All through May the struggle for Antonia went on, from the thirty-eighth day of the siege till the sixty-eighth day. The Roman banks in the fosse were undermined—no doubt by use of the rock tunnel leading to the Pool Strouthios—and the Romans were forced for a time to abandon their engines. The banks against the upper city were also destroyed, and Titus, after these repulses, determined to surround the city with a blockading wall, and so to starve out the defenders. The length of 40 furlongs, or 5 miles, given by Josephus for this vallum358 appears to be fairly correct. It had thirteen small forts along its line. Its appearance may be judged from the existing remains of a similar wall, built by Silva round Masada359 a little later, on which I have looked down from the heights of that desert fortress near the Dead Sea. It is a dry-stone rampart, with two large camps behind it on the north-west and north-east. Its length is less than 3,000 yards, and in part of this distance there are six small forts on the line at intervals of 500 feet on the average. The vallum of Titus began near his own headquarters at the “Camp of the Assyrians,” and stretched east through Bezetha and over the Kidron to Olivet, where it bent at the “Rock of the Dovecote.” This point seems to be fixed by the description of an existing rock cutting noted360 by Sir Charles Wilson in 1864: “Entering the village of Siloam on the north, there is on the left a high cliff which bears evident signs of having been worked as a quarry, and on the summit of which is a curious place which appears to have been an old dovecote cut in the rock.” Thence the wall went to the “other hill” (the south summit of Olivet), “over the valley which reaches to Siloam.” It then crossed the “Valley of the Fountain,” by which perhaps we may understand the present “Well of Job,” and climbed the south precipice of Hinnom, near the “monument of Ananus the high-priest,” which was probably the fine tomb now called the “Retreat of the Apostles,” which was converted later into a chapel with a frescoed roof.361 The wall ran along the cliff to the west side of the city, and turned north near a hamlet called the “House of Erebinthi,”362 and thus reached Herod’s monuments near the present Mâmilla pool, and its original starting-place farther north-east. This work is said to have been completed in three days.
Meanwhile, the banks were repaired, and were ready by the sixty-sixth day of the siege, when the summer sun was beating down mercilessly on besiegers and besieged. Four days later the Syrian soldier Sabinus attempted to lead a forlorn hope against Antonia. “His complexion was black, his flesh was lean and spare and well knit, but there was a certain heroic soul that dwelt in this small body.” He perished in the attempt, but two nights later, about 3 a.m., the standard-bearer of the 5th legion, with two cavalry-men and a trumpeter, surprised the citadel, clambered up the ruins of the breach, and slew the sentries. The Romans poured in, and the “top of the hill”—or scarp of Antonia—being occupied, the key of the Temple fortress was in their hands. Yet the inner Temple resisted still for thirty-five days, till the fatal ninth of Ab,363 the day on which, according to the rabbis, the Holy House had been ruined by the Babylonians, and the day also on which Bêther fell sixty-five years later. The daily sacrifice had ceased three weeks before, also on a day of evil memory on which Antiochus Epiphanes had burned the scroll of the Law. The formal siege of the inner courts entailed the clearance of the Antonia courtyard, and the erection of four banks on the north side, one at the north-west corner of the Priests’ Court, a second at Moked, and two others outside the Court of the Women. The outer cloisters were set on fire, and burned fiercely in the dry season, especially because the gilding that adorned the roofs was spread over a wax covering of the timbers. The great gatehouse was battered, the golden gates were set on fire. The bodies of the defenders were piled round the altar, and the blood—not of bulls or goats, but of men—ran down the steps. Yet the survivors still fought from the roof of the Temple itself, hurling the leaden spikes which kept birds from nesting on the Holy House upon the Romans below, until the fire reached them, and a few submitted and were spared, except the priests, whom Titus ordered to be slain.
The capture of the Temple placed the lower city at the mercy of the victors, and the soldiers plundered the Akra, the Council House, and the Ophel, setting the whole on fire to Siloam. Yet the upper city still held out under Simon, son of Gioras, the last left of the rebel leaders. Eleven days after the Temple was fired, banks were begun against this last citadel, and the siege dragged on yet for eighteen days more,364 till at length the rampart was breached on the west, and the upper city also fell, after a siege of 134 days, on Elul 8, in August. The few survivors fled to Siloam and hid in the tunnel. Simon concealed himself in a “certain subterranean cavern,” and John in another. The latter was forced by hunger to give himself up, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The whole city was burned and the walls entirely demolished, except the three “royal towers” and part of the wall on the west side of the upper city, where the 10th legion was left under Terentius Rufus. A little later, while Titus was still at Cæsarea, “Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and delude the Romans—”after he had failed to mine his way out of the cavern—“put on a white dress and buttoned on him a purple robe, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the Temple had formerly been.” He thus seems to have been hidden in the cave under the Ṣakhrah. He was taken alive, and afterwards walked the Via Sacra at Rome, to meet his death in the triumph of Titus.
The captives were condemned to fight wild beasts at Cæsarea. The golden lamp, the golden table, the trumpets of Jubilee, and the Temple copy of the law365 (afterwards given to Josephus), were borne in triumph on that day, as the arch of Titus still bears witness. Medals were struck recording the great victory,366 with the head of Vespasian on one side and on the other Israel mourning under the palm, with the Latin legend “Judæa Capta.” Well might they remember the prophecies of Jesus, son of Ananus, who for eight years had walked the streets, crying, “Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!” till the stone from an engine slew him; and the prediction that the temple should perish when it became a quadrangle; and, above all, that awful night367 of the last Pentecost ever celebrated in the sanctuary, to which Tacitus and Josephus alike refer. “As the priests were going by night to the inner Temple as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that first of all they felt a quaking and heard a great noise”—the sound of the great doors of Nicanor as they swung suddenly open—“and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude saying, Let us depart hence.”
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VIII
321 “Wars,” V. xi. 1.
322 “Ant.,” XVII. x. 1–10; “Wars,” II. iii. 1–4.
323 The rulers of Jerusalem were procurators except Agrippa I., who was king. They were as follows: Coponius, from 10 A. D.; M. Ambivius, c. 12 A. D.; Annius Rufus, c. 13 A. D.; V. Gratus, 14 A. D.; P. Pilatus, 25 A. D.; Marcellus, 35 A. D.; Marullus, 37 A. D.; Agrippa I., 41 A. D.; Cuspius Fadus, 44 A. D.; Tib. Alexander, 47 A. D.; V. Cumanus, 49 A. D.; Felix, 52 A. D.; P. Festus, 60 A. D.; Albinus, 62 A. D.; Gessius Florus, 64 A. D. The final revolt began in 65 A. D.
324 “Ant.,” XVIII. iii. 1, 2, 3, iv. 1–3.
325 “Ord. Survey Notes,” pp. 80–3; “Mem. Survey West Pal.,” vol. iii. pp. 89–91; Bliss, “Excavat. at Jer.,” pp. 53–6, 332.
326 “Ant.,” VIII. vii. 3; Cant. iv. 12.
327 “Wars,” V. iv. 2, 3. See “Ant.,” XIX. vii. 2; and for the Women’s Towers, “Wars,” V. ii. 2, iii. 3; for Helena’s tomb, “Ant.,” XX. iv. 3; Pausanias, “Greciæ Descript.,” viii. 16; Jerome (“Epist. Paulæ”).
328 “Ant.,” XX. iv. 3.
329 “Ord. Survey Notes,” p. 66 and pl. xxv.; de Saulcy, “Voyage en Terre Sainte,” 1865, vol. i. De Saulcy misread the inscription as “Queen Sarah.”
330 The Rev. Selah Merrill follows Robinson as to the course of this wall, and as to most of the other disputed questions.
331 Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” 1838, i. p. 315; “Ord. Survey Notes,” 1864, p. 72, and pl. xxxi.; Schick in Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, 1895, p. 30.
332 “Wars,” V. vi. 2.
333 “Ant.,” XX. i. 1, v. 2, vii. 1, viii. 5, 9, 11, ix. 1, 2, xi. 2; “Wars,” II. xii. 1, xiii. 2, xiv. 1, 2, 6, xv. 1–6, xvi. 1–3, xvii. 1–10, xviii. 1, down to xix. 9.
334 Acts xii. 1–23.
335 Tacitus, “Hist.,” V. ix., “Annals,” xii., as quoted by Whiston.
336 “Ant.,” XX. ix. 7, viii. 11; “Wars,” V. i. 5.
337 “Ant.,” XX. ix. 1; Acts xxi. 18; 1 Cor. ix. 5; Gal. ii. 9.
338 Matt. xxiv. 4–42; Mark xiii. 5–37; Luke xix. 42–4, xxi. 5–36.
339 “Wars,” II. xiv. 2-xix. 9.
340 “Wars,” II. xviii. 10-xix. 9; Tacitus, “Hist.,” V. x.
341 “Wars,” V. i. 6; Tacitus, “Hist.,” V. i.
342 “Wars,” IV. iv. 1, v. 1, vi. 1, vii. 1, 2, ix. 3–12, V. i. 4.
343 No doubt at the Gate Korban (“of the offering”).
344 See journal of siege, “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., p. 4. Canon Williams made the curious mistake of reckoning by solar months, for the details show that lunar months, of alternately 30 and 29 days, are intended by Josephus.
345 “Wars,” V. vi. 1, VI. vi. 4.
347 The old camp at Tellilia above a valley west of Skopos is quite possibly one of those made in 70 A. D. See my description (“Mem. Survey West Pal.,” iii. p. 161).
348 “Wars,” V. ii. 3–5, iii. 2.
349 This passage (“Wars,” V. vi. 3) indicates the Aramaic original of the book. The Greek translator renders eben “son,” instead of “stone.”
350 “Hist.,” V. xi. xii.
351 “Wars,” V. vii. 2-xi. 4.
352 Ibid., V. vi. 2, vii. 3, ix. 2, xi. 4.
353 Ibid., Preface, 1.
354 “Ant.,” XIII. viii. 2.
355 “Wars,” V. ix. 3, 4.
356 “Life,” 3; “Wars,” III. vii. 2-viii. 9.
357 “Wars,” VI. ii. 1; Mishnah, Taanith, iv. 6.
358 “Wars,” V. xii. 2.
359 See my plan and account, “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” iii. p. 417.
360 “Ord. Survey Notes,” p. 64.
361 “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., p. 419.
362 Perhaps the Aramaic really read Beth ha Rababthi (B and N being much alike), thus connecting the place with the present Valley of Rabâbeh—the Hinnom gorge.
363 “Wars,” VI. i. 6-iv. 6; Mishnah, Taanith, iv. 6, 7.
364 “Wars,” VI. viii. 1–4.
365 Josephus, “Life,” 75.
366 Madden, “Coins of the Jews,” pp. 183–97.
367 Tacitus, “Hist.,” V. xiii.; Josephus, “Wars,” VI. v. 3.