To the Death (23 page)

There was a long silence following this announcement. Before it could be broken, the stricken Ananus was born away.

The Jews in the great hall, after having a collective sigh, already traumatised by the horror of what was happening in the streets, would have gladly gone home there and then but Ananus had anticipated this. The Temple police, armed with clubs, informed them that the doors of the hall would be locked and only reopened when they had reached decisions on who would be the supreme commander, who would be his deputy and who would be the governors of the designated regions. In the meantime refreshments would be served.

It took the remainder of the day and the best part of the night, but come dawn the weary councillors and the Sanhedrin reached a consensus, sending Ananus a list of who would do what. In doing so they gave him the wooden spoon. He was made supreme commander with Joseph Ben Gorion as his deputy. Their first task was to provide Temple funds and raise twenty thousand men to be employed repairing and strengthening the wall against the inevitable siege.

Foundries were ordered to operate day and night turning out weapons - swords, daggers, axes, javelins, arrows and bows. Other craftsmen were organised to produce armour, helmets and shields. To bolster morale, Ananus ordered that the city would strike its own silver coins, dated year one.

The country was divided into six administrative districts and their governors despatched.

Idumaea – Eleazar son of Ananias.

Jericho – Joseph ben Simon.

Peraea – Manasses.

Thamna, Lydda, Joppa – John the Essene.

Gophna Aqraba – The central region. John son of Ananias.

Galilee – Josephus ben Matthias.

The promotion of Eleazar, son of Ananias, to the governorship of Idumaea, was intended to remove him from Jerusalem and weaken the Zealot party. It was a ploy that worked better than Ananas could ever have hoped for. Having left for Idumaea, Eleazar simply disappeared, never to be seen again. It was assumed that he and his party had been caught in a sandstorm and buried alive – a not uncommon occurrence when crossing the region's vast deserts.

His misfortune was another's gain. His place in the Zealot leadership was taken by another Eleazar; Eleazar ben Simon, who had fought against the forces of Cestius Gallus at Beth Horon.

Despite opposition from the High Priest Ananus, Eleazar ben Simon had established himself in Jerusalem where he attracted Galilean Zealots seeking refuge in the capital.

He was very much helped in his bid for power by the enormous wealth he had acquired during the battle with Gallus. Simon had had the good fortune to capture the Roman
Legate's
war chest intact.

Josephus was born in the first year of Caligula's reign. His father Matthias was a Priest and his mother, of Royal Blood, was descended from the Hasmonaeans. Josephus was precociously intelligent. So much so, that by the age of fourteen he was being consulted by the church elders on points of Jewish law.

Josephus was about thirty when he set about the organisation of his district with energy and skill. His first act was to conciliate the local people by allowing them to manage their own affairs. In every town, a council of seventy and a bench of seven were appointed. His next task would be the raising of an army and the fortification of the towns in his region, Galilee.

21

T
hey
trudged in grim silence across the deserted battlefield, littered with the remains of unburied Jewish and Roman dead - shattered skulls, broken vertebrae and cages of shipwrecked ribs, black with dried blood. Everywhere was the obscenity of the scavenging jackals, pulling and tearing, and the ungainly waddle of the vultures which shrieked and squabbled, quarrelling over an abundance of titbits.

Josephus, at the head of his newly formed army, knew this sight would either harden their resolve or fill them with fear. With dusk gentling the hills, they needed to camp, but the thought of sleeping in this charnel house was unbearable. As he turned to speak to one of his lieutenants, he spotted a severed hand amid the debris. It was still firmly clutching the sword that its owner, a Roman soldier, had been carrying. With a grimace he said to one of the men at his side, “Send a mounted scout ahead to find a campsite for the night clear of this abattoir”.

The man nodded and lurched away to pass on the order. He was John, son of Judah, a hunchback who sometimes allowed people to touch his hump for luck in return for a coin. He had attached himself to Josephus' army for companionship as much as anything, his affliction denying him the company of normal people.

In desperate haste, Josephus had organised the defence of the principal towns in Galilee. Thanks to his efforts and the funds he had brought from Jerusalem, the walls of the towns of Taricheae, Tiberius and Mount Tabor had been rebuilt. They had also managed to strengthen the larger villages in upper and lower Galilee and along the border into Jordan. It had angered Josephus that the people of Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee, had rejected his help. They said, “We will see to our own defences at our own expense”. Knowing that the citizens of Sepphoris were pro-Roman, he left them to it.

Josephus, with his experience of Rome and first-hand knowledge of how formidable Rome's well trained legions were, had no illusions as to how effective his best efforts would be. At best they would slow the enemy down
.
Nonetheless, Josephus did not spare himself in knocking his army of peasant farmers into shape. In three months he had sixty thousand infantry that, though untried, knew their business.

More promising was the forty thousand cavalry he had put together. Natural riders on either camels or horses, it was simply a matter of training them to obey orders; to act on command with purpose and grasp basic cavalry tactics. At least ten thousand of these men were either proficient with a bow or capable of teaching others. In the end, Josephus ended up with forty thousand cavalry, twenty thousand armed with sword and lance, and twenty thousand archers armed with sword and bow.

As news of Josephus' achievement spread he was acknowledged as the most important and most powerful man in Galilee. Local bullies and would-be bandits, who were no better than gangsters, soon learnt that this Pharisee priest turned soldier was a firm believer in the law of the prophets. His justice was biblical and summary. Inevitably his success and imperviousness to bribery brought him enemies; mostly small fry they could be ignored. Larger fish were eventually dealt with. There was one exception - a war lord and racketeer of long standing, with a reputation for brutality that did not stop short of murder. John of Gischala commanded a private army. His principal trade was extortion in the form of a protection racket.

The caravans and traders that passed through the town of Safed, in the wild country north of the town of Gischala, were forced to pay John and his enforcers for their protection against the perils of the journey ahead. Or be attacked by Gischala's thugs who, when they were not
protecting
the caravans, terrorised the local hill villages.

A major source of John's income came from an olive oil monopoly he had established.

Throughout Galilee his men had visited olive oil producers and told them that they and they alone, would buy their oil. They also fixed the price they would pay. Those that refused were warned that they would no longer receive the
protection
of John. At first nothing happened. Then the unfortunate farmer was subjected to a reign of terror. One day he might find a dead dog in his well. A week later a barn would burn down. If he still said no, his donkeys and other livestock would disappear. Then he would be kidnapped, taken into the desert and beaten, left to crawl back to his farm. A final ultimatum would be a threat to kill his wife and his children. Having suffered at the hands of these gangsters he never doubted that this would happen – so he capitulated. If he didn't, he would wake up one morning to find the head of his wife in a bucket outside his door.

John also tried to undermine Josephus' authority, by putting it about that the young Jewish general was preparing to hand the country over to the Romans. He used the charge of traitor and the accusation of collaboration, to demand Josephus' death. Knowing that Josephus had enemies in the Sanhedrin who were jealous of his success in Galilee, John denounced him to the authorities in Jerusalem, having first paved the way with a substantial bribe.

In response, a commission of three Pharisees and three Sadducees with an armed bodyguard set out for Galilee. Josephus' father, however, had written to his son from Jerusalem, warning him of the plot against him. Josephus responded by sending men into the countryside to rally the peasants and pay his dues to the local headman. The commission found itself interviewing peasants who declared their respect, admiration and thanks to Josephus for his protection and care.

When the commission tried to speak to Josephus, he sent them a letter of apology. He couldn't attend the meeting; he was busy fighting Placidus, a lieutenant of Cestius Gallus, who was in charge of a local garrison. He also sent messengers, Galileans, to Jerusalem to report this true state of affairs to the Sanhedrin and their loyalty to Josephus. The commission was immediately recalled, giving Josephus, at the head of his army, the opportunity to march on Tiberius which immediately opened its gates to him, the city elders pledging their loyalty to the Jewish cause.

Meanwhile, during the winter of 66/67, the whole country was as turbulent as Galilee. In Jerusalem, Ananus had ordered that work to defend the city was to be given an overriding priority. The walls had been repaired and artillery captured from Cestius Gallus had been positioned. Vast stores of swords, axes and spear heads had been forged and every able bodied man was under military training.

Taking advantage of the lack of policing in the countryside from anybody's militia, be it Roman or Jewish, Simon ben Gioras put on the mantle of a warlord and ran riot, burning towns and villages, torturing and killing the inhabitants for their possessions. In response Ananus sent troops to put him down, forcing him to retreat to Massada from where he promptly preyed on Idumaea, forcing its rulers to protect the villages by garrisoning them.

22

T
itus,
Vespasian's eldest son, in spite of being short and thick set, was extremely fit and an excellent horseman. Fluent in Greek and Latin, he had served in the army in Britain and Germany. A student of philosophy and law, he had made a good marriage to the daughter of a retired commander of the
Praetorian
Guard. Unfortunately she had died in childbirth, and Titus' second marriage ended in divorce. Fortune, however, smiled on him and he was made a
quaestor
, an appointment to public office, helping to supervise the treasury and financial affairs of the state and its armies.

When Vespasian ordered him to come to Judaea, he was able to do so because he had relatives who would stand hostage for him in Rome – Titus' younger brother, the thirteen years old Domitian, and his uncle, Vespasian's brother Flavius Sabinus, who was the prefect of Rome. On receiving his father's orders, Titus left Italy and travelled to Alexandria where he assumed command of the Fifteenth Legion Appollinaris, and made his way to Ptolemais, a Greek city and port in Galilee, to meet his father. Their combined forces of three legions totalling eighteen thousand men were quadrupled in size by reinforcements provided by the client Kings in the regions; this support being one of the terms laid down by Rome when they were appointed.

Vespasian, with over sixty thousand men under his command, was ready to plan his campaign. At fifty seven years of age he was a distinguished veteran. He had also served in Thrace, Crete and Cyrenaica. An able administrator he had been raised to the rank of
consul
and awarded the governorship of North Africa.

Acknowledged as a man of integrity and character, who dispensed justice honestly and with great humanity, he returned home not noticeably wealthier than when he went. Reluctant to become part of Nero's court, he had only done so when to refuse would have caused, one could say, fatal offence.

His reputation in the army was that of a successful but unimaginative commander, reluctant to take a chance, only willing to move when he had carefully considered his options and worked out a thought-through strategy. His men, appreciative of the care he took of their lives, were ferociously loyal. They also shared his somewhat earthy sense of humour and marvelled at his ability to recall individual names and incidents from previous battles. He had the invaluable gift of being able to walk down a line of soldiers, stopping suddenly to drop a hand on a man's shoulder, address him by name and recall some detail of a battle they had both been in.

A story that was legend in the legions was that of a raw recruit, a youngster barely eighteen years old, facing the full force of twenty thousand painted Britons screaming for blood. Obviously nervous, he was spotted by Vespasian as he rode down the line. The General had reached down and clapped him on the shoulder saying, “All you have to do son is two things. Keep a tight arsehole and look after the old bugger on your right. The even older one on your left will look after you”.

The roar of laughter that this brought steadied not just the rookie, but the whole line. With shields locked and swords drawn, the trumpets had sounded above the screams of the attacking Britons who had charged fearlessly in overwhelming numbers, to be received by a wall of iron that moved relentlessly forward, swords flashing as it marched to war.