those that were slain at the taking of the city, and in the
former fights, they were numbered to be forty thousand. So Vespasian
gave order that the city should be entirely demolished, and all
the fortifications burnt down. And thus was Jotapata taken, in the
thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, on the first day of the month
Panemus (Tammuz).[b]
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE, JERUSALEM]