To the Death (33 page)

With his most senior officers assembled Titus said, “Gentlemen, we have suffered a setback. We must now decide how we can reverse it. Make no mistake, next time we take to the field we will be victorious or dead. There is no question of a Roman retreat from this province and there is no question of Caesar needing to send further reinforcements. As officers, we are responsible for deciding how the army fights. We create the strategy that will decide how the war is fought. We decide the tactics that will be used to achieve that strategy. Doing these things and doing them well, is what it means to have the honour of being an officer in the Roman army. Right now things are tough. Our soldiers are dragging their feet and hanging their heads. I am amazed and alarmed to discover that apparently we are commanding legions without any backbone”.

Mucianus would have interrupted, but Titus waved him down. “What happened today,” he continued, “came close to a rout. A collapse in the face of a determined enemy who, with inferior weapons, inferior numbers and inferior officers and inferior tactics, forced Roman soldiers to break and run. While I am in command, while I live, that will never happen again. If an officer orders a retreat, then it will be an orderly fighting withdrawal, a military decision which any officer can make and be responsible for. Troops deciding for themselves to pull back, are guilty of cowardice and mutiny. They have no place in Rome's legions. For the remainder of this campaign, Syrian archers will be positioned behind our infantry. Any man who cuts and runs will be executed and left unburied, his name struck from the legion's records as though he had never existed”.

“Now we have a war to fight. One that is a long way from won. Its outcome may seem to some of you to be in doubt. If this is the case you should leave the field and return to Rome. We need to think as our enemies think. They will have said their goodbyes to those they love the most. With courage, they face us with only one thought. Tomorrow the enemy will come, sword in hand. Read your enemy's intention in his eyes.
I will fight you to the death
. This is the moment of reckoning; the moment that decides life or death with honour. So what do we do gentlemen? Our troops look to us for direction, they await our bidding”.

Mucianus, a veteran of many crises, was a soldier with a long and successful career. His voice was steady and his demeanour calm. “There are several options open to us. I am certain that as this council deliberates, they will be put forward for discussion. For my part, I reflect on the fact that thus far we have only brought up a fraction of the forces available to us. This in itself is of no particular significance. However, knowing what we now know, I recommend we discuss the merits of an all-out assault, using all our forces en masse. How and when we do this we need to discuss separately, because these are tactical matters. This meeting is about strategy. I recommend to you an all-out assault as a strategic move”.

Sextus Cerealis spoke next. “Any strategy carries risk - that is the nature of war. So I won't speculate on what the outcome, good or bad, could result in from an all-out attack. Whatever our next move is, the question of
how
, is critical. We cannot afford to lose men at the same rate as the enemy if for no other reason than we cannot expect Rome to send us reinforcements. A new Emperor will want to husband his military strength, knowing that inevitably he will be tested. Somewhere in the Empire, somebody will decide this is a good time to challenge the new man”.

As a murmur of agreement met this statement, Cerealis continued “Whatever we do, eventually we will need more platforms. They are the only way we can realistically hope to get troops in numbers inside the city. Yes, I know timber is nonexistent and will have to be brought by ship and then overland. Yes, I know it takes time to build the bloody things. But we have no choice. Whatever we decide, keep at the front of your minds three things.

One, the defences of this city are the best in the world. Two, our enemy is determined and prepared to die fighting. Three, very importantly, our enemy believes he can win. Why? He believes that by forcing us to fight for every building, we will take unacceptable losses. He believes that by dragging the war out, eventually we will give up and go home”.

A rumble of conversation ran around the tent, dying to give way to Aeternius Fronto. “It is good that we analyse our situation and face the facts of circumstance squarely. We may end up making the best of a bad job, but at least we won't have rushed in like fools. We won't have caused the unnecessary deaths of our men – who, let me remind you, are getting fewer as this war grinds on. It is four years since we arrived in this place. We have lost two thousand Roman legionaries and three thousand auxiliaries, and at any one time we have another thousand men recovering from their wounds. Whatever we decide, we must consider these losses. We must consider how long we have been here and, very importantly, how much longer can we be expected to stay. Finally, there is a factor not yet spoken of that is of paramount importance. It is the political implication of what we decide. This, in my view, should guide us to our decisions. Yes, I know you will claim to be just simple soldiers and know nothing of politics; a wise course for a soldier to steer, but absolute bullshit”.

A roar of laughter greeted this, relieving the sombre mood of the gathering. As it died away Fronto continued, “Not so very long ago, you made the most significant political decision of your lives. One that will change the course of the Empire's history and for which each and every one of you can and will be held personally responsible for”. The silence that greeted this was profound. Titus, eyes narrowed, face inscrutable, waited as they all did for what was coming next. “You declared Flavius Vespasianus Caesar, for which I salute you”.

A great roar burst round the tent. When order was finally restored, Titus rose to speak. “No general anywhere could take more pride in you and our legionaries than I do. No general has such officers of good sense, of such excellent experience, to guide him in considering what his course should be. I believe that it is your words of wisdom that will not only win this war for Rome; it will do so with the greatest honour. When it comes, the triumph you will share in Rome with Caesar will be remembered forever”. This was the signal for thunderous applause and the stamping of iron shod sandals.

“Let me”, said Titus after a pause “summarise what you have drawn out as the key facts. To explain in the light of these, what our strategy to win this war will be. Firstly, we have this most extraordinary situation of Jew killing Jew inside the city. Even as they attack us, they attack each other. Secondly, the city is packed to bursting with pilgrims and refugees. Four hundred thousand extra mouths to feed and they have no food. The rebel factions have taken control of what food remains after a disastrous fire swept through their warehouses. Nearly a million people are starving to death. Disease and famine are doing our job for us. At least five hundred criminal gangs, ranging in numbers from ten to a hundred, are plundering the city. They roam the streets day and night killing anything that moves. Cannibalism has been reported. The High Priest of all Israel is dead. The Holy of Holies is polluted and defiled. The everlasting Eternal Flame on the High altar has gone out.

“No longer are sacrifices and prayers offered each day to their God. The streets are choked with two hundred thousand putrefying corpses. Every day, hundreds of Jewish civilians risk death to flee the horror that Jerusalem has become. They run to us begging for mercy. They flee in terror from the crazed fundamentalists, who insist on fighting to the death.

Platforms are necessary, but at best they are an aid to securing a foothold. To build them it has been said we have to import timber. Yet we must not allow the siege to be so prolonged that, like the Greeks at Troy, we give up and sail home - which means that, among other things, we must halt supplies being smuggled into the city.

“So we will construct a wall of earth, a great embankment with a twenty foot deep moat at its base. Fortifications will be positioned along its length. To this end timber will be obtained at any price and brought in by ship and then finally overland. This wall will wrap itself around Jerusalem, halting only when it comes to the bottomless ravines, on which its walls are built.

When it is completed, the wall will be four and a half miles long with fifteen forts to defend it”.

To the watching Jews' amazement, forty thousand legionaries and sixty thousand enslaved Jews captured during the Galilean campaign, completed this task within a month; an astonishing feat of engineering in such a short time.

The building of this
circumvallation
caused Jews unable to leave the city to lose all hope. With the days slipping by, the famine became more intense. Bodies piled on bodies, a rotting putrescence bringing cholera and other diseases to strike down the weakened population. Men, gaunt as ghosts, haunted the city's plazas, eventually keeling over never to move again. The living, too weak to bury their kinsfolk, turned their faces to the wall and prayed to join them. In the people's misery, no weeping or supplication was heard. Hunger stole all emotion. Dry eyed and slack jawed, those who died slowest watched in envy those who succumbed before them. As it had been prophesied
the living envied the dead.

A deep silence enveloped the city. It was as if God had died. In these final moments of despair and pain, evil visited the civilian population of Jerusalem in the guise of their fellow men. Criminals broke into their houses and stripped the living and the dead of anything of value. As the stench of the dead and dying citizens became unbearable, Gioras and John ordered that they be buried. Because of the numbers, this proved to be impossible so, in return for a meal, those still able bodied threw the corpses from the walls into the bottomless ravines.

Taking a turn on watch, Titus was sickened to see these ravines mounded with rotting corpses, stinking and foul smelling. These piles of putrefying bodies were never still or quiet. They undulated as the countless thousands of rats fed on them.

Titus now started to make more platforms, though the scarcity of timber hampered progress. Concentrating on the Antonia, he was eventually able to raise these by an additional four levels. The rebels, watching this operation, decided to cull the remaining citizens. This forced the most desperate to lower themselves down the wall on ropes in a bid to reach the Roman lines. Most were killed by Titus' Arab archers.

In the camp of the Syrian auxiliaries, one of the deserters was observed picking gold coins out of his excrement. As news ran round the camp that the Jews were “shitting gold”, their fate was sealed. The Syrian Arabs disembowelled the fugitives and rummaged through their bowel, jesting, “We can at least grease our swords on Jewish guts”. In a single night a thousand prisoners were disembowelled.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, a city councillor, was made responsible for dealing with the city's unburied dead. Overwhelmed by this impossible task, he deserted to the Romans. He told Titus, “Four hundred thousand bodies of the poor have been thrown out of the gates. For others the numbers are unknown. When it became impossible to bury this vast number, some were collected up and packed into the biggest houses. We then nailed the doors shut”. What the official didn't say was that the poorest people had begun raking the sewers and old dung hills. In desperation they were eating the refuse they found there – a practice that brought its own relief as what they ate killed them.

The man, overcome by emotion, had to pause for a moment. Titus waited patiently as he struggled to compose himself. With a sigh the Jew continued, “The rebels have imprisoned Josephus' family. All are held in solitary confinement”.

“Have they been tortured?”

“Not yet, though they are given very little food. If they don't die of starvation, I am sure they will be used as bargaining counters”.

“How many are held?”

“His father, mother and brother. At first it was believed they had managed to escape the city, but it was not to be”.

Titus thought for a moment before saying, “I will grant you your life in return for your silence over the matter of Josephus' family. If he learns of their imprisonment he may break down. If he does, I will have no-one to act as a go-between. This is as important to the civilians in Jerusalem as it is to me, for I am anxious that the killing stops”. So the two men parted. Titus had come to hate Judaea; the place seemed at best indifferent to human presence. At the end of yet another day's brutal fighting, he sought out the company of Josephus whom he had taken to addressing as Doctor Josephus. This, he felt, acknowledged his prisoner as a scholar and played down his military persona.

The Roman had come to admire Josephus' wisdom and intelligence. To the Jewish scholar's surprise, Titus was a far more sympathetic interlocutor than he had suspected. Consequently, during the three years they were thrown together in Judaea, the two men formed a lasting friendship, so when Titus joined him that evening to sit at the campfire, he was somewhat taken aback when the young Caesar asked him a most unexpected question. “What is it to be a Jew? Is it an accident of birth, or the teaching of your parents and your priests that persuades a child to believe what his father believes?”

Josephus laughed dryly before replying. “Both – though the former is necessary to the latter. However, Jews are now having to consider a new teaching, one that challenges traditional thinking”.