On the 20th day of Ab (mid-late August) Titus ordered his army to raise the banks further against the upper city, on the west side of the city over against the royal palace. It was at this time that the Idumean commanders who had allied themselves with Simon ben-Gioras throughout the war conspired to surrender to the Romans. They sent five men with the offer to Titus, and Titus accepted, thinking that once the Idumeans left the zealots, that the zealots would then surrender. Simon found out, though, and before the Idumeans could march out, Simon had the five men slain and then arrested and imprisoned the Idumean commanders.
By this time, more and more zealots were deserting every day, and even though the Romans initially obeyed Titus’ order to show no mercy, it got to the point that Titus relaxed his orders. So many zealot fighters were deserting that the Romans were getting tired of killing them. By the time the Romans eventually took charge of the upper city, 40,000 zealots had deserted.
Also, during this time, Titus was negotiating with the priest Jesus ben-Thebuthus and Phineas, the treasurer of the Temple to secure a number of items from the Temple in exchange for their safety. Because of these two men, a various Temple implements, and clothing were preserved: candlesticks, tables, cisterns, vials, and other sacred ornaments—all made of solid gold, as well as many of the coats and girdles of the priests, great quantities of purple and scarlet cloth, cinnamon and cassia and other sweet spices.
The Taking of the Upper City
The banks against the upper city were completed on the 7th day of Elul (late August). When the Romans brought their battering rams to their positions and began to batter against the walls, most of the remaining zealots simply fled down into the subterranean caverns. Consequently, the Romans were surprised at how easily they were able to take the walls, especially in light of the long and hard struggle it was to take the lower city and Temple. That being said, even though they were able to secure the walls to the upper city, the Romans became well aware of the fact that three of the towers in the upper city were simply impregnable. And yet, amazingly, the zealots in them deserted them anyway and fled out of the city.
The Romans then placed their ensigns upon the walls. They had finally secured the entirety of the walls around Jerusalem. They simply couldn’t believe the ease by which they were able to secure the last walls and towers, without any bloodshed. As Josephus recounted, “They could hardly believe what they found to be true. But seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an unusual solitude could mean.
With the walls now secured, Titus sent his soldiers throughout the upper city on the eighth day of Elul to slay anyone they found who resisted and to plunder the houses and then set them on fire. Yet what the Romans found when they went into the houses were rooms filled with corpses. The sight was so grisly for the Roman soldiers, that they simply went out without touching anything, and decided to simply burn everything.
Once their work was done going throughout the upper city, Titus made his way into the upper city to inspect everything. Upon taking note of the three towers that remained standing, Titus remarked, “Surely, we have had God for our assistant in this war, for no one other than God himself could have ejected the Jews out of these fortifications! What would any machine do to overthrow these towers?” Titus then ordered that although the entire city be demolished, that those three towers be left standing as a monument of his good fortune.
With the city now destroyed, Titus turned his attention to the Jewish survivors. He ordered his soldiers to kill anyone left in arms, as well as the elderly and those who were sick. The remaining Jews were to be driven into the Temple area and shut them up in the court of women. Titus then sent Fronto, one of his commanders, to determine everyone’s fate in the following manner:
- The tallest and most handsome of young men were chosen for the Roman triumph
- The rest who were over 17 years old were sent to the Egyptian mines
- Some were sent to the provinces to be killed in their theaters, either by sword or wild beasts
- Those under 17 years old were designated to be sold off as slaves
All in all, 97,000 Jews were captured.
Searching the Caves: The Fate of John and Simon
Eventually, when the Romans began to search out the caves and underground vaults, they ended up finding a great deal more of treasure that the zealots had hidden. In addition, when they found John of Gischala hiding in the caverns, seeing his capture was imminent, John declared that he was ready to negotiate a surrender in exchange for his security. No such negotiation was allowed, and he was quickly put in chains.
Simon ben-Gioras also knew the end had finally come. In one last attempt to frighten the Romans, though, Simon decided to do something rather strange. After going through one of the underground tunnels that led back to the Temple Mount, he put on a white frock, fastened a purple cloak on himself, and then came up out of the ground where the Temple had been. In what could be considered nothing short of delusion, he hoped that the Romans might think he was a phantom and run away, possibly giving him an opportunity to escape.
Needless to say, his scheme didn’t work. Granted, the Roman soldiers were at first surprised to see a man arrayed in white and purple seemingly rise up out of the ground. But then they simply walked up to Simon and asked him who he was. When he told them that he was Simon bar-Gioras and that he wanted to speak to Titus, they readily obliged by putting him in chains and taking him to Titus.
After all the horror and famine and deadly siege, the two zealot terrorists who had doomed Jerusalem and the Temple to destruction, were quickly apprehended and captured—dirty, little men found hiding in caves. Josephus reflected on Simon’s arrest in the following manner:
“Thus did God bring this man to be punished for what bitter and savage tyranny he had exercised against his countrymen, by those who were his worst enemies. And this while he was not subdued by violence, but voluntarily delivered himself up to them to be punished, and that on the very same account that he had laid false accusations against many Jews, as if they were falling away to the Romans, and had barbarously slain them. For wicked actions do not escape the divine anger, nor is justice too weak to punish offenders, but in time overtakes those that transgress its laws, and inflicts its punishments upon the wicked in a manner so much more severe, as they expected to escape it on account of their not being punished immediately.”
John of Gischala was sent to prison for the rest of his life, whereas Simon ben-Gioras was reserved for the Roman triumph and was eventually executed in Rome, in front of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, as part of the celebration of Roman victory and the destruction of Jerusalem. After the Roman triumph, Vespasian ordered that a Temple to Peace be built to commemorate their victory over the Jews. It was in that temple that he had deposited all the plunder taken from Jerusalem.
The last remaining vestiges of zealots—over 900 Sicarii led by Eleazar, a grandson of Judas the Galilean—held out in the desert fortress of Masada for three more years. The Roman legions eventually built a ramp all the way up to the great gate of the fortress. Then, on the night before the Romans planned their final assault, Eleazar convinced all of them that it would be better to commit mass suicide than to suffer being enslaved by the Romans. The next morning, the Roman soldiers found all but two women and five children dead.
Thus ends the Josephus’ account of the great Jewish War of 66-70 AD. When the great Church historian, Eusebius, wrote about the Jewish War of 66-70 AD in his book The History of the Church (written sometime after the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD), he noted that Christians had always interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple to be a fulfilment of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse prophecy found in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21.
