The priests were back in nominal control but from now on, the factions in Jerusalem and their warlords, often provincial opportunists and local adventurers as well as religious fanatics, embarked on a savage and chaotic Jewish civil war. Even Josephus, our sole source, fails to clarify who formed these factions and what they believed. But he traces the strain of religious anti-Roman zealotry all the way back to the Galilean rebellions after Herod the Great’s death: ‘they have a passion for liberty, which is almost unconquerable since they are convinced God alone is their leader’. They ‘sowed the seed from which sprang life’. During the next few years, he says, Jew fought Jew ‘in a perpetual slaughter’.
The Roman garrison of 600, still holding Herod the Great’s Citadel, agreed to give up their arms in return for safe passage out of the city but these Syrians and Greeks who had massacred so many innocent Jews were then ‘savagely butchered’. King Agrippa abandoned his attempts to mediate and threw in his hand with Rome. In November 66, the Roman Governor of Syria, backed by Agrippa and allied kings, marched down from Antioch and fought his way into Jerusalem. Yet he abruptly retired, perhaps having been bribed, and his retreat under ferocious Jewish attack cost the lives of more than 5,000 Roman soldiers, and the eagle of a legion.
The die was cast. Roman pride had to be avenged. The rebels chose the former high priest, Ananus, as the leader of independent Israel. He strengthened the walls, while the city echoed to the hammering and forging of armour and weapons. He also appointed generals, among them Josephus, the future historian, who now left the city as the commander of Galilee, where he found himself fighting a warlord, John of Gischala, more viciously than either of them fought the Romans.
The new Jewish coins celebrated ‘The Freedom of Zion’ and ‘Jerusalem the Holy’ – yet it seemed this was a liberation that not many had wanted and the city waited like ‘a place doomed to destruction’. Nero was in Greece to perform his songs and compete in chariot-races in the Olympic Games (he won even though he fell out of his chariot), when he heard that Israel had rebelled.
JOSEPHUS’ PROPHECY: THE MULETEER AS EMPEROR
Nero feared victorious generals, so he chose as the commander of his Jewish War a dogged veteran from his own entourage. Titus Flavius Vespasianus was in his late fifties and often annoyed the emperor by falling asleep during his theatrical performances. But he had made his name in the conquest of Britain and his nickname – The Muleteer – revealed his unglamorous dependability and the fortune he had made by selling mules to the army.
Sending his son Titus to Alexandria to collect reinforcements, Vespasian mustered an army of 60,000, four legions plus Syrian slingers, Arab archers and the cavalry of King Herod Agrippa. Then he marched down the coast to Ptolemais (Acre). In early 67, he methodically started to reconquer Galilee, resisted fanatically by Josephus and his Galileans. Finally, Vespasian besieged Josephus in his fortress of Jotapata. On 29 July that year, Titus crept through the shattered walls and seized the city. The Jews fought to the death, many of them committing suicide.
Josephus and some other survivors hid in a cave. When the Romans trapped them, they decided to kill themselves and drew lots to determine who would kill whom. ‘By the providence of God’ (or by cheating), Josephus drew the last lot and emerged alive from the cave. Vespasian decided to send him as a prize to Nero, which would entail an atrocious death. Josephus asked to speak to the general. When he stood before Vespasian and Titus, he said: ‘Vespasian! I come to you as a messenger of greater tidings. Do you send me to Nero? Why? It is you, Vespasian, who are and shall be Caesar and Emperor, you and your son.’ The dour Vespasian was flattered, keeping Josephus in prison but sending him presents. Titus, who was almost the same age as Josephus, befriended him.
As Vespasian and Titus advanced towards Judaea, Josephus’ rival, John of Gischala, escaped to Jerusalem – ‘a city without a governor’ engaged in a frenzy of self-destructive butchery.
JERUSALEM THE BROTHEL: THE TYRANTS JOHN AND SIMON
The gates of Jerusalem remained open to Jewish pilgrims, so religious fanatics, battle-hardened cut-throats and thousands of refugees poured into the city, where the rebels expended their energies in gang warfare, orgiastic pleasure-seeking and vicious witch-hunts for traitors.
