7
“For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion.”
JOEL, I, 6
“WHEN NERO WAS told of the Roman disaster in Judea, as one might expect he was very shaken and bewildered, although he did his best to hide it,” Josephus tells us, perhaps echoing the description of a courtier who had been present.
He lost his temper, saying that what had happened was entirely his commander’s fault and had nothing at all to do with the enemy’s generalship. Believing as he did that someone who bore the whole burden of empire should show contempt for disturbances of this sort, he always feigned indifference to reversals of any kind. Just how worried he was, however, could be seen from the pains he took in trying to mend matters. After debating with himself who would know best how to deal with the east when it was in such a mess, and be able to put down the Jewish rebellion and stop the trouble from spreading to other countries, he decided that only Vespasian could do the job properly.1
Fifty-seven years old, Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, an obscure Sabine from the little village of Reate (Rieti), was far from being a patrician and spoke with an uncouth accent. A no-nonsense sort of man, tough, shrewd, and efficient, with a caustic wit, a soldier’s soldier who always led from the front and had been wounded several times, he was liked by his troops despite being a ferocious disciplinarian. According to Tacitus, he often marched on foot at the head of his army (despite his gout), marked out the night’s camp each evening, ate whatever was put in front of him, and dressed as a ranker.2 If he appeared to be a mediocrity at this stage of his career, he was at least an experienced one, having campaigned in Germany and Britain, where Suetonius says he fought in thirty battles, captured twenty towns, and conquered the Isle of Wight.3 Even so, running short of money, he had abandoned military life to deal in mules.
Ironically, Nero had developed a deep dislike for Vespasian, who in any case was hardly a kindred spirit. After falling asleep while the emperor was singing, he had very nearly been executed because of his lack of appreciation. Suetonius tells us that on the day after the concert he was refused admission to the imperial presence and banished from court. He was more or less in hiding at an out-of-the way town in Achaia, fearing the worst, when messengers came to offer him the governorship of Syria with command of an army.4 Having been on the retired list for some years, the offer must have come as a surprise, but he accepted with alacrity.
Crossing the Dardanelles, Vespasian went as quickly as possible to Antioch where he took over command of the Fifth Legion and the Tenth Legion (Macedonica and Fretensis) from Cestius Gallus, whom he replaced as legate of Syria. He had sent his son Titus to Egypt, to bring the Fifteenth Legion (Apollinaris) from Alexandria, while he was reinforced by auxiliary troops from client states, including the whole of King Agrippa II’s little army. Eventually, he assembled a force numbering over 45,000 men—Josephus says it was 60,000—the best being twenty-three cohorts of legionaries and six squadrons of regular cavalry. This was more than had been used in the recent conquest of Britain. It was an indication of how seriously Rome was taking the Jewish threat. According to Suetonius, Vespasian overhauled the discipline of every single unit.
The Jews did not wait for the new Roman general to arrive but decided to attack the Greek city of Ashkelon on the coast, which was garrisoned by only a single cohort and a squadron of cavalry—less than a thousand soldiers. Still elated by Cestius’s defeat, “like people blown into flame by good fortune,” a large, overconfident army led by Niger the Peraite, Silas of Babylon, and John the Essene marched out from the capital. 5 But while their objective was inadequately garrisoned, they forgot that it had strong fortifications and possessed an exceptionally resourceful commander, Antonius.
When the Jews reached Ashkelon, they rushed headlong at the city, but instead of sheltering behind its walls, Antonius drew up his horsemen outside. Then he charged. Undisciplined, badly armed, and on foot, the Jews did not stand a chance. Many ran, to be pursued and slaughtered. Others fought bravely until evening, suffering 10,000 casualties, which included two of their leaders. The Romans lost only a few men. Undiscouraged by the sight of so many comrades lying dead on the battlefield, the Jews made another attack the next day, led by Niger the Peraite, but were cut to pieces. Niger and some of his troops took refuge in a tower at a village called Belzedek, which the Romans promptly fired. They thought they had succeeded in killing Niger, but he jumped down through the flames and hid in a cave, emerging three days later when his men were tearfully searching for his corpse. His miraculous survival delighted the Jews, who felt proud to have such a commander. But it was the last time they attacked a Roman garrison.
Vespasian marched out from Antioch with his army, along the sea road down to Tyre and then to Ptolemais where he went into winter quarters. He installed a garrison at Sepphoris, under the tribune Placidus, a thousand horse and 6,000 infantry camped on the plain outside the city. An unrealistic attempt by Josephus to recapture his capital failed; not only did he have too few troops, but the Sepphorians did not want him back. Although it was not the campaigning season the Roman cavalry raided far and wide throughout the winter of 66-67 CE, burning crops and villages, driving off cattle, sending the wretched ’am ha-arez off to the slave markets. “Everywhere, Galilee was filled with fire and blood,” we are told in The Jewish War. “The only refuge for the inhabitants being hunted for their lives was inside the cities that Josephus had fortified.”6
For the moment, people felt safe behind city walls. Realizing this, Placidus decided to storm Jotapata, the strongest of the cities, which was only a few miles from Sepphoris, hoping its capture might frighten the others into surrendering. However, learning that he was on his way, its citizens ambushed his troops and routed them with a hail of javelins—although the Romans withdrew in such good order that they lost only seven men.
Bringing the Fifteenth Legion with him, Titus joined his father at Ptolemais where they wintered together, training their army in siege warfare. Vespasian’s experience of besieging and storming hilltop forts in Britain was going to be useful, even if Galilean mountain towns would prove tougher nuts to crack. By the spring of 67 the Romans were ready. In The Jewish War, Josephus gives us a picture of their army as it marched out from Ptolemais to conquer Galilee:
Lightly armed native horse and bowmen rode in front, guarding against sudden assaults by the enemy and always ready to search any suspicious looking thickets that might conceal an ambush. After them, wearing full armor, came a force of horse and foot, then ten men from each century carrying camping equipment besides their own, then pioneers with tools for leveling road surfaces or clearing a way through woods, to save the troops from being worn out by marching. Then followed the general’s carriage and those of other senior officers, along with a strong cavalry escort. He himself came next, marching at the head of a picked body of horse and foot soldiers, with a troop of pikemen. Then came the legions’ special cavalry, each legion having a hundred and twenty horsemen of its own. Next, the mules with the siege engines and other heavy weaponry. After these marched the senior officers, commanders of cohorts and tribunes, with an escort of crack troops.
Then came the eagles, those standards which are borne at the head of every Roman legion, since they consider the eagle to be the king of birds and the strongest, a symbol of victory and an omen they will always win, whatever the odds against them. These sacred battle emblems were followed by the trumpeters, and in their train marched the main army in cohorts, six infantrymen abreast, with a centurion to see they kept in step. Camp servants followed the infantry, leading the pack animals which carried the legionaries’ baggage. A vast host of mercenaries came after the Roman soldiers, followed by a rearguard composed of heavy and light infantry with a large body of horse.7
Vespasian knew all about psychological warfare; he restrained his men from attacking while he prepared to overwhelm the cities of Galilee. He guessed that the spectacle of such a huge, well-equipped army would deter them from fighting, and he was right. Josephus admits that mere rumors of the approach of this gigantic war machine, as it clanked along at a carefully regulated pace toward his own makeshift army, in camp at Garis, four kilometers from Sepphoris, were enough to rout the Galileans. The men he had taken such pains to train bolted before the enemy came in sight. Devastated by their desertion, he decided the war was already lost and, with the few troops who remained at his side, took refuge in Tiberias.
Vespasian’s reconquest of Galilee started with Gadara, which he found almost without defenders. Storming the little city at the point of the sword, he slaughtered not just the young men but the old, with all its women and children. Besides burning down the city, he methodically put to the torch every small town and village in the area, killing anyone who was foolish enough to stay within reach.
The people of Tiberias were panic-stricken when Josephus arrived, suspecting that their once confident governor would never have run away had he not been convinced the war was lost. They were quite right. He knew exactly what was going to happen, and that the only chance was to try and make peace. However, he insists he would have died many times over rather than dishonor his post as army commander by reaching a cowardly understanding with its enemies against the wishes of his government. Instead, he sent a full report to the leaders at Jerusalem by fast messenger, in the hope that it might persuade them to negotiate without delay.
One need not believe the claim he made years later that he always felt sure the Romans would give him a pardon. In those days, it was more likely that they would crucify him, and he must have been living in fear, desperately trying to find a means of changing sides. He cannot have had much confidence in the Tiberians, who had given him such trouble, but he knew of another Galilean city on an almost impregnable site with very strong fortifications, where he might be safe. It was so formidable that Vespasian had made a point of besieging it after demolishing Gadara. Quietly abandoning Tiberias to its fate, in May 67 Josephus slipped into the hill city of Jotapata, just after the Roman army had pitched camp nearby. He informs us, in his selfless way, that he did so “to raise the drooping spirits of the Jews,” but his real motive was almost certainly that he thought it stood a better chance than Tiberias of surviving a siege. However, he was going to find that he was caught in the city like a rat—albeit a resourceful, smooth-talking rat—in a trap from which there was no possibility of escape.