Towards the end of the reign of Nero, in the sixty-sixth year of the
Christian era, under the pontificate of Mathias, the son of Theophilus,
began the famous war of the Jews against the Romans. The tyranny, the
vexations, the sacrileges of the governors were the causes of it.
Tired of groaning so long under a foreign yoke, the Jewish nation
believed they had no resource left but in despair. Fortune at first
appeared favourable to them; the Romans were beaten several times:
but Vespasian, whom the Roman emperor had charged with this war, was
soon able, by the exercise of skill, prudence, and valour, to attract
fortune to his standards, and to keep her there. After having subdued
the whole of Palestine, he was preparing to commence the blockade of
Jerusalem, when his army recompensed his virtues with the empire. The
new emperor assigned to his son Titus the commission of subduing the
rebels and laying siege to the capital.
Jerusalem, built upon two very steep mountains, was divided into three
parts,--the Upper City, the Lower City, and the Temple, each having
its separate fortifications. The Temple was, so to say, the citadel of
the two cities. Several thick and very lofty walls rendered access to
it impracticable; by the side of it stood a fortress which defended
it, called Antonia. A triple wall, which occupied the space of three
hundred stadia, surrounded the entire city: the first of these walls
was flanked by ninety very lofty and strong towers; that of the
middle had only fourteen, and the ancient one sixty. The noblest of
these towers were called Hippicos, Phazael, and Mariamne, and could
only possibly be taken by famine. At the northern extremity was, still
further, the palace of Herod, which might pass for a strong citadel. It
thus became necessary for Titus, to make himself master of Jerusalem,
to form several successive sieges; and whatever part the assailants
carried, they seemed to leave the strongest untouched. Such was the
place which Titus came to attack with soldiers accustomed to war and
victory; and, in spite of their valour, it is more than probable he
would have failed, if cruel intestine divisions had not marred all the
noble efforts of the unfortunate city.
A troop of brigands, headed by Eleazar, of the sacerdotal tribe,
whom impunity had allowed to gather together, threw themselves into
Jerusalem. These lawless men, who assumed the well-sounding name of the
Zealots, profaned the Temple with the greatest crimes, and subjected
the citizens to most of the misfortunes of a city taken by assault
by a cruel enemy. This faction, as might be expected, however, soon
became divided, and turned its arms against itself. A wretch named
John of Giscala supplanted Eleazar, and made himself sole chief of the
Zealots. The latter, jealous of the authority of his rival, separated
himself from him, and, having recovered an interest with a considerable
number of partisans, took possession of the interior of the Temple, and
thence made attacks upon the troops of John. On another side, Simon,
the son of Gioras, whom the people in their despair had called in to
their succour, seized upon the supreme authority, and held almost the
whole city under his power. These three factions carried on a continual
strife with each other, of which the people were always the victims:
there was no security in their dwellings, and it was impossible to
leave the city, of which the factions held all the means of egress.
All who dared to complain or to speak of surrendering to the Romans,
were immediately killed; fear stifled speech, and constraint kept even
their groans within their own hearts. When Titus had reconnoitred the
place, brought up his army, and commenced operations, these tyrants,
seeing the danger which threatened them equally, suspended their
divisions and united their forces, with the hope of averting the
storm. They made, in rapid succession, several furious sorties, which
broke through the ranks of the Romans, and astonished those warlike
veterans; but such trifling advantages were not likely to affect such a
man as Titus: he made another tour of the city to ascertain upon what
point it could be best assailed, and, after his foresight had taken all
necessary precautions to insure success, he set his machines to work,
ordered the rams to maintain an incessant battery, and commanded a
simultaneous attack upon three different sides. With great exertions,
and after a contest of fifteen days, he carried the first wall, in
spite of the spirited resistance of the besieged. Animated by this
success, he ordered the second to be attacked; he directed his rams
against a tower which supported it, obliged those who defended it to
abandon it, and brought it down in ruins. This fall made him master
of the second rampart five days after he had taken the first; but
scarcely had he time to congratulate himself upon this advantage, when
the besieged fell upon him, penetrated his ranks, caused the veterans
to waver, and retook the wall. It became necessary to recommence the
attack upon it: it was contested during four days upon many points
at once, and the Jews were at length compelled to yield. Titus by no
means wished for the destruction of Jerusalem, and with a view of
leading the inhabitants back to their duty by intimidation, he made a
review of his troops. There has seldom been a spectacle more capable of
inspiring terror--the mind cannot contemplate these conquerors of the
world passing in review before such a man as Titus, without something
like awe. But the seditious Jews, for they seldom deserve a better
name, would not listen to any proposals for peace. Being convinced of
this, the Roman general divided his army, for the purpose of making two
assaults upon the fortress Antonia; he nevertheless, before proceeding
to this extremity, made one more effort to bring the rebels to reason.
He sent to them the historian Josephus, as more likely than any other
person to persuade them, he being a Jew, and having held a considerable
rank in his nation. This worthy envoy made them a long and pathetic
discourse to induce them to have pity on themselves, the sacred temple,
the people, and their country; he pointed out to them all the evils
that would fall upon them if they did not listen to his prudent advice;
he recalled to their minds the misfortunes which had overwhelmed their
fathers when they had ceased to be faithful to their God, and the
miracles which had been worked in their favour when they had observed
his commands: he bore witness to the truthfulness of his own feeling
by ending his harangue with a flood of tears. The factions, however,
only laughed at him and his eloquence; and yet many of his hearers were
convinced, and, endeavouring to save themselves, sold all they had
for small pieces of gold, which they swallowed for fear the tyrants
should rob them of them, and made their way to the Roman ranks. Titus
received them with kindness, and permitted them to go whither they
wished. As these continued to escape daily, some of the Roman soldiers
learned the secret of the concealed gold, and a report prevailed in the
camp that the bodies of these fugitives were filled with treasures.
They seized some of them, ripped them open, and searched among their
entrails for the means of satisfying their abominable cupidity. Two
thousand of these miserable wretches perished in this manner. Titus
conceived such a horror at this, that he would have punished the
perpetrators with death, if their numbers had not exceeded those of
their victims. He continued to press the siege closely: after having
caused fresh terraces to be erected, to replace those the enemy had
destroyed, he held a council with his principal officers: most of them
proposed to give a general assault; but Titus, who was not less sparing
of the blood of his soldiers than he was prodigal of his own, was of a
contrary opinion. The besieged, he said, were destroying one another;
what occasion could there be to expose so many brave warriors to the
fury of these desperate ruffians? He formed the project of surrounding
the place with a wall, which would not allow the Jews to make any
more sorties. The work was distributed among all the legions, and was
completed in three days. It was then that the miserable factions began
for the first time to despair of their safety.
If the troubles without the walls were great, those which consumed
the unhappy city were still more terrible. Who can paint, exclaims
Josephus, the fearful effects of the famine which devoured these
unfortunates? It increased every day; and the fury of the seditious,
more redoubtable than this scourge itself, increased with it. They held
no property sacred; everything was torn from the unhappy citizens.
A closed door denoted provisions within: they forced it open, and
snatched the morsels from the mouths about to swallow them, with brutal
violence. They struck down old men; they dragged women by the hair,
without regard to either age, sex, or beauty; they spared not lisping
innocence. Such as still had any portion of food, shut themselves up
in the most secret places of their dwellings, swallowed the grain
without crushing it, or glutted themselves with raw flesh, for fear the
odour of cooking it should attract the inhuman inquisitors. Fleshless
men, or rather phantoms, with dried-up visages and hollow eyes,
dragged themselves along to corners, where famine speedily relieved
them by death. So great was the number of the dead, that the living
had neither strength nor courage to bury them! There were no more
tears--the general calamities had dried up the source of them! No more
sighs were heard; hunger had stifled all the feelings of the soul! A
famished multitude ran hither and thither, and seized eagerly upon
that which would have been rejected by the most unclean animals. At
length, a woman, noble and rich, after being despoiled of everything
by her own want and the greedy fury of the mob, weary of preparing
food for these insatiable brigands, and left herself without a morsel
of nourishment, consumed by a devouring hunger, proceeded, in her
fury, to the most unheard-of crimes. Stifling in her heart the cry of
nature, she tore from her bosom the infant she was supporting with her
milk, and, casting upon the innocent babe fierce and terrible glances,
“Unhappy little wretch!” exclaimed she, “why wast thou born amidst
war, famine, and seditious tumult? Why dost thou still live? What fate
awaits thee--servitude? No; famine prevents it; and the implacable
tyrants who oppress us are still more to be dreaded than either the
one or the other. Die, then! and be food for thy famished mother!” At
these words, the maddened parent slaughtered her child, cooked it,
ate part of it, and carefully concealed the rest. The mob, attracted
by the odour of this abhorrent feast, rushed in from all parts, and
threatened to kill the woman if she did not instantly show them the
food she had prepared. “I have saved you a good portion of it,” said
she, pointing to the mangled remains of her child. At this spectacle,
even they recoiled; human for the first time, they remained silent and
motionless; they could not believe their eyes. “It is my boy!” cried
she; “I killed him: surely you can eat after me. Are you more delicate
than a woman, or more tender than a mother? If ferocity has not stifled
every scruple within you--if you do hold such food in horror, I will
devour the rest myself.” Base and degraded as they were, terrified at
such a crime, they slunk away from the house, cursing so detestable an
action. The report soon spread throughout the city; and every one was
as horror-struck as if he himself had perpetrated the frightful deed.
All wished for death, and envied those whom famine had carried off
without witnessing such a catastrophe. The news reached the Roman camp;
and Titus determined to put an end to such crimes by a general assault.
An escalade of the Temple was undertaken, but the besieged repulsed the
Romans. The latter set fire to the porticos, and the flames gained the
galleries without the Jews making the least attempt to extinguish them.
At length the besieged determined to make one last effort, and deliver
themselves, if possible, from an enemy who pressed them so closely,
or perish with swords in their hand, selling the little life they had
left dearly. They made an impetuous sortie from a gate of the Temple,
fell upon the Romans, broke through their ranks, and would have driven
them to their camp, if Titus, who beheld the combat from the summit
of the fortress Antonia, had not flown promptly to the succour of the
vanquished. Fresh troops changed the fortune of the day; the Jews were
overwhelmed by numbers, and constrained to shut themselves up in the
Temple: the prince commanded an assault for the next day. But, at that
moment, a soldier, without having received orders for the attempt,
and as if moved by a supernatural impulse, prevailed upon a companion
in arms to lift him up, and threw a blazing brand into one of the
windows of that vast and superb edifice. The fire immediately caught
some combustible matter; the Jews perceived it, and uttering loud
cries, made strong but useless efforts to stop the conflagration. Titus
himself, with his army, hastened to assist in extinguishing it. The
excited soldier only thought of completing his work, and, with another
brand, defeated the wishes and endeavours of his general: the flames
consumed everything, and this famous temple was reduced to ashes in the
second year of the reign of Vespasian. The Romans made a great carnage;
but the revolters, by a fresh attack, retarded their destruction for
a short time, and took up cantonments in the city, and in the three
towers, Hippicos, Phazael, and Mariamne. The conquerors prepared to
besiege them, but, at the sight of the machines, the revolters became
intimidated, and sought for safety in precipitate flight, leaving the
Romans masters of everything: they plundered the city, killed tens
of thousands of the inhabitants, and spread flame and destruction in
all quarters. Titus was declared imperator, an august title, which he
richly merited by his valour and generalship: he entered Jerusalem in
triumph, and admired the beauty and solidity of the fortifications,
but, with the exception of the three towers, he caused them all to be
destroyed. The accounts given by some historians of the numbers of
the slain and the prisoners appear to us incredible; one statement
avers that there were eleven hundred thousand of the former, and
ninety-seven thousand of the latter. John was found concealed in one
of the city sewers, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment by the
Romans. Simon was forced to surrender, after a valiant defence; he
formed part of the triumph of the victor, and was afterwards publicly
executed at Rome. Eleazar, who retired to an untenable fortress,
destroyed himself. Jerusalem, which yielded in magnificence to no city
of Asia--which Jeremiah styles _the admirable city_, and David esteems
_the most glorious and most illustrious city of the East_, was thus,
in the seventieth year of the Christian era, razed to the ground, and
presented nothing but a heap of stones. The emperor Adrian afterwards
destroyed even its ruins, and caused another city to be built, with the
name of Ælia, from his own, so that there should be nothing left of
the ancient Jerusalem. Christians and Jews were equally banished from
it; paganism exalted its idols, and Jupiter and Venus had altars upon
the tomb of Christ. Amidst such reverses, the city of David was nearly
forgotten, when Constantine restored its name, recalled the faithful,
and made it a Christian colony. The length and importance of this
siege may be accounted for by the strength of the fortifications. Its
founders, says Tacitus, having foreseen that the opposition of their
manners to those of other nations would be a source of war, had given
great attention to its defences, and, in the early days of the Roman
empire, it was one of the strongest places in Asia.
The admirable account given by Josephus of the Roman armies may serve
as a lesson to all peoples until the arrival of that happy millennium,
when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and war shall be no more;
that is, when man has completely changed his nature, and has ceased to
be governed by his passions.
He says: “Now here we cannot but admire the precaution of the Romans,
in providing themselves with such household servants as might not only
serve at other times for the common offices of life, but might also
be of advantage to them in their wars. And, indeed, if any one does
but attend to their military discipline, he will be forced to confess,
that their obtaining so large a dominion hath been the acquisition of
their valour, and not the bare gift of fortune; for they do not begin
to use their weapons first in time of war, nor do they then put their
hands first into motion, while they avoided so to do in time of peace;
but, as if their weapons did always cling to them, they have never
any truce from warlike exercises; nor do they stay till times of war
admonish them to use them; for their military exercises differ not at
all from the real use of their arms, but every soldier is every day
exercised, and that with great diligence, as if it were in time of war,
which is the reason why they bear the fatigue of battles so easily;
for neither can any disorder remove them from their usual regularity,
nor can fear affright them out of it, nor can labour tire them: which
firmness of conduct makes them always to overcome those that have not
the same firmness; nor would he be mistaken that should call those
their exercises unbloody battles, and their battles bloody exercises.
Nor can their enemies easily surprise them with the suddenness of their
incursions; for, as soon as they have marched into an enemy’s land,
they do not begin to fight till they have walled their camp about; nor
is the defence they can raise rashly made, or uneven; nor do they all
abide in it, nor do those that are in it take their places at random;
but if it happens that the ground is uneven, it is first levelled:
their camp is four-square by measure, and carpenters are ready in great
numbers with their tools, to erect their buildings for them.”
Such was the _system_ of the great “nation of the sword,” differing,
perhaps, but little, except in the scale upon which it operated, from
that of Sparta. The machines employed by the Romans were the artificial
tower, with its drawbridges, catapultæ, balistæ, and rams; the
weapons--javelins, darts, arrows, pikes, stones, swords, and daggers,
with the shield or buckler.