Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

[10]. Taking the shape of the city to be circular and 33 stadia in circumference (it was more nearly circular than square), we find its area to have been rather more than 3,500,000 square yards. This, at 30 square yards to one person, gives about 120,000 for the ordinary population. And there were extensive gardens and numerous villas to the north and east which contained another population altogether quite impossible to estimate. And it must not be forgotten that Cestius (Joseph. ‘Bell. Jud.’ vi. ix. 3) caused an estimate to be made, a very few years before the siege, of the numbers actually present at the Passover, and that the official return was 2,560,500 persons. The whole question is clearly stated by Mr. Williams (‘Holy City,’ vol. i. p. 481). And, as he points out very justly, it is not a question how many would be comfortably accommodated in Jerusalem, but how many were actually crammed into it.

The people knew full well, of course, that the Romans were coming. Fear was upon all, and expectation of things great and terrible. As in all times of general excitement, signs were reported to have been seen in the heavens, and portents, which, however, might be read both ways, were observed. A star shaped like a sword, and a comet, stood over the city for a whole year. A great light had shone on the altar at the ninth hour of the night. A heifer, led up to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the Temple. The eastern gate of the inner court, so heavy that it required twenty men to move it, flew open of its own accord in the night. Chariots and troops of soldiers in armour were seen running about in the clouds, and surrounding cities. When the priests were one night busy in their sacred offices, they felt the earth quaking beneath them, and heard a cry, as of a great multitude, “Let us remove hence!” And always up and down the city wandered Jesus, the son of Ananus, crying, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” until the siege began in earnest, when he ceased; for being on the wall, he cried, “Woe, woe to the city again! and to the people, and to the holy House!” and then, as he added, “Woe, woe to myself also!” a stone from one of the engines smote him and he died.

Titus posted the 10th Legion on the Mount of Olives, and the 12th and 15th on Mount Scopus, the 5th remaining some little distance behind. As the 10th were engaged in pitching their camp, the Jews, whose leaders had hastily patched up a kind of peace, suddenly sallied forth from the eastern gate, and marching across the valley of the Kedron, charged the Romans before they had time to form in battle. | April 11.| Titus himself brought a chosen body to their relief, and the Jews were, with great difficulty, driven back.

The next four days were spent in clearing the ground to the north of the city, the only part where an attack could be made. “They[^[11]] threw down the hedges and walls which the people had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and cut down the fruit-trees which lay between them and the wall of the city.”

[11]. Joseph. ‘Bell. Jud.’ v. iii. 2.

The Jews, furious at sight of this destruction, made a sally, pretending at first to be outcasts from the city, and hiding their weapons until they were close upon the enemy. On this occasion the Romans were utterly routed, and fled, pursued by the Jews “as far as Helen’s monument.” It was a gleam of sunshine, and nearly the only gleam that fell to the lot of the besieged. Titus removed his camp to the north side of the city, and, leaving the 10th still on the Mount of Olives, placed the 5th on the west of the city, over against the towers of Hippicus and Pharsaelus, and the 12th and 15th on the north. A cordon of men, seven deep, was drawn round the north and west of the city. This must have taken some twenty-five thousand men to effect.

April 23.

On the morning of the Passover, John contrived—taking advantage of the permission freely granted to all who chose to enter the Temple unarmed—to send in his own men, choosing those whose features were not known to Eleazar’s followers, with concealed weapons. Directly they got into the Inner Temple, they made an attack on the men of the opposite faction. A good many were slaughtered, and the rest, finding it best to yield, made terms with their conquerors, Eleazar’s life being spared. There now remained only two factions in the city, Simon holding the strongest place—the Palace of Herod, which commanded the Upper Town—and John the Temple Fortress, without which the Lower Town could not be taken.

It was determined to begin the assault with the north-western part of the wall, that part of it where the valley turns in a north-westerly direction and leaves a level space between the wall and its own course. The engines used by the Romans were those always employed in the conduct of a siege—the ballistæ, the towers, and the battering rams. Then banks were constructed, on each of which was a tower and a ram. In the construction of these last all the trees round Jerusalem were cut down. Nor have they ever been replanted, and a thousand years later on the siege of the city by the Crusaders, only inferior in horror to that of Titus, nearly miscarried for want of timber to construct the towers of assault.

As soon as the banks were sufficiently advanced the battering rams were mounted and the assault commenced. The Jews, terrified by the thunder of the rams against the city, annoyed, too, by the stones which came into the city from the ballistæ, joined their forces and tried a sortie from a secret gate near Hippicus. Their object was to destroy the machines by fire; and in this they well-nigh succeeded, fighting with a desperation and courage which no Roman troops had ever before experienced. Titus himself was in the conflict; he killed twelve Jews with his own hands; but the Romans would have given way had it not been for the reinforcement of some Alexandrian troops who came up at the right moment and drove back the Jews.