To the Death (36 page)

When Titus ran to assist Liberalius, some of his men took the opportunity to set fire to the Temple doors. With the sanctuary itself now on fire, Titus had to make a quick decision. Of all the treasures adorning its magnificent interior, in the few minutes remaining to him, what should he save? In this moment of crisis, his legal training came to the fore. He ordered his bodyguard to spread their cloaks and fill them with that which was irreplaceable and the most fragile - the written word. Before they were driven out of the building by the fire, they had salvaged the scrolls of the Torah, the sacred writing of the Law. These scrolls contained the early history of the Jews from the creation of the world to the death of Moses. They also covered a large number of laws governing daily life, including food laws and festivals. With the flames running up the walls, Titus and his bodyguard left the sanctuary, clutching not the solid gold vessels and goblets used in services, but armfuls of parchment rolls.

As smoke poured out of the doors, Titus had a few minutes to reflect on the building that, from its inception by King Solomon to the present day, had for over a thousand years been a place of uninterrupted worship by the Jews to their God.

As the flames roared through the Temple, the anguished screams of the faithful, ordinary Jewish citizens could be heard. With the whole of the Temple complex engulfed in fire, it seemed because of its elevated position as if the whole of Jerusalem was ablaze. The shattering noise that accompanied the conflagration simply added to the horror. A din that grew in volume as the converging Roman legions, roaring their war cry, surrounded the crowd of civilians who were now mingled with the rebels, the whole packed in a tight mass throughout the Temple courts. The screams and shouts from the blazing hill were answered by the crowds, struggling in the corpse choked streets; a primeval sound that echoed from the surrounding mountains.

Yet more horrific than this tumult, was the vision that filled the eye. The Temple, appeared to be dissolving, as from its foundations flames engulfed its walls. Smoke poured from every aperture to form a gigantic plume, swelling to form a menacing black hammerhead in the cloudless sky.

Charging across its terraces carpeted with the dead, the legionaries clambered over the mounded corpses as they pursued their enemy.

Amid the carnage John rallied his men. With death staring them in the face the rebels, with a desperate effort, pushed the Romans back and with a final shove, broke free of the outer court into the ruin of the Upper City, where Gioras and his followers had managed to flee.

The remnants of the civilian population, who still had the strength and the will to do so, took refuge in the remains of the outer colonnades. A refuge that was short lived as the Romans, angered by the burning of the sanctuary, decided to use fire as a weapon, setting ablaze all the remaining buildings in the Temple complex. This included the remaining colonnade where six thousand civilians had sought refuge. This was torched from end to end by packing timber underneath it before setting it alight. There were no survivors. A few, like rabbits in a wheat field flushed by the reapers, were cut down by Roman swords. With the rebels fleeing in all directions, the Romans held a victory celebration. In the midst of the flames, they brought their standards and eagles to the Temple area and erected an altar where, roaring their battle cry, they saluted Titus as imperator.

With their forces beaten, Gioras and John could not escape the city because of the earth wall, the circumvallation Titus had built. With nowhere to go they asked Titus for parley. Surprisingly, in spite of being rebuffed on so many previous occasions, he agreed, taking up a position above the Gymnasium, where he could be seen and heard. From this position his archers could cover the bridge that linked the Temple with the Upper City. With an assassination in mind, Mucianus ordered two thousand picked legionaries to cover the approach to the bridge, with orders to kill anybody who set foot on it.

With the rebel leaders contained, Titus surveyed the dense crowds that had gathered to witness the confrontation. Surrounded by the remnants of their forces and curious civilians, John and Gioras came forward. The Roman soldiers were equally curious as to how Titus would receive their appeal.

With Josephus at his side as his interpreter, Titus spoke first. “You are responsible for the utter ruin of your nation. Without any regard for Roman military might, with self-interest and arrogance, you destroyed your people and your city. You polluted and then brought down the Temple and its Holy Sanctuary. This you have done out of vanity and self-interest, and for this you will answer to your God.

“Your grandfathers took this land from the Canaanites by force of arms. It became the Jews' as the spoils of war, to do with as
you
pleased. We took it from you in war. It became ours to do with as
we
pleased. You killed the Canaanites. We allowed you to live. We placed over you rulers of your own race. We upheld the Laws of your fathers. We gave you absolute control of your internal affairs. Paramount to this, we permitted you to raise taxes for your God
.
We allowed you to collect a Temple tax, throughout the empire and send this money to the Temple in Jerusalem
.
And what happened? You declared war on us! Like a mad dog, you bit the hand that fed you.

“When you desecrated your Holy places, I appealed to you to stop, offering you the opportunity to fight elsewhere. All my overtures were treated with contempt. You set fire to the Holy Temple that Jews all over the world reverence. Frankly, you disgust me, but to save further bloodshed, I will make you one last offer. Throw down your weapons and I will spare your lives”.

Silence followed Titus' speech; the only sound was that of burning buildings. Finally John spoke. “If called upon, all Jews regard themselves as soldiers of God, who will fight the battle He chooses for us. You, our enemy, are in His hands, as we are ourselves. He will dispose of us all, according to His will. We cannot surrender, because we swore on oath not to do so. However, we ask to be allowed to leave this place forever. We ask for free passage through the circumvallation, and to be allowed to go into the desert with our wives and children”.

Titus, out of patience, refused this demand, saying “You must now be prepared to fight to the last man”.

With a nod of acknowledgment, John turned away and with Gioras disappeared into the crowds.

A furious Titus called his senior generals together, and ordered them to give the army permission to sack the city.

The next day, the soldiers set fire to the Council offices and the area known as the Ophel. With dozens of fires set, the resulting blaze swept through the narrow streets, consuming the houses packed with the bodies of those who had died of starvation. The legions then charged through the rest of the Lower City, driving the rebels before them and burning it as they went. The surviving rebels, abandoning their cause, scattered and ran.

John and Gioras, finding themselves deserted, had only one hope left - the city's sewers. They believed that if they hid in them, they would be safe, the idea being to make a complete escape when the Romans left the city. Before disappearing into this subterranean refuge, they sowed more discord and confusion and misery by running through the streets lighting fires at random. When the terrified owners attempted to leave their burning houses, they were murdered and robbed.

Turned loose, the Romans raced across the city sword in hand, cutting down without mercy all they met. Most of the houses they burst into in search of valuables were filled with the stinking dead bodies of the families who had died of starvation; the stench driving them out empty handed.

With the rampaging legions adding to the body count as they scythed across the city, the streets were soon impassable, as new corpses piled up on the older rotting dead. At night the legions rested and the city continued to burn. When the sun rose, it was on a city in flames. Only three massive towers remained untouched in this sea of fire. Phasael, Hippicus and Mariamme.

Eventually the soldiers tired of killing. With starving survivors appearing in large numbers, Titus gave the order to spare anybody not carrying a weapon.

Men in their prime were herded into the remains of the court of women, and held captive. To guard and manage these prisoners, Titus appointed Fronto, the
Tribune
commanding the two legions from Alexandria. As Fronto sorted through the captives, he identified a few who had taken part in the uprising. He persuaded them, with the aid of a red hot iron, to inform on the rest. He then executed the lot before sorting through the remainder. Picking out the tallest and most athletic looking, he ordered that they be fed. Eventually these would be exhibited in Vespasian's and Titus' double triumph in Rome. From his next pickings, a very substantial number were set aside for Titus' future needs, which meant they would die very soon in the arena, killed either in combat or torn to pieces by wild animals. During the week or so it took Fronto to sort out his prisoners, eleven thousand died of starvation. Some of them died because food came too late, and others refused to eat it.

The number of prisoners that eventually passed through Fronto's hands totalled a hundred thousand. Another three hundred thousand had already been captured during the seven years of war and sent to the slave markets. The total number of the Jewish dead in the war was over a million. Of these the great majority were Jews by race but were not citizens of Jerusalem, the population of Jerusalem having been swelled by mercenaries, refugees and pilgrims who had come to the city for the feast of Passover and been caught up in the war.

Later, when the Romans came to realise that people had taken refuge in the sewers, they organised what they unfeelingly referred to as rat hunts, though participating in this grim task was a duty the troops despised. For every living person they flushed out, they came across ten dead. Over ten thousand Jews died below ground, either from starvation or suicide. Time and again, the foul stench of decay drove the Romans back. Not even the chance of finding gold would persuade them to continue.

Eventually, starvation forced John to give himself up and beg for mercy. Gioras, however, who had anticipated having to take refuge in the sewers, was better prepared. While the Romans were sacking the city, he sneaked underground with a carefully chosen group of his most trusted officers, including a number of miners he had recruited. Together they went down into a hidden, little known sewer, taking with them supplies of food and tools for tunnelling. After walking to the head of the tunnel they attempted to cut through its end wall, hoping to extend it and eventually emerge into open countryside.

After days of hard work, progress was halted by a wall of solid rock that proved impenetrable. With food and water running out Gioras, like John, was forced to surrender.

Both men were held in chains and closely guarded, to await Titus' pleasure.

The Romans now began to plan the levelling of the city. Their first task was to dismantle the walls. Their ultimate objective was to raze the city to the ground. Eventually, they would leave no stone standing on another. First though, they would hold a double celebration to mark the taking of the city and the beginning of Vespasian's second year as Emperor.

34

J
ewish
resistance had been stubborn to the point of madness. Unwilling to take a backward step they had fought to the death, street by street. Eventually, the drains contained so much coagulated blood they stopped flowing.

In the end the weary Romans had leant, panting, on their blood stained shields. There was no one left to kill, so their fury had ebbed away and sanity returned, leaving the greatest city on earth waiting like a dying bull for the coup de grace.

Josephus sat in his tent, head in his hands, weeping. He was to write later “To understand the suffering of the Jews, brought about by the loss of the Temple and Jerusalem, is to understand that suffering is not just a matter of what has been lost. It is measured by what is taken away from us”.

As the new master of the city contemplated the smoking ruin that was his prize, he felt no sense of victory, only bitterness. He was at a loss as to what to do next. It was Mucianus who reminded him that his original orders still stood. So Titus commanded that the city be razed to the ground; a task that would take years to achieve. That meant he would need accommodation for the troops left behind to carry out this task, so he ordered that the greatest of Jerusalem's towers should be preserved to serve as protection for the garrison, and for future generations to wonder at; a monument to Rome's irresistible military power.

Having been given their orders, the engineers cleared the debris surrounding the designated fortresses - Phasael, Hippicus and Mariamme. At the same time, they repaired a stretch of the west wall to provide additional defences. After consulting with his senior generals, Titus ordered the Tenth Legion, supported with
auxiliary
units of horse and foot, to take the first tour of duty in policing the city.

Knowing that in the aftermath of so long a struggle the exhilaration of victory would give way to nervous exhaustion, Titus decided the army would celebrate. The spoils of victory were theirs to be enjoyed. They would, he decided, receive them from his own hand. A dais was erected on the parade ground outside the city walls. Surrounded by his generals, the young Caesar took his place centre stage.