THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Larry the Cat,
The emperor kept the scroll
Jerusalem 1st century, after Christ
HOOFDSTUK XXXIII.
THE FIRST YEARS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 321.
When the victory had been achieved and Titus had publicly thanked his army for the courage they had shown, richly rewarded those who had distinguished themselves and had given everyone a festive welcome, the sentence was passed on Jerusalem and the disastrous remainder of the population.
The city was almost completely destroyed and razed to the ground; only, apart from a part of the western ring wall as a camp for the garrison to be left behind, the three towers of the palace in the Upper Town were spared, as witnesses of the almost impregnable strength of the fortress and therefore of the greatness of the victory achieved; a part of the Hippicus still stands.
When walls and houses were demolished, many treasures emerged from vaults and passages, as had also been the case after the capture of the temple, when some captured priests had pointed out various valuable objects and richly provided storage places for clothes and other supplies, in order to save their lives¹).
Here and there were also found people who were forced by hunger and want to come forward and surrender. Among them was John of Giscala, and not until some time later was Simon bar Giora, who with some others had tried to get out of the city through an underground passage, but whose strength had failed to force a way with the pickaxe.
When we continually hear of that multitude of Jews who perished in the mutual wars, from want, from the plague, and in the battles with the Romans, in sorties and assaults, we might easily think that hardly a single one of them could have survived; so that we learn with astonishment that, although the Romans had allowed many deserters free passage during the siege, according to Josephus there were still ninety-seven thousand prisoners.
However, his estimate that the entire population of Jerusalem at the beginning of the siege amounted to eleven hundred thousand people, so that about a million had perished, agrees very well with this large number. He explains this large population by the remark that it was just towards Easter when Jerusalem was besieged, and the city was therefore full of pilgrims; while he adds a calculation from which it would follow that a few years earlier no fewer than two million seven hundred thousand Jews had celebrated the Passover in the capital ¹).
Although he may not have exaggerated a little, and he was never averse to this, we nevertheless obtain from these estimates some idea of the appalling extent of the misery which had come upon Palestine.
There was yet much sorrow to be suffered. For even after the capture of the city thousands died of hunger, partly through the cruelty of their guards, partly through the impossibility of the Romans to provide the numerous prisoners with what was necessary. Where would they so suddenly get the grain to feed all these starving men? There were also those who refused to take food, because they did not want to survive in the holy city.
Many other thousands were sacrificed for the pleasure of the Romans. When Titus, after leaving the tenth legion in garrison in Jerusalem, giving the others various uses, and depositing part of the booty in Caesarea by the sea, returned to Caesarea Philippi, the victory was celebrated there with magnificent games, and on that occasion many Jews had to serve as swordsmen, to slay each other or to be torn to pieces by wild beasts.
This was repeated at Caesarea by the sea, when Titus celebrated there, in October, the birthday of his brother Domitian; at Berytus, in celebration of his father's birthday; and furthermore in various cities of Syria, when Titus passed through them in the winter, on his journey to Antioch. Moreover, several thousand had already been sent as laborers to the mines or sold as slaves ¹). Seven hundred of the bravest and handsomest men were reserved with John and Simon for the triumphal procession which the victors were to hold at Rome,
In the following year, this was theirs. Vespasian and Titus had indeed received permission from the Senate to make a triumphal entry each separately, but they decided to enjoy this honour only once, together. So, a few days after Titus had arrived in Rome via Alexandria with two of his legions, they left the city in order to enter and pass through it again in solemn procession. The immense crowd of people who had gathered to witness the magnificent entry of the emperor and his son gazed with delight at a spectacle of dazzling splendour.
Excellent works of art passed before the eyes of the Romans in such a multitude that, as Josephus writes, one began to believe that one had erred in considering such things to be rare: it was a flood of show-pieces. Numerous richly decorated statues of gods with their splendidly dressed bearers, and strange animals, splendidly and strangely adorned, preceded the core of the triumphal procession.
That core consisted of everything that related to the victory that had been won. There went the prisoners, bound but conspicuously dressed, so that they would attract attention. Behind them were large, richly robed scaffoldings of three or four stories, on which scenes from the campaign were depicted image. It is as if one were there!" shouted the delighted spectators. At each image of a conquered city walked the Jewish commander, if he had been captured alive.
Whether Josephus was among them, or whether he was spared that shame, he does not say; so he must have been there. Then came the booty, among which the holy objects from the Jerusalem temple attracted attention: the heavy golden table of the shewbread and the golden seven-armed candlestick from the Holy Place; lastly a copy of the law. Behind the booty were ivory bones and golden statues of the goddess of Victory, and then came the heroes of the day, first Vespasian on his triumphal chariot, then Titus as well, with his brother Domitian on horseback beside him.
At the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus the procession halted. Simon bar Giora, as leader of the Jews, was bound, scourged, led to the Tarpeian rock, and dashed to pieces from the heights, according to ancient custom. Amidst thunderous cheers, the news was received that the leader of the mutineers who had dared to defy Rome's power had received his just reward. Now the thank-offerings were brought, with which the ceremony was concluded; of course the day was concluded with rich banquets at the palace.
John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment. Josephus, on the other hand, who had been honored at court and accepted into the imperial family (the Flavian family), was allowed to put Flavius before his name Josephus. Berenice lived as Titus' mistress in one of his palaces. The tools from the Jerusalem temple were placed in the sanctuary of the goddess of Peace that Vespasianus founded shortly after the triumph. The emperor kept the scroll of the law and the purple curtains of the Holy of Holies in his palace ¹).
¹). War VII: 5, 3-7.
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