Jerusalem. The Biography

weapons. He also appointed generals, among them Josephus, the future historian, who now left the city as the commander of Galilee, where he found himself fighting a warlord, John of Gischala, more viciously than either of them fought the Romans.
    The new Jewish coins celebrated ‘The Freedom of Zion’ and ‘Jerusalem the Holy’ – yet it seemed this was a liberation that not many had wanted and the city waited like ‘a place doomed to destruction’. Nero was in Greece to perform his songs and compete in chariot-races in the Olympic Games (he won even though he fell out of his chariot), when he heard that Israel had rebelled.
    JOSEPHUS’ PROPHECY: THE MULETEER AS EMPEROR
     
    Nero feared victorious generals, so he chose as the commander of his Jewish War a dogged veteran from his own entourage. Titus Flavius Vespasianus was in his late fifties and often annoyed the emperor by falling asleep during his theatrical performances. But he had made his name in the conquest of Britain and his nickname – The Muleteer – revealed his unglamorous dependability and the fortune he had made by selling mules to the army.
    Sending his son Titus to Alexandria to collect reinforcements, Vespasian mustered an army of 60,000, four legions plus Syrian slingers, Arab archers and the cavalry of King Herod Agrippa. Then he marched down the coast to Ptolemais (Acre). In early 67, he methodically started to reconquer Galilee, resisted fanatically by Josephus and his Galileans. Finally, Vespasian besieged Josephus in his fortress of Jotapata. On 29 July that year, Titus crept through the shattered walls and seized the city. The Jews fought to the death, many of them committing suicide.
    Josephus and some other survivors hid in a cave. When the Romans trapped them, they decided to kill themselves and drew lots to determine who would kill whom. ‘By the providence of God’ (or by cheating), Josephus drew the last lot and emerged alive from the cave. Vespasian decided to send him as a prize to Nero, which would entail an atrocious death. Josephus asked to speak to the general. When he stood before Vespasian and Titus, he said: ‘Vespasian! I come to you as a messenger of greater tidings. Do you send me to Nero? Why? It is you, Vespasian, who are and shall be Caesar and Emperor, you and your son.’ The dour Vespasian was flattered, keeping Josephus in prison but sending himpresents. Titus, who was almost the same age as Josephus, befriended him.
    As Vespasian and Titus advanced towards Judaea, Josephus’ rival, John of Gischala, escaped to Jerusalem – ‘a city without a governor’ engaged in a frenzy of self-destructive butchery.
    JERUSALEM THE BROTHEL: THE TYRANTS JOHN AND SIMON
     
    The gates of Jerusalem remained open to Jewish pilgrims, so religious fanatics, battle-hardened cut-throats and thousands of refugees poured into the city, where the rebels expended their energies in gang warfare, orgiastic pleasure-seeking and vicious witch-hunts for traitors.
    Young, brash brigands now challenged the rule of the priests. They seized the Temple, overthrowing the high priest himself, electing by lot in his stead a ‘mere rustic’. Ananus rallied the Jerusalemites and attacked the Temple, but he hesitated to storm the inner courts and Holy of Holies. John of Gischala and his Galilean fighters saw an opportunity to win the entire city. John invited in the Idumeans, that ‘most barbarous and bloody nation’ from south of Jerusalem. The Idumeans broke into the city, stormed the Temple, which ‘overflowed with blood’, and then rampaged through the streets, killing 12,000. They murdered Ananus and then his priests, stripped them and stamped on the naked bodies, before tossing them over the walls to be eaten by dogs. ‘The death of Ananus’, says Josephus, ‘was the beginning of the destruction of the city.’ Finally, laden with booty and sated with blood, the Idumeans left a Jerusalem dominated by a new strongman, John of Gischala.
    Even though the Romans were not far away, John gave free rein to his Galileans and Zealots to enjoy their prizes. The Holy House became a bawdy-house; but some of John’s supporters soon lost faith in this tyrant and defected to the rising power outside the city, a young warlord named Simon ben Giora, ‘not as cunning as John but superior in strength and courage’. Simon ‘was a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves’. The Jerusalemites, hoping to save themselves from one