Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

factionalism and
     discord that threatened to engulf all of Jerusalem. With the moderates silenced, there
     were now three principal camps vying with one another for control over the city. While
     the Zealot Party, which consisted of about twenty-five hundred men, held the inner
     court of the Temple, the outer courts fell into the hands of the former leader of
     the rebellion in Gischala,a well-to-do urbanite named John, who had barely escaped the Roman destruction of
     his city.
    At first, John of Gischala threw in his lot with the Zealot Party, with whom he shared
     a devotion to the religious principles of the revolution. Whether John himself could
     be called a zealot is difficult to say. He was undoubtedly a fierce nationalist with
     a deep hatred of Rome at a time in which national sentiment and messianic expectation
     were inextricably linked. He even melted down the sacred vessels of the Temple and
     turned them into implements of war with which to fight the armies of Rome. But a fight
     over control of the Temple ultimately forced John to break with the Zealot Party and
     form his own coalition, which consisted of some six thousand fighting men.
    The third and largest rebel camp in Jerusalem was led by Simon son of Giora, one of
     the bandit leaders who fought off the initial assault on Jerusalem by Cestius Gallus.
     Simon had spent the first year of the Jewish Revolt scouring the Judean countryside,
     plundering the lands of the wealthy, setting slaves free, and earning a reputation
     as the champion of the poor. After a brief stay with the Sicarii in Masada, Simon
     came to Jerusalem with a massive personal army of ten thousand men. At first, the
     city welcomed him, hoping he could rein in the excesses of the Zealot Party and clip
     the wings of John of Gischala, who was becoming increasingly authoritarian in his
     conduct. Although Simon was unable to wrest the Temple from either of his rivals,
     he did manage to seize control over most of the upper and lower city.
    Yet what truly set Simon apart from the rest of the rebel leaders in Jerusalem is
     that, from the very beginning, he unabashedly presented himself as messiah and king.
     Like Menahem before him, Simon dressed himself in kingly robes and paraded about the
     city as its savior. He declared himself “Master of Jerusalem” and used his divinely
     anointed position to begin rounding up and executing the upper-class Jews whom he
     suspected of treason. As a result, Simon son of Giora ultimately came to be recognized
     as the supremecommander of the fractured rebellion—and just in time. For no sooner had Simon consolidated
     his authority over the rest of the rebel groups than Titus appeared at the city gates,
     with four Roman legions in tow, demanding Jerusalem’s immediate surrender.
    All at once, the factionalism and feuding amongst the Jews gave way to frantic preparations
     for the impending Roman assault. But Titus was in no hurry to attack. Instead, he
     ordered his men to build a stone wall around Jerusalem, trapping everyone inside and
     cutting off all access to food and water. He then set up camp on the Mount of Olives,
     from which he had an unobstructed view of the city’s population as they slowly starved
     to death.
    The famine that ensued was horrible. Entire families perished in their homes. The
     alleys were filled with the bodies of the dead; there was no room, and no strength,
     to bury them properly. The inhabitants of Jerusalem crawled through the sewers searching
     for food. People ate cow dung and tufts of dry grass. They stripped off and chewed
     the leather from their belts and shoes. There were scattered reports of Jews who succumbed
     to eating the dead. Those who attempted to escape the city were easily captured and
     crucified on the Mount of Olives for all to see.
    It would have been sufficient for Titus to simply wait for the population to perish
     on their own. He would not have needed to unsheathe his sword to defeat Jerusalem
     and end the rebellion. But that is not what his father had sent him there to do. His
     task was not to starve the Jews into submission; it was to eradicate them from the
     land they claimed as their own. Thus, in late April of 70 C.E ., as death stalked the city and the population perished by the hundreds from hunger
     and thirst, Titus rallied his legions and stormed Jerusalem.
    The Romans threw up ramparts along the walls of the upper city and began bombarding
     the rebels with