To the Death (31 page)

When Titus returned, he issued orders that the new city's suburbs were to be torched. At the same time he ordered the construction of mobile attack platforms to begin. To accomplish this, a vast quantity of timber was needed. Every tree – except the olive – in the area was felled.

The proposed platforms were in fact massive mobile towers. Between seventy five and one hundred feet high, they had several stories each designated to accommodate a wide assortment of artillery, plus assault troops supported by archers and javelin throwers. These machines and their men were protected from enemy fire with sheets of toughened ox hide or metal plates.

Inside the city, the rebel leaders had a dilemma. John's men were eager to take on the Romans and had to be held back. John's concern wasn't the Romans, it was Simon he had come to fear. Simon, confident that he had John contained and being positioned nearer to the Romans, decided to go on the offensive. The artillery Cestius had abandoned and had been captured by the Jews, he mounted along the wall nearest to the Romans. Under its covering fire, he and his men charged out of the city to attack the Romans with a direct frontal assault.

The Romans weren't exactly caught unawares, but they were certainly surprised. Many soldiers working high on the platforms' scaffolding would have been killed by the Jewish artillery, but for the shields and ox hide screens that had been fixed in anticipation of such an eventuality. On the ground, the legionaries engaged as builders threw down their tools and seized weapons placed ready to hand and formed up in their ranks. After fierce hand to hand fighting, resulting in casualties on both sides, Simon's men executed an orderly withdrawal and returned to the city.

Titus then decided that what he regarded as a “cheeky” attack needed a response, so he ordered a hundred and eighty of his most powerful stone throwers into action. These monsters could hurl a rock weighing a hundredweight four hundred yards. Having brought these heavyweights into a forward position, Titus ordered them to commence firing continuously day and night, with instructions to randomly alter the timing, range and trajectory of their bombardment.

In spite of this, the Jews fought doggedly to stop the Romans completing their platforms, using the time they gained to plan what they would do to counter them, knowing that eventually they would be completed.

Simon and John at last realised that they faced a common enemy and that their only hope of survival was to join forces in a common cause.

When the Romans started to pound the wall with their rams both men, surrounded by their officers, had run to the wall wild eyed in fear. They had yelled to each other that they had to unite. The shouting and screaming of the terrified people filled the air. Crowding the streets, they surged towards the Temple, praying and cursing. To calm them down, Simon announced that they should come into the Temple and from there to the wall.

John, even though he was suspicious of Simon, gave his permission and opened the Temple doors. Differences set aside they united under a joint command.

Their first action was to carry hundreds of firebrands to the top of the wall and fling them against the half-finished towers. At the same time, other men concentrated on continuously bombarding the Romans manning the rams. In the confusion created by these attacks, Jewish volunteers sprinted out of the city and attacked the Romans operating the stone throwing artillery. Against this sudden and determined attack, Titus was forced to defend his war machines by bringing up a troop of cavalry supported by several
cohorts
of archers.

In an effort to protect the teams operating the rams from the deluge falling from above, he ordered that a protective roof be constructed. In all of this chaos it was the newly deployed Arab archers who were the most effective, laying down a continuous covering fire. But the wall did not yield. In fact it showed no signs of doing so. The Jews, keeping to the city walls, continued to watch the Romans who had returned to their various tasks around their camps. No sooner had order and calm been restored, than the Jews launched another assault.

A thousand strong, armed with swords, each man also carrying a torch, burst out of the city. Like wolves attacking a stag, they flew across the open ground. Within minutes the partially constructed platforms were blazing. With scarcely a pause, they charged the artillery, flinging fiercely burning torches onto them. The Roman front line infantry that answered the call to arms was routed by advancing Jews.

Amid the burning artillery a furious battle developed. The Romans were desperate to save their war machines. The Jews, equally determined to destroy them, were joined by more and more Jews charging out of the city to join the battle. Roman trumpeters urgently sounded the call for reinforcements. Mucianus, who had been at one of the other camps, arrived on a lathered horse to take command, its
tribune
having been mortally wounded. The Roman legionaries, who had a reputation for bravery and success, rallied to their new general in order to face an enemy that was beginning to get the upper hand.

With burning timber crashing round them and thousands of screaming Jewish warriors flinging themselves against their line, the Tenth Legion surpassed even its reputation for courage under fire. Mucianus, knowing that the scales were tipping against him and that he was now hopelessly outnumbered, was unable to retreat. The Jews having cut him off from the main camp forced the veteran general decided to make a stand. The trumpeters blared his orders and six thousand legionaries responded as one man. The legion started to manoeuvre, revolving and tightening; always facing the enemy, it presented a wall of shields. Within minutes the entire Roman force had formed a square of interlocking shields bristling with long spears, their butts driven into the dry stony earth.

Over the tops of this barricade twelve thousand eyes, shaded by the iron of their owners' helmets, viewed the Jews implacably. A challenge the rebels accepted with relish, throwing themselves fearlessly against their enemy, hurling spears as they ran forward sword in hand.

This compacted mass of struggling men was suddenly split when at last Titus, at the head of his entire cavalry resources, arrived on the scene.

They charged the swirling mass of men at full gallop. At virtually point blank range they hurled javelins into the densely packed body of Jews who, because of the deafening noise of the battle, had not heard them coming. Three times the circling riders plunged their javelins into their enemy, before drawing their long cavalry swords, sweeping in to harvest an enemy caught between two fires. Now it was the turn of the Jews to seek a way back. Under constant attack from Titus' cavalry who herded them like sheep, they fought their way to the safety of the city, bitter in defeat, knowing how close they had come to a famous victory. The battered Romans, shaken by the engagement, were forced to acknowledge their opponent with grudging respect.

A few days later, when they started to repair their artillery and to rebuild the platforms, they did so under the protection of two legions in full armour. As the days passed, the frustrated Jews could only watch as the monstrous towers were completed. Then, under the covering fire of Syrian and Arab archers, they were inexorably inched into position. Up to this point the Jews had stood up to everything the Romans had thrown at them. Courageously they had successfully taken the fight to them, but from the outset the introduction of the towers caused them great problems. The highest stories overlooked the wall, and the Romans on them were out of range of the Jewish spear throwers. This enabled the Romans, firing downwards, to hit the rebels with a veritable blizzard of stones, arrows and javelins that swept the Jews from that section of the wall where the rams were beginning to take effect.

The biggest of the rams, nicknamed Satan by the Jews, eventually opened up a vertical fissure that was widening with every blow. The Jewish defenders, exhausted by constant fighting and little sleep, decided that as there were two more walls further back they would retreat. Instead of defending the gap opened up by the ram, they gave way to the Roman infantry, who plunged through the opening and fought their way to the gates that the rebels had abandoned. With the gates captured, the way was clear for Titus' forces to storm into the northern suburbs that Cestius had destroyed.

Titus quickly consolidated his gain, establishing his army between the two walls as far as the Kidron Valley. With his archers manning the walls they had taken, the engineers set about turning the recaptured artillery round to face the second wall to which the Jews had retreated. Titus, calling up reserves, was then able to relieve the troops who had made the breakthrough and send out soldiers to probe the enemy's strength who, having fallen back, set up a determined defence of the second wall.

With John's men fighting from the Antonia and the northern colonnade of the temple, Simon's brigade occupied the approach near the tomb of John the High Priest. Importantly, he was defending the ground as far as the gate through which water was taken into the Hippicus Tower. The Jews, having retreated to the second wall, now counter attacked, mounting a series of sorties to fight the Romans at close quarters. This hand to hand combat in the confined area between the two walls was brutal and bloody, with neither side able to get the upper hand. The Jews, fiercely attacking in strength throughout the day, left nothing untried in an attempt to defeat their enemy. Only nightfall brought a halt to their efforts. Then, at first light, the battle restarted.

During the night Titus had replaced his front line troops with fresh fighters; a distinct advantage over the Jews who did not have his depth of reserves. Having done so, he now went on the offensive, pushing relentlessly against a tiring opponent. In the coming nights his artillery targeted the Jews with firebombs. As these flaming missiles burst against the walls or landed on the ground immediately behind where the Jews were trying to rest, they had the desired effect. The Jewish defenders got no sleep. Four days later the exhausted Jews abandoned the second wall and Titus entered the area known as the New City.

In an effort to bring the fighting to an end, Titus gave orders that prisoners were not to be killed and the troops were not to pillage the houses. Under a flag of truce he offered to meet the rebel army outside the city to discuss terms. Either way the Temple, the city and its civilians would suffer no further harm. The citizens who longed for peace wanted to accept this offer, but the rebels refused it. Threatening the civilians with execution, they resumed the fight. The renewed conflict took the Romans into a warren of narrow streets that the Jews knew intimately. This knowledge enabled them to outflank the Romans. Fearing they would be trapped, the Romans tried to withdraw but were held up. The Jews, fighting like mad men, relentlessly attacked their enemy from every side, coming at them in sudden rushes from side alleys and then attacking them head on in desperate hand to hand fighting.

As the Roman legionaries started to die in increasing numbers, the Jews escalated the pressure - but not without a price. Their reckless courage cost them lives in equal measure.

Forced back to the second wall, the Romans were trapped. They had not widened the earlier breaches, and with the Jews virtually locked against them, they dared not turn to scramble through these narrow gaps.

Titus saved the day, bringing up archers that he placed on the rooftops and at the ends of the street. Here he made a stand with one of the centurians, Gaius Iovis, who once again proved himself. Together they held the line with Titus directing volleys of arrows against the rebels; a constant barrage that pinned the Jews down. Under this covering fire, the last of the legionaries finally got clear.

The rebels' success at driving the Romans out of the city convinced them that when the Romans mounted another attack they would defeat them again.

The Roman counter attack, when it came, was with overwhelming force that was met bravely by the Jews, who resisted the Romans for three bloody days that saw thousands die on both sides. On the fourth day, Titus threw everything he had at the enemy and crushed the last vestiges of resistance.

To regain control of the second wall, he set about demolishing it at the northern end. To ensure he wouldn't be pushed back again, he garrisoned the towers on the portion of the wall that he allowed to stand. Titus knew, however, that taking the third wall was going to be exceptionally difficult. After he had thought about it, he offered the rebels a ceasefire, so that they could discuss amongst themselves terms of surrender.

Mucianus suggested to Titus that this temporary cessation of hostilities could be turned to their advantage. It was an opportunity, he said, to display the full might and power of Rome in a peaceful way. At the same time, what he had in mind would provide an enormous morale booster to the army. With the plan explained, Titus roared with laughter and clapped him on the shoulder telling him to get on with it.

Mucianus gave orders that there would be a full inspection of the army by its commanding general, to include the awarding of citations and battle honours, immediately followed by a pay parade. All of this was to take place in full view of the enemy.

A week later, Jewish spectators would be packed the full length of the old wall and the north side of the Temple. People would crowd rooftops. Every window would hold watching eyes. Every vantage point in the city would be packed with spectators to witness a sight that would take several days to unfold.

First the Pioneer Corps built a reviewing platform, shaded with a giant awning. In the middle of this was placed a golden throne flanked by two silver thrones, whose appearance was as much as a surprise to Titus as it was to the Jews. As Mucianus observed later “Don't ask sir. The engineers have their ways and means.” They then levelled the ground for two miles in every direction to parade ground standards. At discreet intervals latrines were dug and screened. Stables were established. Prefabricated buildings were brought on site to hold stores of food and provide temporary shelter. Water was piped in. Each side of the reviewing platform was flanked by the pavilions of the heads of the supporting auxiliaries. Chief among these was that of King Agrippa and Queen Berenice, who flew her own standard.