Note 42 — Chapter XLIV · Among Roman Soldiers

—page 347. When Vespasian was made Emperor, he departed for Rome, leaving Titus to work the wrath of God upon the doomed city—doomed because of unfaithfulness to its covenant with Jehovah. Early in the year 70, Titus, having collected his forces at Cæsarea, moved upon Jerusalem with not less than 80,000 men, arriving before the city when, at the last Passover ever celebrated, it was crammed, as Josephus relates, with a million persons keeping that feast and without any provision having been made for their sustenance. The garrison of the Holy City was made up of three principal factions, as ready to fight with one another as with the Roman. Eleazar, the leader of one faction of the zealots, with 2,400 men, held the Temple and four strong towers that had been erected at its corners. John of Giscala, leader of a mediating party, had succeeded to the position of Ananus in the Temple courts and the lower city, and with 6,000 men besieged Eleazar’s forces. Simon, son of Gioras, occupied the hill of Zion with 10,000 Jews and 5,000 Idumeans, and confronted both the other leaders. Titus found these factions carrying on an incessant fight with one another by means of the war-engines left behind by Cestius in his flight. With such a state of things existing, there could be little hope of defense against the conquerors of the world.