Siege of Jerusalem (70)
| Siege of Jerusalem | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | Roman Conquest | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | March – September 70 CE | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Jerusalem, Judaea | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Roman victory, destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem | ||||||||||||||||
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The 70 CE siege of Jerusalem was a Roman response to the Great Jewish Revolt, in which Jewish Zealots rose up against their Roman occupiers, attacking patrols, and eventually occupying the Temple, as well as the abandoned Roman forts of Masada and Herodion. Ultimately, Rome was forced to send more legions, in an attempt to quell the uprisings. Despite early successes in repelling the Roman sieges, the Zealots fought among themselves, lacking proper leadership, discipline, training, and preparation for the battles that were to follow.
Titus surrounded the city, with three legions on the western side, and a fourth on the Mount of Olives to the east. He put pressure on the food & water supplies of the inhabitants by allowing pilgrims to enter the city to celebrate Passover, and then refusing them egress. After Jewish sallies killed a number of Roman soldiers, Titus sent Flavius Josephus, a former Jewish commander, now loyal to Rome, to negotiate with the defenders; this failed, and another sally was launched.
In mid-May, Titus set to destroying the newly built Third Wall with a ram, breaching it as well as the Second Wall, and turning their attention to the Fortress of Antonia, just north of the Temple Mount. The Romans were then drawn into street fighting with the Zealots and sustained heavy enough losses that they were ordered to retreat. Flavius Josephus failed in another attempt at negotiations, and Jewish attacks prevented the construction of siege towers at the Fortress of Antonia. Food, water, and other provisions were dwindling, but small foraging parties managed to sneak supplies into the city, harrying Roman forces in the process. A new wall was ordered to be built, to put an end to the success of these foragers, and siege tower construction was restarted as well.
After several failed attempts to breach or scale the walls of the Fortress, the Romans finally launched a secret attack, overwhelming sleeping Zealot guards and taking the Fortress. This was the second highest ground in the city, after the Temple Mount, and provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus' goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod mere decades earlier. Most likely, Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a pagan temple, dedicated to the Roman Emperor and to the Roman pantheon. But the flames spread quite quickly and were soon unquenchable. The Temple was destroyed on Tisha B'Av, at the end of August, and as the flames spread into the residential sections of the city, along with the Roman legions, Jewish resistance crumbled quickly. The city was completely under Roman control by the 7th of September.
Although this did not fully cement Roman control over the region, and the Jewish Revolt was not fully suppressed, the seizure of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple represents the end of an independently controlled Palestine; it passed from Roman hands to the Arabs, then the Ottomans, and finally the British before becoming an independent state once again in 1948. The destruction of the Temple is still mourned annually as the Jewish holiday Tisha B'Av, and the Arch of Titus in Rome, depicting & celebrating the sack of Jerusalem and the Temple, still stands in Rome.
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Destruction of Jerusalem
The Destruction of Jerusalem (specifically, the Second Destruction of Jerusalem) was the culmination of Titus Flavius' campaign against the Great Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE) in Iudaea.
Titus' siege of Jerusalem in 70 came four years after an unsuccessful attack by Cestius Gallus. The siege of Masada in 73 CE was considered the final cleanup of the rebellion, and these events marked the beginning of the time of the Jewish diaspora. The events were recorded by Josephus, who had abandoned the cause of the revolt, and acted as a mediator for the Romans.
Although the Roman army was ordered to leave certain structures intact, Roman guards the city was in short time entirely destroyed, along with the Second Temple. The reported casualties were 1.1 million dead and 96,000 taken prisoner. Evidence of this event is seen enscribed on what is now called the Arch of Titus; it graphically displays Jewish artifacts being carried back to Rome after the victory.
Sulpicius Severus, (363 to 420CE) in his Chronica referred to Tacitus's (56 BC–120CE) account, as claiming that Titus favored destroying the Jerusalem Temple to help uproot and demolish both the Jewish and Christian sects. The account of Josephus described Titus as "moderate" in his approach, and after conferring with others, ordering that then-thousand-year-old Temple be spared. According to Josephus account, the Romans soldiers grew furious with Jewish attacks and tactics, and against Titus' orders, set fire to an apartment adjacent to the Temple, which soon spread althroughout.
Josephus had acted as a mediatior for the Romans, and when negotiations failed, witnessed the siege and aftermath. He wrote:
- Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City], as were the towers [the three forts] also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.
- And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it.
Christian claims of prophecy
Main article: Jesus on the destruction of Jerusalem
The events of 66-73 CE come after the last canon of the Christian Bible, but many Christians claim to believe that this event was the fulfillment of Jesus' warning thirty-seven years before of the destruction of Jerusalem, as in Luke xxi and Matthew xxi, and above all the "little Apocalypse" of Mark xiii. Following this, Christians of the era are claimed to have been able to escape during the withdrawal of Cestius Gallus four years hence.
It is also believed among some Christians, that it is the fulfillment of a prophecy in the Old Testament. Specifically Isaiah 10:3, where it talks about a "day of visitation", when "desolation comes from far". This is also what Jesus was referring to in Luke 19:44. It is believed that the Jews did not recognize the "day of visitation" espoused by Jesus since they rejected him as a false Jewish messiah. According to those who hold this belief, their city and temple were destroyed because of this.
See also
- Great Jewish Revolt
- Siege of Jerusalem (701 BC)
- Solomon's Temple
- Babylonian captivity
- Second Temple
- Herod's Temple
- Destruction of Jerusalem
- Jewish-Roman wars
- Western Wall