The Jewish War Series (Part 16): The Famine Within the Walls Grows Worse

Although the Roman siege continued to take its toll on those inside Jerusalem, Titus began to look for ways to hasten its end. And so, he decided to tighten the screws further on the Jews by setting up soldiers to ambush any Jews, be they zealot or civilian, who ventured out of the city to gather food. He ordered his soldiers to whip, torture, and then crucify anyone they captured outside the wall, in full view of those zealots on the wall. Soon, upwards of 500 Jews were hung up on crosses. Titus hoped that such a cruel spectacle would finally break the zealots and induce them to surrender, but to the contrary, the zealots brought to the walls the family members of those being crucified and told them that was what the Romans were doing to anyone who tried to defect to them.

On the 12^th day of Jyar (April/May), Titus ordered his soldiers to begin raising their banks against the city, and 17 days later they were completed: the fifth legion raised the first bank at the tower of Antonia, outside the temple complex, while the twelfth legion raised the second bank slightly further down. Meanwhile, on the north quarter at the pool called Amygdalon, the tenth legion raised the third bank, while the fifteenth legion raised the fourth bank nearby. With the raised banks completed, the Romans felt that they would soon be able to take the third wall and press further into the city. Yet the zealots were unrelenting as they were treacherous. John of Gischala’s men were able to sabotage the support beams for the banks near Antonia and set them on fire. Then two days later, Simon’s men tried to destroy the other banks by sending suicide runners who ran up through the Roman camp and set the siege engines on the other banks on fire. The Romans saved the engines, but the zealots were able to destroy the battering rams. Soon the Roman soldiers started to despair that they’d ever take the city

And so, Titus conferred with his commanders to discuss his options: either assemble the entire army for massive assault on the walls or continue to wait out the siege and let the famine grow even worse. Titus chose patience. Instead of re-raising the banks, Titus ordered his army to build a wall around the entire city to shut the Jews up in the city completely, with no ability to get outside whatsoever. The entire army accomplished the feat in three days. After that, the famine became even more severe. Soon, entire houses were full of women and children dying of hunger, city streets were littered with dead bodies of the aged, and young men wandered about the marketplaces like shadows, their bodies swelled with the famine. It was common to see bodies just collapse and die in the streets, and it seems that everyone who died had died with their eyes fixed on the temple.

Deathly silence covered the city like a shroud. The only time the silence was disturbed was by the sound of the zealots breaking into the occasional house to plunder the dead bodies within and to add to their atrocities by using the dead bodies for sword practice. At first, the zealot leaders had given orders that the dead should be buried so that the stench of the corpses would not fill the city. But soon so many were dying that the zealots began to simply throw the bodies over the walls into the valleys beneath. Upon seeing the famished bodies of the dead piling up outside the walls, Titus groaned loudly and called out to God to witness that such atrocities were not his doing.

What made it even worse for the starving Jews within the city was that they could look over the walls and see the Roman soldiers stationed outside the walls enjoying their food and provisions. Food was so close, but there was no hope for them. Not only would the zealots never surrender to the Romans, but they would continue to plunder and terrorize the Jewish civilians for their own survival.

It was at this time that Simon ben-Giora ordered that Matthias ben-Boethus, one of the high priests, be arrested and hauled up before him on charges of treason and working for the Romans. Matthias was the man who had convinced the people to appeal to Simon in the first place and let him into the city. But now Simon ordered his execution. Before he killed Matthias though, Simon forced him to watch as his guards torture then killed his three sons. After Matthias’ execution, Simon then had Ananias ben-Masambulus, an eminent citizen, Aristeus, a scribe of the Sanhedrin, along with fifteen others, executed as well.

Simon’s reign of terror eventually convinced Judas ben-Judas, one of Simon’s officers, to turn against Simon and attempt to open the gates to Titus. He convinced the zealots under his command to surrender their part of the wall to the Romans in an attempt to save themselves and the city. And so, they called to the Romans early in the morning. The Romans, though, were suspicious of Judas’ offer, so they called for Titus. But before Titus to get there, Simon’s men caught wind of the conspiracy, took the tower where Judas’ men were, slaughtered them, and then in sight of Titus and the Roman soldiers, mangled the dead bodies and then threw them down outside the wall.

The next day, Josephus, who making it a daily ritual to go out near the city walls and appeal to his fellow Jews to surrender, was hit in the head by a stone and severely injured. He was taken back into the Roman camp and the zealots rejoiced because they thought they had killed him. A few days later, though, Josephus recovered and went back out to the wall and cried out to the zealots that it wouldn’t be long before they would all be punished for the wound they had given him.

A few days later, some of the Jews, driven nearly insane with hunger, managed to leap over the walls in an attempt to desert the city. When they were brought into the Roman camp, they were offered food, but because their bodies had been so ravaged by famine, they ate too much, and their bellies burst open and the gold that they had swallowed came out of their bowels and intestines. Some of the more unscrupulous Roman soldiers started to go through the excrement to find the coins. When Titus heard about it, though, he was so enraged that he prepared to order their execution, but his officers convinced him to instead simply order that from that point on any soldier caught doing so would be put to death. Still, that did not prevent some of the surviving deserters to venture out to the dead bodies at night to search for gold coins.

Back within the city walls, it was at this time that John of committed what considered the greatest sacrilege. He went into the temple and melted down the sacred utensils and vessels, claiming it was proper to do so because they were fighting for God. He also took the sacred wine and oil and dispensed them to his own fighters. And still, death continued to ravage those within the city. All in all, from the 14^th day of Nisan (early April) to the first day of Tamuz (mid-June), there were 115,880 dead bodies carried out of the city gates and another 600,000 thrown over the walls.

Upon seeing such death and carnage, Josephus would later write, “I suppose that had the Romans made any longer delay in coming against these villains, the city would either have been swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been overflowed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom perished by, for it had brought forth a generation of men much more atheistic than were those that suffered such punishments. For by their madness it was that all the people came to be destroyed.”

Indeed, with such death pouring over the city walls, Titus decided that it was time to raise the banks once again and attempt to take the city walls once again.