The Provinces of the Roman Empire 30

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 30

Believers in Judaism had for long been divided into those who placed

their trust in the Lord of Zebaoth alone and endured the Roman rule

till it should please Him to realise the kingdom of heaven on earth,

and the more practical men, who had resolved to establish the kingdom

of heaven with their own hand and held themselves assured of the help

of the Lord of Hosts in the pious work, or, by their watchwords, into

the Pharisees and the Zealots. The number and the repute of the latter

were constantly on the increase. An old saying was discovered that

about this time a man would proceed from Judaea and gain the dominion

of the world; people believed this the more readily because it was so

very absurd, and the oracle contributed not a little to render the

masses more fanatical.

 

[Sidenote: Struggle of parties.]

 

[Sidenote: Victory of the Zealots.]

 

The moderate party perceived the danger, and resolved to put down the

fanatics by force; it asked for troops from the Romans in Caesarea and

from king Agrippa. From the former no support came; Agrippa sent a

number of horsemen. On the other hand the patriots and the knife-men

flocked into the city, among them the wildest Manahim, also one of

the sons of the oft-named Judas of Galilee. They were the stronger,

and soon were masters in all the city. The handful of Roman soldiers,

which kept garrison in the castle adjoining the temple, was quickly

overpowered and put to death. The neighbouring king’s palace, with the

strong towers belonging to it, where the adherents of the moderate

party, a number of Romans under the tribune Metilius, and the soldiers

of Agrippa were stationed, offered as little resistance. To the latter,

on their desire to capitulate, free departure was allowed, but was

refused to the Romans; when they at length surrendered in return for

assurance of life, they were first disarmed, and then put to death

with the single exception of the officer, who promised to undergo

circumcision and so was pardoned as a Jew. Even the leaders of the

moderates, including the father and the brother of Eleazar, became the

victims of the popular rage, which was still more savagely indignant

at the associates of the Romans than at the Romans themselves. Eleazar

was himself alarmed at his victory; between the two leaders of the

fanatics, himself and Manahim, a bloody hand-to-hand conflict took

place after the victory, perhaps on account of the broken capitulation:

Manahim was captured and executed. But the holy city was free, and

the Roman detachment stationed in Jerusalem was annihilated; the new

Maccabees had conquered, like the old.

 

[Sidenote: Extension of the Jewish war.]

 

Thus, it is alleged on the same day, the 6th August 66, the non-Jews

in Caesarea had massacred the Jews, and the Jews in Jerusalem had

massacred the non-Jews; and thereby was given on both sides the

signal to proceed with this patriotic work acceptable to God. In the

neighbouring Greek towns the Hellenes rid themselves of the resident

Jews after the model of Caesarea. For example, in Damascus all the Jews

were in the first instance shut up in the gymnasium, and, on the news

of a misfortune to the Roman arms, were by way of precaution all of

them put to death. The same or something similar took place in Ascalon,

in Scytopolis, Hippos, Gadara, wherever the Hellenes were the stronger.

In the territory of king Agrippa, inhabited mainly by Syrians, his

energetic intervention saved the lives of the Jews of Caesarea Paneas

and elsewhere. In Syria Ptolemais, Tyre, and more or less the other

Greek communities followed; only the two greatest and most civilised

cities, Antioch and Apamea, as well as Sidon, were exceptions. To this

is probably due the fact that this movement did not spread in the

direction of Asia Minor. In Egypt not merely did the matter come to

a popular riot, which claimed numerous victims, but the Alexandrian

legions themselves had to charge the Jews.--In necessary reaction

to these Jewish “vespers” the insurrection victorious in Jerusalem

immediately seized all Judaea and organised itself everywhere, with

similar maltreatment of minorities, but in other respects with rapidity

and energy.

 

[Sidenote: Vain expedition of Cestius Gallus.]

 

It was necessary to interfere as speedily as possible, and to prevent

the further extension of the conflagration; on the first news the

Roman governor of Syria, Gaius Cestius Gallus, marched with his troops

against the insurgents. He brought up about 20,000 Roman soldiers and

13,000 belonging to client-states, without including the numerous

Syrian militia; took Joppa, where the whole body of citizens was put to

death; and already in September stood before, and in fact in, Jerusalem

itself. But he could not breach the strong walls of the king’s palace

and of the temple, and as little made use of the opportunity several

times offered to him of getting possession of the town through the

moderate party. Whether the task was insoluble or whether he was not

equal to it, he soon gave up the siege, and purchased even a hasty

retreat by the sacrifice of his baggage and of his rear-guard. Thus

Judaea in the first instance, including Idumaea and Galilee, remained

in, or came into, the hands of the exasperated Jews; the Samaritan

district also was compelled to join. The mainly Hellenic coast towns,

Anthedon and Gaza, were destroyed, Caesarea and the other Greek towns

were retained with difficulty. If the rising did not go beyond the

boundaries of Palestine, that was not the fault of the government, but

was rather due to the national dislike of the Syro-Hellenes towards the

Jews.

 

[Sidenote: The Jewish war of Vespasian.]

 

The government in Rome took things in earnest, as earnest they were.

Instead of the procurator an imperial legate was sent to Palestine,

Titus Flavius Vespasianus, a prudent man and an experienced soldier.

He obtained for the conduct of the war two legions of the West,

which in consequence of the Parthian war were accidentally still

in Asia, and that Syrian legion which had suffered least in the

unfortunate expedition of Cestius, while the Syrian army under the

new governor, Gaius Licinius Mucianus--Gallus had seasonably died--by

the addition of another legion was restored to the status which it

had before.[182] To these burgess-troops and their auxiliaries were

added the previous garrison of Palestine, and lastly the forces of

the four client-kings of the Commagenians, the Hemesenes, the Jews,

and the Nabataeans, together about 50,000 men, including among them

15,000 king’s soldiers.[183] In the spring of the year 67 this army

was brought together at Ptolemais and advanced into Palestine. After

the insurgents had been emphatically repulsed by the weak garrison of

the town of Ascalon, they had not further attacked the cities which

took part with the Romans; the hopelessness, which pervaded the whole

movement, expressed itself in the renouncing at once of all offensive.

When the Romans thereupon passed over to the aggressive, the insurgents

nowhere confronted them in the open field, and in fact did not even

make attempts to bring relief to the several places assailed. Certainly

the cautious general of the Romans did not divide his troops, but kept

at least the three legions together throughout. Nevertheless, as in

most of the individual townships a number--often probably but small--of

the fanatics exercised terror over the citizens, the resistance was

obstinate, and the Roman conduct of the war neither brilliant nor rapid.

 

[Sidenote: First and second campaigns.]

 

Vespasian employed the whole first campaign (67) in bringing into his

power the fortresses of the small district of Galilee and the coast

as far as Ascalon; before the one little town of Jotapata the three

legions lay encamped for forty-five days. During the winter of 67-8

a legion lay in Scytopolis, on the south border of Galilee, the two

others in Caesarea. Meanwhile the different factions in Jerusalem fell

upon one another and were in most vehement conflict; the good patriots,

who were at the same time for civil order, and the still better

patriots, who, partly in fanatical excitement, partly from delight in

mob-riot, wished to bring about and turn to account a reign of terror,

fought with each other in the streets of the city, and were only at one

in accounting every attempt at reconciliation with the Romans a crime

worthy of death. The Roman general, on many occasions summoned to take

advantage of this disorder, adhered to the course of advancing only

step by step. In the second year of the war he caused the Transjordanic

territory in the first instance, particularly the important towns of

Gadara and Gerasa, to be occupied, and then took up his position at

Emmaus and Jericho, whence he took military possession of Idumaea in

the south and Samaria in the north, so that Jerusalem in the summer of

the year 68 was surrounded on all sides.

 

[Sidenote: Stoppage of the war.]

 

The siege was just beginning when the news of the death of Nero

arrived. Thereby _de iure_ the mandate conferred on the legate became

extinct, and Vespasian, not less cautious in a political than in a

military point of view, in fact suspended his operations until new

orders as to his attitude. Before these arrived from Galba, the good

season of the year was at an end. When the spring of 69 came, Galba was

overthrown, and the decision was in suspense between the emperor of the

praetorian guard and the emperor of the army on the Rhine. It was only

after Vitellius’s victory in June 69 that Vespasian resumed operations

and occupied Hebron; but very soon all the armies of the East renounced

their allegiance to the former and proclaimed the previous legate of

Judaea as emperor. The positions at Emmaus and Jericho were indeed

maintained in front of the Jews; but, as the German legions had denuded

the Rhine to make their general emperor, so the flower of the army went

from Palestine, partly with the legate of Syria, Mucianus, to Italy,

partly with the new emperor and his son Titus to Syria and onward to

Egypt, and it was only after the war of the succession was ended, at

the close of the year 69, and the rule of Vespasian was acknowledged

throughout the empire, that the latter entrusted his son with the

termination of the Jewish war.

 

[Sidenote: Titus against Jerusalem.]

 

Thus the insurgents had entirely free sway in Jerusalem from the summer

of 66 till the spring of 70. What the combination of religious and

national fanaticism, the noble desire not to survive the downfall of

their fatherland, the consciousness of past crimes and of inevitable

punishment, the wild promiscuous tumult of all noblest and all basest

passions in these four years of terror brought upon the nation, had its

horrors intensified by the fact that the foreigners were only onlookers

in the matter, and all the evil was inflicted directly by Jews upon

Jews. The moderate patriots were soon overpowered by the zealots

with the help of the levy of the rude and fanatical inhabitants of

the Idumaean villages (end of 68), and their leaders were slain. The

zealots thenceforth ruled, and all the bonds of civil, religious, and

moral order were dissolved. Freedom was granted to the slaves, the high

priests were appointed by lot, the ritual laws were trodden under foot

and scoffed at by those very fanatics whose stronghold was the temple,

the captives in the prisons were put to death, and it was forbidden

on pain of death to bury the slain. The different leaders fought with

their separate bands against one another: John of Gischala with his

band brought up from Galilee; Simon, son of Gioras from Gerasa, the

leader of a band of patriots formed in the south, and at the same time

of the Idumaeans in revolt against John; Eleazar, son of Simon, one

of the champions against Cestius Gallus. The first maintained himself

in the porch of the temple, the second in the city, the third in the

Holy of Holies; and there were daily combats in the streets of the city

between Jews and Jews. Concord came only through the common enemy;

when the attack began, Eleazar’s little band placed itself under the

orders of John, and although John in the temple and Simon in the city continued to play the part of masters, they, while quarrelling among themselves, fought shoulder to shoulder against the Romans.