The First Jewish-Roman War was a Jewish revolt against Roman rule in Iudaea which occurred from 66 to 74 AD, culminating in the Roman capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple. The revolt was caused by sectarian violence between the pagan Greeks and the monotheistic Jews and unfair Roman taxation, and the uprising was initially successful, with the rebels taking over Jerusalem, forming a provisional government, and decimating a Roman punitive expedition at the Battle of Beth Horon. However, the Jews failed to maintain their unity and broke up into factions, which weakened their cause as the Roman general (and later emperor) Vespasian and his son Titus conquered their strongholds outside of Jerusalem. In 70 AD, Titus conquered Jerusalem itself after a long and bloody siege, and he had hundreds of thousands of civilians massacred, while the Second Temple and much of the city were burned to the ground. In 71 AD, Titus returned to Rome as Legio X Fretensis crushed the strongholds of Herodium and Machaerus, and the last Sicarii stronghold of Masada fell in 73 AD. The Jews would be pacified until the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136 AD, which led to their deportation from Jerusalem and the renaming of their capital (to Aelia Capitolina) and their province (to Syria Palaestina) to strip them of their heritage.
Background[]
After the successful Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BC, the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty rose to power in Judea 146 BC. In 67 BC, the brothers Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II drove the realm into civil war, and the Roman general Pompey, who had just defeated Mithridates VI of Pontus in Asia Minor, thrusted south towards Palestine in 63 BC. He intervened in the civil war on behalf of Hyrcanus, captured Jerusalem, and made Judea a client kingdom of the Roman Republic. After a brief Parthian occupation, Rome recaptured the city in 37 BC and installed their client Herod the Great as king. After Herod's death in 4 BC, Iudaea became a Roman province, and imperial authority in the region relied on the imperial elites, who lacked the confidence of the populations. During the 1st century AD, the Jewish population chafed under the Roman boot, resulting in increasingly violent actions perpetrated by sects such as the infamous Sicarii.
War[]
Start of the revolt[]
The burning of the Caesarea synagogue
In 66 AD, a Greek mob profaned the Caesarea synagogue, leading to riots among the infuriated Jewish population. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the Roman procurator Gessius Florus plundered 17 talents of silver and gold from the Second Temple treasury to collect overdue taxes. Some young and bold Jews begged Florus for spare change in the name of the poverty-stricken procurator, so Florus had thousands executed. When he moved to bring in reinforcements, the Jews began to resist, and the Romans were forced to retreat to the citadel, leading to the start of the revolt.
The Battle of Beth Horon in 66 AD
The members of the Sicarii then marched to the fortress of Masada, where they overwhelmed and massacred the 700-strong garrison. In Jerusalem, the soldiers who had withdrawn to the palace were massacred when they tried to surrender their weapons. The rival Jewish factions united, with the Jerusalem rebels brutally captured the fortress of Cypros, while the Sicarii secured the surrender of Machaerus. Greek mobs massacred Jews in Ascalon, Caesarea, and Tyre, but the Jews retaliated across the region. The Roman Empire could not allow such defiance, so Cestius Gallus marched south from Syria with 30,000 troops. Gallus sought to seize Jerusalem, but the siege failed and his legions were ambushed at the Beth Horon pass as they retreated to the coast. Lightly-armed Jewish rebels wielding javelins, spears, and bows inflicted heavy losses; Legio XII Fulminata was annihilated, the army's siege weapons were captured, and the legionary aquila standard was lost. Gallus' campaign was a catastrophe, emboldening the rebels.
Roman response[]
To the west, Emperor Nero received news of the revolt while on a tour in Greece, so he appointed his veteran general Vespasian to command the army in Judea. Vespasian took the overland route over the Hellespont and through Cilicia to Antioch, where he was joined by two legions and their auxiliaries. He marched south to Ptolemais as his son Titus took command of another legion at Alexandria in Aegyptus; reinforcements arrived from the local allies and clients, and the Empire mustered 60,000 troops to crush the revolt. Entire opposition villages were reduced to ash, and the 10,000-strong Jewish field army quickly scattered to the fortified strongpoints. In 67 AD, Vespasian systematically moved through the Galilee, brutalizing any defiant settlement and allowing for his legionaries to loot, burn, murder, and pillage as they pleased. The Jewish strongholds fell one-by-one Jotapata fell to Vespasian first, followed by Joppa, Tiberias, Tarichea, and Gamala before his army finally wintered in northern Judea.
Judean civil war[]
The fall of Galilee to Vespasian's legionaries prompted internal strife among the Jewish factions in 68 AD, and Vespasian waited for the enemies to die by their own hand rather than take on the fanatics on the battlefield. Vespasian left Jerusalem to its internal squabbling, and he marched through the mountainous province of Peraea and Judea proper, taking almost every settlement one-by-one, laying waste to the countryside and slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians; he burned Philadelphia, Cypros, Beth Horon, Lydda, and Joppa. In 69 AD, Vespasian marched on Jerusalem itself, establishing garrisons in towns along his supply line, while the Roman horsemen rode down and destroyed the hostile units around Jerusalem.
Fall of Jerusalem[]
Discontent with Nero's infamous excesses led to Vindex's rebellion against Nero in 68 AD; while Vindex was crushed, another pretender, Galba, marched on Rome. Nero, deserted by the Praetorian Guard, committed suicide. Galba was dethroned by Otho shortly after, and Otho was deposed by Vitellius. A Batavian revolt along the Rhine broke out, and the influx grain from North Africa was severed. This halted the Judean campaign until 1 July 69 AD, when Vespasian was elected Emperor by his soldiers. Vespasian then held a war council, and he decided to establish his headquarters in Egypt as Titus and Tiberius Julius Alexander concluded the campaign of subduing the Jews. Titus began the campaign in the spring of 70 AD, departing Alexandria with four Roman legions (Legio XV Apollinaris, Legio V Macedonica, Legio X Fretensis, and Legio XII Fulminata), 20 cohorts of auxiliary infantry, 8 alae of cavalry, and native troops commanded by the regional client kings; this army had a strength of 70,000 troops.
Titus marched up the Mediterranean coast towards Caesarea, and he rode ahead towards Jerusalem with 600 horsemen to perform reconnaissance on the city as the rest of the legions came up behind him. However, as the force approached the Psephenus Tower, a large force of Jews charged out of the city and cut down many of Titus' men. The commander himself was almost captured, but narrowly managed to escape. Advanced Roman units from Legio XV and Legio XII arrived at the hills near the city on 23 April, and Legio V arrived that night, followed by Titus himself the next morning. The Jews managed to fortify the city considerably, with 20,000 well-armed troops defending three formidable walls with the siege artillery captured at Beth Horon. Water was not a problem, as Jerusalem had many cisterns and pools which could be filled with rain water, but the Judean civil war had left the food stores burned. The defending forces were split into three sub-factions, weakening Jewish unity. Titus had two camps built to the west of the city, and Legio X arrived shortly after, encamping on the Mount of Olives to the east of the city.
The Jewish factions charged out to attack Legio X as they built their hilltop camp, and droves of legionaries were cut down. Jewish reinforcements were sent to press the attack, and Legio X was driven from its uncompleted camp. Titus arrived with his cavalry attack and flanked the Jews, driving them back into the ravine between the camp and the city walls. The Jews launched a renewed assault, forcing the Romans to retreat to the heights, abandoning Titus. However, ashamed of leaving Titus, the Romans regrouped and counterattacked, forcing the Jews to flee back to the city. The camp was completed, and Titus posted strong contingents of horse and footmen to the east of the city to deter further sorties, while he ordered that the ground between the Roman camp and the city should be levelled to allow for the siege engines to advance.
Titus then decided to attack the western flank between the Psephenus Tower and the Western Gate, and the three legions facing the section of the wall constructed ramps. The construction efforts were originally interrupted by the sorties, but Roman artillery pinned the Jews down long enough for the works to be completed. Titus then ordered 3 battering rams to smash the Western Wall, and they were unsuccessful until 3 siege towers were brought up to reinforce them. On the 15th day of the siege, Roman siege engines punched a hole in the wall, and the Jews withdrew to the second wall, allowing for the Romans to occupy the New City. After four days of attacks, one of the Roman rams breached the second wall, advancing into the Second City. Rebels sprung from ambush positions and bombarded the Romans with missile fire, and the Romans were forced back to the narrow bridge, with many of them dying in the process. Auxiliary archers drove the Jews away, allowing the legionaries to escape. After four more days of resistance, the Romans finally broke through, and they tore down the entire northern section of the second wall down. Titus now split his legions into two groups, which each constructed siege ramps. The Legions X and XV attacked the first wall opposite the Tomb of John Hyrcanus, while Legions V and XII besieged the Antonia Fortress. During the all-out assault, Titus brought up more siege weapons to attack the Antonia Fortress, doing so under fire from the Jewish artillery. Jewish sappers undermined the Jewish ramps and set fire to the tunnel, causing the ground to collapse on itself, swallowing the Roman ramps and siege towers, which had taken weeks to build.
Titus tightened the blockade of Jerusalem by cutting off the besieged sections of Jerusalem with hastily-made walls, built in three days and having 13 fortresses along its circumference. The Jews were no longer able to forage for food and supplies outside of the city, and Jerusalem's inhabitants slowly began to starve and die during a famine. Titus again focused on taking the Antonia Fortress, and the foundations of the fortress, undermined by the rain and by the Jewish tunnel, collapsed during the night. The Jews built up a secondary wall behind the first, but a contingent of Roman legionaries took it down during a night assault. The Romans initially failed in their assault of Temple Mount, so Titus had the Antonia Fortress destroyed. Two months later, the Romans again failed to seize the Temple's courtyard, with the Jews wearing captured Roman equipment and making friendly fire incidents common.
After the second failure to take Temple Mount, Titus had four siege ramps constructed and used against the northwest corner of the Mount. The Jews launched a major sortie against the siege wall at the Mount of Olives, but the effort failed, and they rigged the area near the Roman siege ramps with firetraps before withdrawing and witnessing the deaths of many Roman soldiers. By 9 August, withering artillery fire and Roman offensives drove the Jews out of the Temple Mount courtyard, driving them back to the Temple. A fire began near the outer court, spreading due to the arid conditions and setting the Second Temple alight. The Jews attempted to fight the fires in their most holy place while also fighting the Romans, but the Romans butchered the Jewish defenders. The Roman legions were then unleashed on the lower city, and they burned houses, government buildings, archives, and several other buildings. The area was cleared of rebels after two days, and Herod's Palace was taken by 7 September after a short assault. The fall of Jerusalem resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of civilians, pilgrims, and soldiers, and Titus returned to Rome, where his father Vespasian granted him a triumph. The Arch of Titus was dedicated to him there. While a few isolated rebel strongholds remained, the revolt had essentially been crushed. In 71 AD, Legio X Fretensis recaptured Herodium and Machaerus, and, in 73 AD, the defenders of Masada committed mass suicide rather than surrender. Judea would be pacified for sixty years, until the Bar Kokhba revolt brought violence back to the region.