The disturbances in Galilee were thus quelled; |Spring A.D. 67| and, desisting from civil strife, the Jews directed their attention to preparations against the Romans. In Jerusalem Ananus the high priest and those of the leading men who were not pro-Romans busied themselves with the repair of the walls and the accumulation of engines of war. In every quarter of the city missiles and suits of armour were being forged; masses of young men were undergoing a desultory training; and the whole scene was one of confusion. On the other side, the dejection of the moderate party was profound; and many foresaw and openly lamented the impending disasters. There were also omens, which to the friends of peace boded ill, while those who had kindled the war readily invented favourable interpretations for them;[[270]] and the city before the coming of the Romans wore the appearance of a place doomed to destruction. Ananus, indeed, was anxious gradually to desist from warlike preparations and to bend the revolutionaries and the infatuated Zealots, as they were called, to a more salutary policy; but their violence was too much for him. The sequel of our narrative will show the fate which befell him.[[271]]—B.J. II. 22. 1 (647-651).
(43) The Fall of Jotapata. Josephus taken Prisoner.
Capture of the Town through Information of a Jewish Deserter
A.D. 67
The defenders of Jotapata were still holding out and beyond all expectation enduring their miseries, when on the forty-seventh day (of the siege) the earthworks of the Romans overtopped the wall. That same day a deserter reported to Vespasian the reduced numbers and strength of the defence, and that, worn out with perpetual watching and continuous fighting, they would be unable longer to resist a vigorous assault[[272]] and might be taken by stratagem, if the attempt were made. He stated that about the last watch (of the night)—an hour when they expected some respite from their sufferings and when tired frames succumb most readily to morning slumber—the sentinels used to drop asleep; that was the hour when he advised the Romans to attack.
Vespasian, knowing the Jews’ loyalty to each other and their contempt of chastisement, viewed the deserter with suspicion. On a former occasion a man of Jotapata who had been taken prisoner held out under every variety of torture, and, without uttering a word about the besieged to his enemies who were trying him by fire, was crucified, smiling at death. Probability, however, lent credit to the traitor; and so, thinking that the man might be speaking the truth and that even a trap, if it were one, was not likely to lead to any serious reverse, Vespasian ordered him into custody and made ready his army for the capture of the city.
At the hour named they advanced in silence to the walls. The first to mount them was Titus, with one of the tribunes,[[273]] Domitius Sabinus, at the head of a few men of the fifteenth legion.[[274]] Having cut down the sentries they entered the city in silence, and were followed by Sextus Calvarius, a tribune, and Placidus with the troops under their command. The citadel had been taken and the enemy were moving to and fro in the heart of the town, before the vanquished inhabitants, though it was now broad daylight, were aware of the capture. Most of them, worn out with fatigue, had fallen fast asleep, while a thick mist, which happened at the time to envelop the city, obscured the vision of those who started up. Not until the whole army had poured in, were they fully roused only to realize their misery; the discovery that they were being slain was the first assurance of their capture.
Remembering what they had borne during the siege, the Romans showed no compassion or pity for any one, but thrust the people down the steep descent from the citadel in a general massacre. And here the difficulty of the ground deprived those still able to fight of the means of defence. Crushed in the narrow alleys and slipping down the declivity, they were overwhelmed by the wave of war that streamed from the citadel. The situation drove many even of Josephus’s picked men to suicide. Perceiving that they could not kill a single Roman, they at least forestalled death at Roman hands, and, huddled together at the outskirts of the city, put an end to themselves....
On that day the Romans slew all who showed themselves; on the ensuing days they searched the hiding-places and went in pursuit of such as had fled to the mines and caverns, sparing none, whatever their age, save infants and women. The prisoners thus collected were twelve hundred; the number of those killed at the time of the capture and in the previous conflicts was computed at forty thousand. Vespasian ordered the city to be razed, and burnt all its forts to the ground. Thus was Jotapata taken in the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, on the new moon of Panemus. |July A.D. 67|