Jerusalem's Traitor: Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea

by Seward, Desmond

  After measuring the distance to Agrippa’s Wall by means of lead and lines thrown from the mounds—bowmen shooting from the ramparts made it impossible to measure across open ground—the engineers reported that the ditch below the wall had been filled in and the ground in front was completely flat. Everything was now ready for the Roman battering rams to go into action. Titus gave orders for his artillery to bombard the ramparts and make the defenders keep their heads down, so that the three monstrous machines could be moved up from the shelter of the mounds.

  Suddenly, the tremendous thudding of the rams against the walls echoed throughout the city, terrifying everybody within. The feuding forces of Simon and John started yelling accusations at each other that they were helping the enemy but then became sufficiently frightened by the relentless hammering to man the walls together, shooting flaming arrows and throwing firebrands at the rams and their crews. A party of Jews dashed out to attack them, trying to pull off the protective hurdles, but it was driven back by cavalry and archers that Titus had placed here in readiness and commanded in person. For the moment, however, Agrippa’s Wall remained firm despite the unremitting hammer blows it was receiving, except for a corner of a wall tower that was knocked down by the ram manned by the Fifteenth Legion.

  The defenders began to think the Romans had lost heart. Emerging from a postern door in the wall next to the tower Hippicus, a large detachment of Jews charged the siege works to set fire to the rams. A savage struggle began, with many casualties on both sides until, fighting with desperate courage, the Jews seemed to be getting the upper hand. The fire had already taken hold of the rams, which would certainly have been destroyed if some crack troops from Alexandria had not put up an unusually stubborn fight. Then Titus appeared at the head of a troop of cavalry, personally cutting down a dozen of his opponents and driving the rest back to the city. One of the raiding party was taken prisoner, and Titus had him crucified in full view of the ramparts, trying to frighten the defenders into surrender.

  The Jews suffered another loss with the death of James, the general who commanded the Idumeans in the city. He had been talking to a soldier on the walls when he was hit in the chest by an arrow shot by an Arabian archer and dropped dead. The defenders were shocked since he had been a particularly tough and effective soldier.

  On the following night, Titus gave orders for three siege towers, known by legionaries as helepoles (“city-takers”), to be erected on top of the ramps. These menacing structures were seventy-five feet tall, with five wooden platforms or more on top of each other, guarded against arrow-fire by a carapace of iron plates. One had been badly constructed and collapsed, creating a frightening clamor in the dark of night, spreading panic among the Romans, until Titus made sure everybody was told what had happened. It was only a brief setback. Soon archers, javelin men, and slingers were shooting down from the two other towers, making it impossible for Jews on the ramparts to harass the ram crews.

  Finally, Agrippa’s Wall began to crumble under ceaseless blows from the biggest ram, which was wryly called Nikon or “Victor” by the Jews because it always succeeded in bulldozing everything in its path. As soon as the Romans stormed in through a breach made by the ram, the defenders fled to the Second Wall without striking a blow, after which the attackers opened the gates to let in their comrades. Josephus comments that the Jews must have been either too worn out or too lazy to defend Agrippa’s Wall properly, or perhaps even too confident—there were still another two walls behind. This took place on the fifteenth day of the siege.6

  Titus now moved his camp inside Agrippa’s Wall to a place known as the Camp of the Assyrians, after an earlier siege. It covered a large area of ground down to the Kedron but was far enough away from the Second Wall to be out of range of missiles. The Jews went on fighting with the utmost courage. John of Gischala’s Zealots directed their defense from command points on the Antonia, the northern colonnade of the Temple, and King Alexander’s tomb, while Simon bar Giora’s men concentrated on defending the areas around the monument to John the High Priest and the watergate of the Hippicus Tower. Protecting Bezetha, the “New City,” the Second Wall was much stronger than Agrippa’s, with a tower at each end and a larger tower in the center, and in every way easier to defend since, as Tacitus notes, it zigzagged in and out, making it easy for defenders to shoot at the besiegers’ flanks.

  After the battering rams recommenced their work, shaking not just the Second Wall but buildings that stood some distance behind it, John of Gischala recognized Simon bar Giora as the leader of the city’s defense, allowing his followers into the Temple. Even he had been frightened into acknowledging that the city would be lost unless some sort of cooperation existed between their two forces.

  The Romans’ main point of attack was the central tower, which stood over a gate from where a path led out to Golgotha. There were a number of concealed posterns in the curving wall, so that the Jews were able to make sorties. However, they were always beaten back by their opponents’ superior weaponry.

  “A spirit of daring, strengthened by fear, and supported by the natural fortitude of their race in the face of misfortune, gave heart to the Jews,” comments Josephus, who could not help admiring the indomitable courage of his fellow countrymen.7 They fought the Romans from dawn to dusk but found the hours of darkness harder to bear. “For both sides the nights were a time without sleep that was more oppressive than daytime, since one lot dreaded that the wall might be captured at any moment while the other was afraid the enemy might suddenly attack their camp. The two armies spent the hours of darkness under arms, ready for battle at dawn.”8

  The Jewish War says that the Jews were always prepared to risk their lives to please their officers, especially Simon who had such magnetism that his followers were ready to die for him, and even commit suicide should he order it. In Josephus’s opinion, what gave the Romans courage was the habit of winning and never being defeated, pride in their empire’s grandeur, and above all, the presence of Titus, who seemed everywhere at the same time, standing by each soldier. If he congratulated a man on his bravery, it was considered to be a good enough reward; many troops found courage that until then they had never known they possessed. This sometimes resulted in Homeric duels before the walls, although these were frowned on by Titus.

  On one occasion, when a force of Jews emerged from the walls and began throwing javelins from a distance, a cavalry trooper named Longinus suddenly charged them single-handedly, killing two of the toughest; he stabbed the first Jew through the face, wrenched the spear out, and plunged it into the side of the next, and then safely rejoined his comrades. Several other Roman soldiers tried to copy him. Some of the Jews had the same contempt for danger and worried only about savaging their opponents, unconcerned about dying so long as they took an enemy with them. However, Titus seemed more concerned for his men’s safety than winning, and he discouraged them from heroics of this sort. He issued orders that Roman troops were not to show off by risking their lives.

  While Josephus relished the epic dimension, there were incidents that appealed to his keen if savage sense of comedy, such as the story of Castor. The Jewish War tells us that after Titus had concentrated his bombardment against the second wall’s big central tower and the great ram Nikon had been hammering away at its masonry for a few days, it began to show signs of collapsing. A sustained hail of bolts from scorpions, which was supplemented by archery fire, forced most of the defenders to abandon it. However, “a certain crafty Jew called Castor,” with ten resourceful companions, refused to quit, crouching down behind the ramparts.

  As the tower began to crumble beneath them, Castor stood up and, in a piteous voice, begged Titus to forgive him. Thinking that the man was sincere and that the defenders were starting to lose heart, Titus immediately stopped the battering ram’s hammering and the bombardment and shouted back, asking Castor what he wanted. The Jew answered that he would like to come down under a safe conduct. In reply, Titus said how delig
hted he was that Castor was being so sensible and that he would be even more pleased if everybody else had the same idea, promising to guarantee the safety of the entire city. Five of Castor’s comrades joined in this fake plea for mercy, while the other five made them seem sincere by yelling they would never be Roman slaves and were going to die as free men. The parley went on for some time, as did the halt to the bombardment.

  As the parley continued, Castor sent to Simon bar Giora for instructions, saying that he could go on fooling the Roman general for some time. Meanwhile, he ostentatiously tried to force the five “patriots” to accept Titus’s terms. In response, they brandished their swords and then fell down as if the other five had killed them. Unable to see from below what was happening on the ramparts, Titus and his staff could not help admiring their loyalty. Meanwhile, Castor was wounded in the nose by an arrow and complained that he had been betrayed, whereupon Titus reprimanded the archer responsible. Then he asked Josephus to go up to the walls and bring Castor back. Josephus had already smelled treachery and refused, besides restraining his friends from going. However, a Jewish deserter named Aeneas ran forward when Castor promised to throw money down to anyone who showed sympathy. As soon as he reached the tower and was within range, Castor hurled a huge rock at Aeneas, who managed to dodge it, although it wounded a soldier who had followed him.

  Furious, Titus ordered the recommencement of the bombardment and the battering. The tower soon gave way, the honey-tongued Castor and his comrades setting fire to the ruins as it was collapsing, before jumping down through the flames. They landed in the cellars below and escaped through a cave, but the Romans thought they had chosen to die in the flames rather than surrender and were deeply impressed by such heroism. One cannot help suspecting that, for a moment at least, the author of The Jewish War was on the defenders’ side.9

  The destruction of the tower opened a breach that was wide enough to enable the Romans to storm the Second Wall a mere four days after the fall of Agrippa’s Wall. The Jews fled, and Titus, escorted by his bodyguard, charged in at the head of a thousand men, into a part of the New City that contained the clothes market and the metal workers’ shops. Always too inclined to optimism, he had become overconfident and received a nasty surprise.

  “If he only had immediately knocked down a bigger section of the second wall or demolished every house inside the area captured, as he was entitled to do by the rules of war, he would have suffered no further casualties,” comments Josephus in The Jewish War. “But he thought that if he showed himself reluctant to do the Jews any more harm when it was so obviously in his power, then they would be impressed [by his magnanimity]. So he did not bother to widen the breach in a way that would allow his men to withdraw swiftly. He was under the illusion that people were going to repay him with equally decent behavior if he treated them kindly.”10

  On entering the New City, Titus gave orders that prisoners must not be killed or houses torched. Any Jew who wished to go on fighting could join his comrades on the Old Wall, while any citizen who wanted peace would be given back his property. Titus still hoped to capture Jerusalem intact and save the Temple. But while he was right in assuming that ordinary citizens were ready to accept whatever conditions he offered, his surprisingly generous terms convinced the Zealots that he had given up hope of defeating them and was acting from weakness.

  Threatening to kill anybody who mentioned the word surrender, executing anyone who suggested making peace, the Zealots regrouped and attacked the Romans inside the New City, ambushing them in the streets and alleys or from houses, or jumping down on them from the ramparts. The Roman guards on the captured wall were so badly shaken that they abandoned their posts and ran back to the safety of their camps. Shouts for help came from legionaries trapped inside the New City, who were hemmed in on all sides. Growing in numbers and strength, the Jews drove them by sword or spear back through the streets toward the breach. However, since it was so narrow, only a few men at a time could pass through, and the rest had to stand and fight against overwhelming odds.

  If Titus had not brought up reinforcements in the nick of time, every single Roman soldier who was still inside would certainly have been slaughtered. Stationing archers at the end of each street with orders to shoot toward where the enemy was thickest, he kept the Jews at bay by the sheer force of firepower, holding them off until the last of his troops had got out. However, he had lost possession of the Second Wall, a humiliating although very minor defeat.

  In The Jewish War, Josephus describes the determination of the Zealots:Intoxicated by their success, the spirits of the war party rose to fever pitch. They were convinced the Romans would never dare set foot in the New City again, and that they themselves would be unbeatable when they next marched out to battle. Yet because of their sinful deeds God made them blind to the real situation—they ignored the number of Roman troops outside, far more than those they had driven out, and the famine that was almost upon them. Until now they had been able to batten on the misery of the general public and drink the city’s blood. But decent people had been starving for some time, and already many were dying from lack of food. However, the death of such folk encouraged the patriots, since it left more to eat. They only cared about the lives of those who were against peace at all costs and lived only to fight Romans. They were delighted by the way moderates were dropping dead from hunger at the roadside, men whom they regarded as encumbrances—that is how they felt about fellow citizens. Meanwhile, having manned the breach and blocked it with their bodies, they beat back the Romans who were trying to storm in once again.11

  For three days they held off the besiegers, fighting with extraordinary ferocity, but on the fourth day they gave way before Titus’s repeated assaults. Once he had regained possession of the Second Wall, he immediately demolished its northern section, placing garrisons in the surviving towers. Then he called off the offensive for a brief interval, to see if the loss of the Second Wall or fear of famine might persuade the Jews to open negotiations. He believed, mistakenly, that they could not feed themselves for much longer solely by robbing their neighbors.

  He decided to impress them by holding a carefully staged pay parade in front of the wells but just out of range. Behind the menacing eagles, legionaries and auxiliaries marched at a strictly regulated pace onto a neatly marked out parade ground, having polished their weapons, helmets, accoutrements, and horse furniture. The cavalry led the parade, with dazzling horse trappings. Everywhere there were gleams of gold and silver.

  The focus of attention was, of course, the glittering figure of the commanding general, Titus, who was accompanied by his staff, every one of them in fine cuirasses or jerkins scaled in burnished steel or bronze, helmets with stiff crests of red horsehair and cloaks colored according to rank, shining metal greaves on their legs. Titus and some of the staff may have worn ceremonial masks of gilded metal over their faces. All officers, including centurions, put up full decorations—gold and silver torques, armbands, and neck chains, together with the regulation sets of nine medallions of gold or silver on their chests. Even their splendidly caparisoned horses’ harnesses and their saddles were adorned with gilded bronze plates.12

  The city’s entire population watched from the Old Wall or the Temple. The spectacle must have put many in mind of the description in the first book of the Maccabees of the Seleucid host that confronted Judas Maccabaeus. “Now when the sun shone upon the shields of gold and of brass: the mountains glittered therewith and they shone like lamps of fire.”13 The watchers might also have remembered how on another occasion the intrepid Judas had told his outnumbered followers, “Fear ye not their multitude, neither be ye afraid of their assault,” and gone on to triumph over his enemies.14

  On this occasion, however, the people of Jerusalem were not feeling quite so optimistic. “When they saw the entire Roman army assembled on one piece of ground, the quality of their equipment and their discipline, even the bravest defender was horribly dismayed,” The Jewish
War tells us. “I am convinced that the rebels might have changed their minds if they [had] not given up hope of obtaining mercy from the Romans after the awful way in which they had treated the people [of Jerusalem]. Since laying down their arms [and surrendering] would mean inevitable punishment and death, they thought it preferable to die in battle.”15 But Josephus never does justice to the Zealots’ belief in their cause.

  After four days, all the soldiers had received their pay and the parade came to an end, but the defenders remained uncowed. Receiving no offers of peace from them, on the fifth day, Titus formed his four legions into two army groups and began building more ramps, this time opposite the Antonia and the tomb of John the High Priest—the Antonia being an especially difficult nut to crack as it was defended by a huge ditch, which in places was fifty feet deep and would have to be filled. Basically, his plan was to break into the Upper City from the Antonia and into the Temple from John’s tomb; unless he gained possession of the Temple, his occupation of the city was always going be at risk.