It was the day on which Nebuchadnezzar had burned the Temple of Solomon. The Jews made another sortie, their last but one. They could effect nothing, and retired after five hours’ fighting into their stronghold, the desecrated Temple, on whose altar no more sacrifices were now made, or ever would be made again.
Titus retired to Antonia, resolving to take the place the next day; but the Jews would not wait so long. They made a last sortie, which was ineffectual. “The Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy House itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy House, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamour, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy House was perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard about it.”[[16]]
[16]. Joseph. vi. iv. 5.
Titus, with all his staff, hastened to save what he could. He exhorted the soldiers to spare the building. He stood in the Holy of Holies itself, and beat back the soldiers who were pressing to the work of destruction. But in vain: one of the soldiers threw a torch upon the gateway of the sanctuary, and in a moment the fate of the building was sealed. And while the flames mounted higher the carnage of the poor wretches within went on. None was spared; ten thousand were killed that were found there—children, old men, priests and profane persons, all alike; six thousand fled to the roof of the royal cloister, that glorious building which crowned the Temple wall to the south, stretching from “Robinson’s Arch” to the valley of the Kedron. The Romans fired that too, and the whole of the multitude perished together.
“One would have thought that the hill itself, on which the Temple stood, was seething hot, full of fire in every part; that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire; and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them, for the ground nowhere appeared visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies as they ran from such as fled from them.”[[17]]
[17]. Joseph. vi. v. 1.
The really guilty among the Jews, the fighting men, had cut their way through the Romans and fled to the upper city. A few priests either hid themselves in secret chambers or crouched upon the top of the wall. On the fifth day they surrendered, being starving. Titus ordered them to execution.
And so the Temple of Herod fell.
The Roman army flocked into the ruins of the Temple which it had cost them so many lives to take; sacrifices were offered, and Titus was saluted as Imperator. An immense spoil was found there, not only from the sacred vessels of gold, but from the treasury, in which vast sums had been accumulated. The upper town, Zion, still held out. Titus demanded a parley. Standing on that bridge, the ruined stones of which were found by Captain Warren lying eighty feet below the surface of the ground, he for the last time offered terms to the insurgents. He explained that they could no longer entertain any hope, even the slightest, of safety, and renewed his offers of clemency to those who should yield.
But the offers of Titus were supposed to be the effect of weakness. Again the insurgents, now indeed possessed with a divine madness, declined them. They demanded that they might be allowed to march out with all their arms, and what would now be called the honours of war. This proposition from a handful of starved soldiers surrounded by the ruins of all that they held dear, with a triumphant army on all sides, was too monstrous to be accepted even by the most clement of conquerors, and Titus resolved with reluctance on the destruction of the whole people. The royal family of Adiabene, descendants of Queen Helena, had not left Jerusalem during the siege; on the contrary, they had lent every aid in their power to the Jews. Now, however, seeing that no hope was to be got from any but Titus, they went over in a body to the Romans and prayed for mercy. Out of consideration for their royal blood this was granted. But the Jews revenged the fainthearted conduct of these royal proselytes by an incursion into the lower New Town (on the Hill of Ophel), burning their palace and sacking the rest of the town. The last part of the siege, which Mr. Lewin finely calls the fifth act of a bloody tragedy, was commenced by the usual methods of raising banks, all attempts to carry the Upper City by assault being hopeless. These were raised over against the Palace of Herod on the west, and at a point probably opposite Robinson’s Arch in the east. And now, at the last moment, no longer sustained by any hopes of miraculous interference,—for if their God had allowed his Temple to fall, why should he be expected to spare the citadel?—the Jews lost all courage and began to desert in vast numbers. The Idumeans, finding that Simon and John remained firm in their resolution of defence to the last, sent five of their chiefs to open negotiations on their own account. Simon and John discovered the plot; the five commissioners were executed; care was taken to entrust the walls to trusty guards, but thousands of the people managed to escape. The Romans began by slaying the fugitives, but, tired of slaughter, reserved them as prisoners to be sold for slaves. Those who were too old or too worn out by suffering to be of any use they sent away to wander about the mountains, and live or die. One priest obtained his life by giving up to Titus the sacred vessels of the Temple, and another by showing where the treasures were—the vestments of the priests, and the vast stores of spices which had been used for burning incense daily.