The Republican journal., 1871-02-09
THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.


horrors OF such contests, forming, as it Were
the last crowning tragedy, was the siege of
Jerusalem by Titus, A. d. 40. The city then
contained according to Tacitus, six hundred
thousand inhabitants. .Josephls has well
narrated the suferings of his countrymen,
not merely from the Romans, but also from
the savage fractions of the two fival chiefs,
Simon and John, the former of, whom held
the upper city, the latter the temple, Their
followers tore each other to pieces up TO the
very moment that the Romans broke through
the walls. The mode in which Titus con-
Quoted this memorable siege furnished a
good example Of the manner in which the
Romans conducted such operations. His
legionaries having established their camps
on Scopas and the Mount Of Olives, began to
burn suburbs of Jerusalem, cut down the
trees, and raise banks of earth and timber
against the walls. On these works were
placed archers and hurlars of iayelins, and
before them the catapults and balistas that
threw darts and huge stones. The Jews
replied from the engines which they had
taken from Roman detachments, but they
used them awkwardly and Intellectually.
They, however, were very daring in their
sorties, endeavoring to burn the Roman mill
itary engines and the hurdles with which the
Roman pioneers covered themselves when
at work. The Romans also built towers
fifty cubits high, plated with iron, in which
they placed archers and slings, to drive the
Jews from the walls. At last, about the
fifteenth day OF the siege, the greatest of the
Roman battering-rams began to shake the
outer wall, and the Jews yielded up the first
line of defense. Five days after, Titus broke
the second wall, into place full of narrow
streets crowded with braziers', clothiers' and
wool merchants shops but the Jews rally
ing drove out the Romans who not having
made the breach sufficiently large, were with
difficulty rescued by their archers. Four
days later, however, Titus retook the second
wall, and then waited for famine to do its
work within the city The Jews began now
to desert to the enemy in great numbers, and
all these wretches the Romans tortured and
crucitied before the walls Cat one time five
hundred day,) so that, as Josephus says,
Groom was wanting for the crosses and
crosses wanting for the bodies"
At this crises of the siege the Jews, under
mining one of the Roman towers, set it on
fire, and did their best to destroy all the be-
siegers' works. Titus now determined to
slowly starve out his stubborn enemies, and
began to build wall round the whole city.
This wall, with thirteen forts, the Roman
soldiers completed in three days. Famine,
in the meantime, was ravaging the unhappy
city. Whole families perished daily, and the
streets were strewn with dead bodies that no
one cared to bury. Thieves plundered the
half deserted homes, and murdered any who
showed signs of resistance, or who still lin
gered in the last agonies of starvation. The
dead the Jews threw down from the walls into
the valleys below. In the meantime the Roman
soldiers, abundantly supplied with corn from
Gurio ronaEaI fha of O an m fha yxyo1 1Ia
by showing them food. The palm-trees and
olive-trees round Jerusalem had been all de-
stroyed, but Titus sending to the Jordan for
timber, again raised banks round the castle
Of Antonia. Inside the city the seditions
grew more violent, the partisans of John and
Simon numbering each other daily, and plum
dering the Temple of the sacred vessels. A
rumor spreading in the Roman camp that the
Jewish deserters swallowed their money be-
fore they left Jerusalem, led to the murder,
in one night Josephus says, OF nearly two
thousand ofthese unhappy creatures. Again
q part OF the wall fell before the battering
rams. but only to discover to the Romans a
fresh rampant built behind it, lii one attack
4 brave Syrian soldier of the cohorts, with
eleven other men, succeeded in reaching the
top of the wall, hut they were then over
powered by the Jews. A few days after.
twelve Roman soldiers scrambled up by
night through breach in the tower of Anto-
MIA, killed the guards. and, sounding trump
cts, summoned the rest Of the army to their
aid. The tower once carried, the Romans
tried to force their way into the Temple, and
q hand-to-hand fight ensued, which termn
ated in the Romans being driven back to the
tower of Antonia. The Jews, now seeing
the Temple in danger, and assault recon-
mencng, set fire to the cloistcr that ruined
the Temple and the castle of Antonia, and
prepared for a desperate resistance in their
last stronghold. In this conhagration many
of the Romans, advancing too eagerly, per-
ished
During all this fighting, the famine within
the city grew worse and worse. The wretch.
ed people ate their shoes, belts. and even
the leather throngs of their shields. Friends
fought for food, and robbers broke into every
house where it was known that corn was
hidden. Josephus even mentions we'll
known case OF woman of wealth from he
yond Jordan who ate her own child. The
walls of the Temple were so massive rs to
resist the battering-rams for six days, so III
tus gave orders to burn down the gates. AT
last, after desperate resistance, the Jews
were driven into the inner court and the
Temple was set on fire and destroyed, in
spite of all the efforts of Titus to save it,
When the Jews first saw the flames spring
up. Josephus says, they raised a great shout
of despair, and sixteen thousand OF the de-
tenders perisAed inthe fire. The Romans,
in the fury of the assault, burnt down the
treasury chambers, filled with gold and other
riches, and all the cloisters, into which null
titudes OF Jews had filled, expecting some
thing miracu lous, as their false prophet had
predicted. Titus now attacked the upper
city, and raised banks against 1t, at which
about forty thousand of the inhabitants de-
serted to the Roman camp. The final re.
sistance was very feeble, for the Jews were
now disheartened. The Romans, once mas
ters of the walls, spread like deluge ovel
the city, slew all the Jews they met in the
narrow lanes, and set fire to the houses. In
many of these they found entire families
dead of hunger, and these places, in their
horror, the soldiers left unplundered. The
Romans, weary at last Of staying, Titus gave
orders that no Jew, unless found with arms
in his hand, should be killed. But some
soldiers went on butchering the old and in
firm, and driving the youths and women into
the court of the Temple. The males under
seventeen were sent to the Egyptian mines
several thousands were given to provincial
amphtheatres to fight with the gladiators
and wild beast; but before all could be sent
away. eleven thousand of them perished
from famine. Altogether, in this cruel siege,
there perished eleven hundred thousand
Jews. This enormous multitude is account
ed for by the fact, that when Titus sat down
before Jerusalem, the city was full Of people
from all parts of Judea, come up to cele
brofo tho Eoast of iTn1o Rraa1