The lower city had been largely taken earlier. The Temple Mount was now in Roman hands, and the Temple itself had been burned to the ground. All throughout the Temple precincts there were over 10,000 Jewish bodies littering the ground, and the entire day had been filled with a cacophony of Roman cries of victory and Jewish cries of despair. The surrounding cloisters and rooms, as well as the treasury chamber, once having been plundered, had been burned down as well. Once it had become clear that the Temple was beyond saving, Titus had given the orders to completely raze everything on the Temple Mount to the ground.
In the midst of the horror of that day, there was a Jewish false prophet who had assembled a small group of Jews on one of the walls, and who had convinced them that God was going to miraculously intervene and deliver them. Such deliverance never came. The Romans simply marched up and slew them all.
Josephus’ Recollection of Previous Warning Signs
It is at this point in his account that Josephus takes the time to relate a number of warning signs that had transpired in the previous years that the Jews had either misinterpreted or neglected. The sight of that false prophet on the wall, leading some of the Jews to their certain death, caused Josephus to think about the signs warning the Jews about impending disaster that they nevertheless had failed to heed.
At one point in the previous years shortly before the war, there had been a star resembling a sword that stood over the city, and a comet that continued an entire year. In addition, shortly before the war had broken out, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on the 8th day of Nisan, at the 9th hour of night (3 am), the altar and the Temple itself was illuminated in light for about a half an hour. At the same festival, a heifer that was led by the high priest to be sacrificed gave birth in the Temple to a lamb. Then that night, at midnight, the eastern gate of the inner court opened all by itself.
Then the following month, on the on the 21st day of Jyar, before sunset, chariots and troops of soldiers in full armor were seen in the clouds, surrounding the city. And finally, on that Pentecost, some of the priests claimed that as they went about their priestly duties at night, that they heard a quaking and a great noise, as if a great multitude said, “Let us leave this place!”
But perhaps the most ongoing sign came from a common farmer named Jesus ben-Ananus. Four years before the war began (62 AD), when the city was at peace and in prosperity, he came to the Feast of Tabernacles and began to cry out in the Temple and in the streets throughout the entire time of the feast: “A voice from the east! A voice from the west! A voice from the four winds! A voice against Jerusalem and the holy house! A voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!”
The Sanhedrin had him arrested and then took him to Albinus, the Roman procurator, who ordered that he be whipped down to his bones. All he said during his entire flogging was, “Woe! Woe to Jerusalem!” Albinus then released him, thinking him to be a mad man. For the next seven years, Jesus ben-Ananus would go about the streets uttering his woes. Then, during the siege, in 70 AD, as he was going about on the walls, crying out, “Woe! Woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” he stopped, looked out over the walls, and then cried, “And woe to myself as well!” A stone came out from one of the siege engines and killed him immediately.
Such were the signs of warning and disaster that Josephus recalled.
Failed Negotiations
The Romans then brought their ensigns into the Temple and set them against the eastern gate. On the fifth day after the taking of the Temple, the priests who had stayed in the Temple with the zealots for the entire siege were brought to Titus and begged for mercy. Titus, though, told them that the time to ask for a pardon was over. Their Temple was now destroyed, and therefore it was fitting and just that they, as priests of the Temple, should perish as well. And thus, they were put to death.
John of Gischala and Simon ben-Gioras, along with their remaining men had retreated into the upper city and then sent word to Titus that they were ready to negotiate a surrender. They met on the bridge that linked the Temple complex to the upper city. Titus gave them a simple speech. After giving the zealots a basic history lesson on Roman conquests and his repeated past offers to pardon if they would surrender, Titus concluded with these words:
“After every victory, I persuaded you to peace, as though I had been myself conquered. When I came near your temple, I again departed from the laws of war, and exhorted you to spare your own sanctuary and to preserve your holy house to yourselves. I offered you a quiet exit out of it and promised your security. Still, you have despised every one of my proposals and are the reason why your holy house is now destroyed by fire. You miserable creatures! Your own people are dead! Your holy house is gone! Your city is in my power! Don’t you realize that your very lives are now in my hands? Do you still find it valorous to die? However, I will not imitate your madness. If you throw down your arms and deliver yourselves up to me, I will grant you your lives. I will act like a mild master of a family. What cannot be healed will be punished, and the rest I will preserve for my own use.”
The zealots, though, refused his offer. Those were not the terms they want. Instead, they demanded that the Romans allow them to take their wives and children and leave the city untouched. They would thus go into the countryside and leave the city to the Romans. Not surprisingly, Titus was insulted at such an insolent demand. In response, he told them that none of them should attempt to desert to him anymore, for from that point on he would not spare a single soul. He then ordered his soldiers to plunder the rest of the lower city.
As they were doing so, the zealots rushed into the royal palace and captured two soldiers. They had the footman draw throughout the entire city while they took the horseman to Simon, who ordered that he be taken in sight of the Romans and beheaded. Somehow, though, the horseman managed to escape back to the Romans as they were leading him out. Despite normal Roman penalty of death for allowing yourself to be captured, Titus couldn’t bring himself to execute the man. He did, though, eject the man from the legion.
The next day, the Romans drove the last of the zealots out of the lower city and set everything on fire as far as the Pool of Siloam. The zealots, though, had thoroughly plundered the lower city and had brought it all to the upper city. As the Romans continued to close in to secure the rest of the city, and as the remaining zealots tried to secure the upper city, it was at that time that John of Gischala and Simon ben-Gioras decided to desert their remaining men and go into hiding in underground caves throughout the city. They thought they would be able to wait things out until the Romans left, and then escape.
Their hopes would not be realized.
