To the Death (26 page)

Josephus now brought every tactic and ploy of guerrilla warfare into play. Groups of picked men were sent out at night to sabotage anything they came upon. If it was moveable and of use, it was stolen; if it wasn't, it was wrecked or burnt. All the various constructions the Romans were in the middle of building - assault ladders, ramps, towers – were fired.

Vespasian, deciding enough was enough, recalled his men from the battlefield and set about blockading the town. Jotapata under siege would either starve or surrender.

Inside Jotapata, the town's granaries were full, but they lacked sufficient water. There being no spring within the walls, the townsfolk depended on winter rain to fill their cisterns. It was now late summer and water was short. Josephus, who had rationed it from the outset, was forced to extend this rationing to the townspeople, who resented this being imposed. From the high ground overlooking the wall, the Romans could watch the Jews forming lines to receive their water rations, so they made this area a target for their javelin throwers, causing many injuries and deaths.

An anxious Vespasian, meanwhile, could only hope that the town's tanks would run dry sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, he had forty thousand men to feed and water, plus almost as many animals – every day.

Josephus, very much aware of Vespasian's circumstances, was determined to undermine his enemy's resolve. He ordered his men to drape the walls and battlements in Roman view with sheets and pour water onto them, so that the whole wall ran and dripped with this precious fluid. The result was uproar in the Roman ranks, when they saw so huge a quantity being thrown away as a joke by men whom they thought had scarcely anything to drink. Vespasian himself was shaken, for he had pinned all of his hopes on capturing the town through the effect of his siege.

In Jotapata Josephus called a meeting of the town's leading citizens. He and they faced up to the fact that the town could not hold out forever. Josephus made the point that his own survival was important to the Jewish state, and he would need to organise his escape sooner rather than later. The people begged him to stay. Josephus countered this by saying that if he escaped, he could raise an army in Galilee and come to their aid. By staying with them, the Romans would attack the town more fiercely to ensure his capture.

If, on the other hand he slipped away, this would reduce the pressure on the town. This argument was rejected out of hand. The people begged him on their knees to stay, so he agreed, but only on the condition that they accepted his terms. “You have accepted”, he declared gravely, “that there is no hope, not just of escape, but of survival. Not just that you will die, so will your mothers, your wives, your children”. In the absolute silence this brought, he continued, “If you had a future, you would be remembered for your courage. But nobody will live to tell of your bravery”. He paused to turn from side to side, seeking the eyes of his men and the ordinary citizens who had taken up arms. “If you must fight, fight as men with no future. Take vengeance now on the Roman who will kill your family when you fall in battle.”

The next day Josephus led an attack in force that got as far as the Roman camp, where they set fire to its breast works. Over the next two days they repeated these sorties. Uncaring of their losses, they hurled themselves at their enemy like berserkers. The only way of stopping them was to kill them.

Vespasian, angry at losing seasoned Roman infantry, responded by making the Arab archers and stone throwers face these sudden attacks. Attacks which came at odd times - dawn, late evening, the middle of the night. He did, however, support the auxiliaries with his artillery, which he kept in continuous action. It was this that eventually forced the Jews to back off, but outside the range of the missiles being hurled at them they attacked the Romans relentlessly. They came forward without a thought for their own lives, their only thought and most fervent desire was to kill before they themselves were killed.

As the days dragged by, these sorties continued. Vespasian began to feel that it was he who was under siege. In desperation, he urged the towers and platforms that had survived be moved closer to the walls. He also ordered the ram to be brought up. This massive baulk of timber is capped by a great lump of metal shaped like a ram's head. No wall can withstand a prolonged battering from this juggernaut. Put in motion, it pounds away day and night, making sleep impossible for the defenders, as vibrations from its impact travelled through their beds, rattling the vessels on their shelves and shivering the liquid in their chamber pots.

The Romans now pushed forward. Their catapults and other artillery that had been edged forward started a supporting bombardment. Archers and slingers also came to the fore to keep up a constant shower of missiles aimed at the top of the wall.

Consequently, the Jews could not man the ramparts. This enabled the Romans to move the ram to a new position. Under the protection of overlapping shields, roofed by ox hides, the Romans attacked an old section of the wall. Under its battering, Josephus saw that it would give way if he didn't act. Under his orders, sacks of chaff were lowered by ropes to the spot where the head of the ram was striking the wall. This tactic worked instantly; the ram was rendered ineffectual. The Romans hit back by attaching reaping hooks to poles, and cutting the ropes the sacks were suspended from. Immediately the ram was once again set in motion and the wall began to crack.

Josephus, who had anticipated this event, had prepared bundles of wood soaked in oil. These were then dipped in bitumen, resin, pitch and brimstone. Setting these brands alight they charged out and set fire to the Romans' hurdles, their scaling ladders and as much of their artillery as they could before being cut down. Frozen by the Jews' unbelievable courage, the Romans panicked. When they did gather their wits about them, things were well alight and beyond salvage.

At night, under Vespasian's personal supervision, the ram was set up again. It was at this juncture an event occurred that could have changed the course of the war. Vespasian was wounded. He took an arrow in the foot. Though the wound was relatively minor, it caused consternation in the Roman ranks. Suddenly things had gone from bad to worse. The news ran through the army like quicksilver. Titus arrived at the spot fearing for his father's life.

Vespasian, very much aware of the psychological impact of the incident, called for a horse. Snapping off the arrow, he mounted the animal and rode slowly through his lines, exchanging words of encouragements with his men.

Titus ordered the attack on the wall to be redoubled. Every available piece of artillery was to be brought forward and set to work without pause day and night.

Josephus's forces were now taking terrible losses from the constant fusillade, in spite of which they held on to the ramparts. They set up a barrage of their own against those attacking the wall. They rained fire and stones on those operating the ram, but with no effect. Meanwhile they were constantly hit by missiles.

Within the town, the screams of the women and children echoed the shrieks of men dying in agony from their wounds; the sound of dead bodies flung from the ramparts an ominous, constant thudding. The ground that circled the walls was puddled with blood. Soon it would be possible to climb to the battlements on the corpses heaped against the base. The noise was terrifying, magnified by the rocky walls of the surrounding mountains. In the early morning, before dawn had broken, the wall yielded. The Jews filled these breaches with warriors, who held back the enemy with shields and swords.

Next day at first light, Vespasian called up his army for the final assault. His first task was to try and draw the defenders away from the breaches. To do this he selected some of his best heavy infantry, positioning them against the gaps in the wall. Protected by full armour and armed with long spears, they were waiting for wooden gangways made by the pioneer corps to be put into position. These were necessary for the Romans to force an entry, enabling the infantry to charge through the breaches in the wall. Behind the armoured spearman, Vespasian had drawn up the cream of his infantry. The remaining cavalry were positioned across the entire slope. Their job was to intercept anyone who attempted to escape when the town was captured. Still further back he placed Arab archers to pick off anything that slipped past the cavalry.

Other soldiers carried ladders ready to position them against the undamaged sections of wall. This might, Vespasian thought, draw some Jews away from the breaches while the rest, facing the concentrated fire of his archers and slingers, might break.

Josephus, realising what Vespasian intended, positioned older men with the exhausted and wounded on the undamaged sections of wall. Here, he reasoned, the fighting would be less fierce. Where the wall had been broken through, he positioned the best warriors, each group led by four officers; it was here he placed himself so that he would be in the midst of the fiercest fighting.

He also ordered his men to bend double under their shields the instant they heard the deadly hissing of the incoming volleys of arrows that would precede the legions' advance. Finally he warned them that the greatest moment of danger, would be when the gangways fell into place. They must, he said, forestall the enemy who expected to charge across these unimpeded
by being first.
They must jump forward onto these gangways and sell themselves dearly, for this was where the fighting would be the hardest. He said grimly, “You are already dead, be waiting in heaven for your wives and children who will soon join you. Whilst you still live, let every man fight to the death for them. Remember, take vengeance for what is to come”, were Josephus' final words to his men.

In unison, the trumpets of all the legions sounded followed by a savage battle cry that burst from twenty thousand throats. This was the cue for clouds of arrows from every side to fill the sky. Remembering Josephus' instructions, his men shielded their bodies from the incoming shafts. When the gangways dropped into position, the Jews charged over them before the astonished Romans could take a forward step. They engaged the enemy without fear in a desperately magnificent display of prowess and fighting spirit. No Jewish warrior broke off his struggle with an opponent until one or the other was dead.

But eventually the Jews were worn down by the non-stop battle, unable to replace their men as they died. On the other hand, the Romans' exhausted units were relieved by fresh troops. As soon as one Roman unit was beaten back, another came forward. Standing shoulder to shoulder the Romans urged each other on. Their long shields locked, they formed an impenetrable wall which, with the line pushing as one man, forced the Jews up the slope.

The Jews were seconds away from utter disaster when Josephus signalled the men on the wall. They were ready with containers of boiling oil. The Jews poured the bubbling liquid from every side onto the packed Romans. Scalded and burnt, screaming in pain, the Romans broke their ranks. In agony, they twisted and rolled down the slope away from the wall. Trapped in their armour they couldn't escape the torment. Burning oil swiftly ran under their armour, seeking out every crevice, coating their bodies from head to foot, their flesh consumed as though by fire. Imprisoned in their armour, the legionaries could not escape the searing fluid. Leaping into the air like hooked fish, bodies and limbs contorted in torment, they fell back from the wall, easy targets for the Jews' spears and arrows. The Romans who had not suffered the boiling oil pressed forward. Screaming with rage in their eagerness to get at their enemies, they threw caution to the wind, straight into the trap Josephus had prepared for them. As they stormed forward onto the gangways, Josephus and his men retreated. Arriving at the gangways the Romans simply lost their footing. It was impossible to stand upright. Many fell head-long to be finished off by Jewish spears. Some Romans fell on their backs and, unable to get up, were severely injured by the flailing hobnailed sandals of their companions.

This situation had been brought about because the Jews had poured boiled fenugreek over the gangway's planks, rendering them twice as slippery as ice. Seeing his men being badly mauled, but not understanding why, Vespasian ordered his trumpeters to sound the recall. He then ordered the huge platforms to be raised. On them he had built prefabricated towers, each fully sixty feet high. These were encased in metal on all four sides, so they were too heavy to overturn and virtually fireproof. They were manned by archers, spearman, light artillery and slingers. The Romans, protected by the towers' metal cladding, begin to fire arrows and other missiles through slits in the metal panels at the defenders on the top of the wall.

In their exposed position the Jews, unable to defend themselves from these missiles, were unable to fight back. Their enemy was not only concealed, he was beyond their reach, the tops of the towers being outside the range of their spears. Forced to abandon the wall, they joined the combatants at ground level, determined to keep the enemy outside the city. For another day Jotapata held out, but at a terrible cost. Jewish dead were piling up against the walls at an alarming rate.

On the forty seventh day of the siege, the Roman platforms reared over the wall and by a remarkable coincidence they captured a Jewish deserter who bought his life by betraying to Vespasian the circumstances in the city. He informed Vespasian of how weak the remaining men were, through a shortage of rations and water. Very importantly he reported that, because of their losses, the remaining men were totally exhausted. Through constant fighting with no respite, they were close to being unable to withstand another assault. This coward then suggested that a night attack at a particular point on the wall would succeed in entry being gained and the gates opened.