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6. Josephus and the Siege of Jerusalem
- University of Michigan Press
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142 Six JoSePHUS anD THe Siege of JeRUSaLem aRoman army under another Caesar—the title bestowed on Titus as son of the reigning emperor vespasian—laid siege to Jerusalem in the spring of 70 Ce. it took nearly four months of hard fighting for it to reach, capture, and destroy the temple, and a further month elapsed before the entire city was taken. Tens of thousands of starving survivors were killed in the sack, and much of the city burnt. This siege was the climactic operation of the suppression of the Jewish revolt, which had begun in 66 Ce. While the final stamping out of the revolt would take several years, it was clear that almost all resistance would cease once the holy city of the Jews was captured.1 This was probably the longest and most difficult of all the sieges waged by Roman troops during the imperial period, and it was almost certainly the most destructive: this was no war of conquest or pacification , but the vengeful suppression of a stiff-necked people who, despite their long experience as Roman subjects, had chosen revolt and driven out the local garrisons. The siege of Jerusalem is also the subject of the lengthiest and most extravagant surviving description of an ancient military operation.2 1. Josephus describes several other sieges in The Jewish War, but due both to its almost unmanageable complexity and to limitations of space, this chapter focuses exclusively on the narrative of the siege of Jerusalem. 2. See Lendon (2005), 256; goldsworthy (1999), 198. Longest: millar (2005), 101. a siege of Byzantium under Septimius Severus lasted for several years, but ended only in Josephus and the Siege of Jerusalem • 143 Jerusalem, a large city set in difficult, hilly terrain, was protected by several different walls and fortifications, which had the effect of dividing the city into several defensible subsections—few cities were as strongly fortified.3 it was defended by thousands of experienced fighters, although they too were divided amongst themselves.4 few cities, either, were as fundamental to the culture of their people, and few other sieges could have begun with so large a proportion of the defenders already determined to fight to the death. To take the city, Titus had at his disposal an army comprising four entire legions, picked vexillations from two others, and tens of thousands of auxiliary and allied troops.5 The siege was complex in addition to being arduous. Because four discrete sections of the city were assaulted and consolidated in turn, attacking troops were kept continuously under the pressures of siege combat even after they had worked their way to the heavy assault and successfully stormed a target fortification. This made the operation as much an agglomeration of four consecutive sieges as one exceptionally long one. in taking Jerusalem, the Roman army progressed through some of the same stages of the siege as many as four times. This repetition provides a unique opportunity to assess the patterns of siege warfare, but it also shows the flexibility—or looseness—of the siege progression. JoSePHUS anD THe WRiTing of HiSToRY our knowledge of this siege depends almost entirely on Josephus,6 a Jew of priestly, upper-class background and the former commander of the Jewish forces in the galilee. Having been captured, spared, and granted flavian patronage, he turned apologist and propagandist. His account of the war, written in seven books, is laden with rhetorical flourishes, moralizing starvation (Herodian 3.6.9) and had clearly been a passive blockade for some time. 3. While steep valleys protected the southern and eastern approaches, a broad frontage of wall could still be assaulted and no body of water prevented access or obstructed circumvallation . Tac. hist. 5.11, notes that the walls would have sufficed to protect even a flat site. 4. Josephus counts 23,400 combatant defenders—a reasonable number, to which several tens of thousands of noncombatants must be added. See also Price (1992), appendix 3, on the fundamental unreliability of numbers—Price prefers 35,000 defenders; but see chapter 1, note 23. 5. millar (2005), 101. 6. Tacitus’ histories, the relevant books being lost, provide only a few hints, likewise the brief glimpses of the siege in Suetonius and Cassius Dio. See Rajak (2002), 105. [3.138.125.2] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:10 GMT) 144 • Roman Siege WaRfaRe digressions, and blatant misrepresentations.7 This is not as problematic as it might seem. first, the sheer volume of Josephus’ embellishments...