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Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)

Coordinates: 31°46′41″N 35°14′9″E / 31.77806°N 35.23583°E / 31.77806; 35.23583
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For the seige by Nebuchadnezzar, see Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC).
For other sieges upon the city of Jerusalem, see Siege of Jerusalem.

Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)
Part of the First Jewish–Roman War
Map indicating progress of the Roman army during the siege
Progress of the Roman army during the siege.
Date14 April – 8 September 70 CE[1]
(4 months, 3 weeks and 4 days)
Location
Jerusalem, Judea
31°46′41″N 35°14′9″E / 31.77806°N 35.23583°E / 31.77806; 35.23583
Result

Roman victory

  • Main rebel Judean forces subdued.
  • City of Jerusalem and the Temple of Jerusalem destroyed.
  • Further Roman expansion into the Levant
Territorial
changes		 Roman rule of Jerusalem restored
Belligerents
Roman Empire

Remnants of the Judean provisional government

Zealots
Commanders and leaders
Titus
Julius Alexander		 Simon bar Giora Executed John of Giscala (POW)
Eleazar ben Simon †
Strength
70,000 15,000–20,000 10,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown 15,000–20,000 10,000
According to Josephus, 1.1 million non-combatants died in Jerusalem, mainly as a result of the violence and famine, but this number exceeds the entire pre-siege population of Jerusalem. Many of the casualties were observant Jews from across the world such as Babylon and Egypt who had travelled to Jerusalem wanting to celebrate the yearly Passover but instead got trapped in the chaotic siege.[2]
He also writes that 97,000 were enslaved.[2]
Matthew White, The Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2012) p.52,[3] estimates the combined death toll[clarification needed] for the First and Third Roman Jewish Wars as being approximately 350,000
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City of David 1000 BCE
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    The Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, which was then the center of the rebellious province of Judaea. Following a brutal five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Temple.[4][5][6]

    On 14 April 70 CE, three days before Passover, the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem.[7][8] The city had been taken over by several rebel factions following a period of massive unrest and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government. Within three weeks, the Roman army broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn rebel standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall.[7][9]

    On Tisha B'Av, 4 August 70 CE[10][11] or 30 August 70 CE,[12] forces finally overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Second Temple.[13] Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper city was taken as well, and the city was burned to the ground. Titus spared only the three towers of the Herodian citadel as a testimony to the city's former might.[14][15] The contemporary historian Josephus wrote that over a million people perished in the siege and the subsequent fighting.[16]

    The loss of mother-city and temple necessitated a reshaping of Judaean culture to ensure its survival, which eventually resulted in the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism.[5] After the war had ended, a military camp of Legio X Fretensis was established on the city's ruins.[17][18] In 130 CE, Hadrian re-founded Jerusalem as a Roman colony called Aelia Capitolina.[4] Scholars believe that this event was one of the catalysts for the Bar Kokhba revolt.[19][20]

    Dating

    Josephus places the siege in the second year of Vespasian,[21] which corresponds to year 70 of the Common Era.

    Background

    Further information: Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period

    Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population during the late Second Temple period, when the city covered two square kilometres (3⁄4 square mile) and had an estimated population of 200,000.[22][23]

    In the early Roman period, Jerusalem had two distinct precincts. The first encompassed the regions within the "first wall", the City of David and the Upper City, and was heavily built up, though less so at its wealthy parts. The second, known as the "suburb" or "Bethesda", lay north of the first and was sparsely populated. It contained that section of Jerusalem within the Herodian "second wall" (which was still standing), though it was itself surrounded by the new "third wall", built by king Agrippa I.[24] Josephus stated that Agrippa wanted to build a wall at least 5 meters thick, literally impenetrable by contemporary siege engines. Agrippa, however, never moved beyond the foundations, out of fear of emperor Claudius "lest he should suspect that so strong a wall was built in order to make some innovation in public affairs."[25] It was only completed later, to a lesser strength and in much haste, when the First Jewish–Roman War broke out and the defenses of Jerusalem had to be bolstered. Nine towers adorned the third wall.

    Jerusalem during the revolt

    Outbreak of the rebellion

    According to Gittin (a tractate of the Mishnah and the Talmud) the origin of the war was in a personal dispute between Kamsa and Bar Kamsa over hospitality.[26][27]

    The First Jewish-Roman War, also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, broke following the appointment of prefect Gessius Florus and his demand to receive Temple funds.[28] Florus plundered the Second Temple, claiming the money was for the Emperor, and in the next day launching a raid on the city, arresting numerous senior Jewish figures. This prompted a wider, large-scale rebellion and the Roman military garrison of Judaea was quickly overrun by the rebels, while the pro-Roman king Herod Agrippa II, together with Roman officials, fled Jerusalem.

    The zealots killed and set alight the moderate High Priest's house and a bonds archive in an effort to mobilize the masses. Revolt spread then from Jerusalem to the rest of the country, including the mixed cities of Caesarea, Beit She'an and the Galilee. Roman suppression of the revolt begun in the north, with an expeditionary force led by the Roman legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, making its way to Jerusalem. Gallus failed to take the city and decided to withdraw. Pursued by rebel scouts, the Roman troops were ambushed near Bethoron, losing the equivalent of an entire legion. Gallus managed to escape but died shortly after. A popular assembly was then convened in Jerusalem to formulate policy and decide upon a subsequent course of action. Dominated by the moderate Pharisees, including Simeon ben Gamliel, president of the Sanhedrin, it appointed military commanders to oversee the defense of the city and its fortifications. Leadership of the revolt was thus taken from the Zealots and given to the more moderate and traditional leadership of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Lacking sufficient military or administrative skills, these were not military leaders but rather the men deemed able to conclude a negotiated settlement with the Romans.

    During a brief period of renewed independence, indications are that Jerusalem enjoyed a sense of hope and prosperity. It minted its own coins and a new year count, beginning with its recent liberation, was initiated. This short-lived independence, however, was soon challenged by the Romans.

    Vespasian's campaign and replacement by Titus

    Nero entrusted the job of crushing the rebellion in Judaea to Vespasian, a talented and unassuming general. In early 68 CE, Roman General Vespasian landed at Ptolemais and began suppression of the revolt with operations in the Galilee. By July 69 all of Judea but Jerusalem had been pacified and the city, now hosting rebel leaders from all over the country, came under Roman siege. A fortified stronghold, it may have held for a significant amount of time, if not for the intense civil war that then broke out between moderates and Zealots.[14]

    In the summer of 69 CE, Vespasian departed Judea for Rome and in December became Emperor. Command of the Roman legions passed to his son Titus, who was now in charge of the siege of Jerusalem.

    Siege

    Titus began his siege a few days before Passover,[7] on 14 April,[8] surrounding the city with three legions (V Macedonica, XII Fulminata, XV Apollinaris) on the western side and a fourth (X Fretensis) on the Mount of Olives, to the east.[29][30] If the reference in his Jewish War at 6:421 is to Titus's siege, though difficulties exist with its interpretation, then at the time, according to Josephus, Jerusalem was thronged with many people who had come to celebrate Passover.[31]

    The thrust of the siege began in the west at the Third Wall, north of the Jaffa Gate. By May, this was breached and the Second Wall also was taken shortly afterwards, leaving the defenders in possession of the Temple and the upper and lower city.

    The Jewish defenders were split into factions. Simon Bar Giora and John of Giscala, the two prominent Zealot leaders, placed all blame for the failure of the revolt on the shoulders of the moderate leadership. John of Gischala's group murdered another faction leader, Eleazar ben Simon, whose men were entrenched in the forecourts of the Temple.[7] The Zealots resolved to prevent the city from falling into Roman hands by all means necessary, including the murder of political opponents and anyone standing in their way. There were still those wishing to negotiate with the Romans and bring a peaceful end to the siege. The most prominent of these was Yohanan ben Zakkai, whose students smuggled him out of the city in a coffin in order to deal with Vespasian. This, however, was insufficient to deal with the madness that had now gripped the Zealot leadership in Jerusalem and the reign of terror it unleashed upon the population of the city.[32] Josephus describes various acts of savagery committed against the people by its own leadership, including the torching of the city's food supply in an apparent bid to force the defenders to fight for their lives.

    The enmities between John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora were papered over only when the Roman siege engineers began to erect ramparts. Titus then had a wall built to girdle the city in order to starve out the population more effectively. After several failed attempts to breach or scale the walls of the Fortress of Antonia, the Romans finally launched a secret attack.[7] Despite early successes in repelling the Roman sieges, the Zealots fought amongst themselves, and they lacked proper leadership, resulting in poor discipline, training, and preparation for the battles that were to follow. At one point they destroyed the food stocks in the city, a drastic measure thought to have been undertaken perhaps in order to enlist a merciful God's intervention on behalf of the besieged Jews,[33] or as a stratagem to make the defenders more desperate, supposing that was necessary in order to repel the Roman army.[34][unreliable source?]

    According to Josephus, when the Romans reached Antonia they tried to destroy the wall which protected it. They removed four stones only, but during the night the wall collapsed. "That night the wall was so shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used his stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the ground then gave way, and the wall fell down suddenly." (v. 28) [35] Following this, Titus had raised banks beside the court of the Temple: on the north-west corner, on the north side, and on the west side (v. 150). [36]

    Josephus goes on to say that the Jews then attacked the Romans on the east, near the Mount of Olives, but Titus drove them back to the valley. Zealots set the north-west colonnade on fire (v. 165). The Romans set the next one on fire, and the Jews wanted it to burn (v. 166), and they also trapped some Roman soldiers when they wanted to climb over the wall. They had burned wood under the wall when Romans were trapped on it (v.178–183).

    After Jewish allies killed a number of Roman soldiers, Josephus claims that Titus sent him to negotiate with the defenders; this ended with Jews wounding the negotiator with an arrow, and another sally was launched shortly after. Titus was almost captured during this sudden attack, but escaped.

    Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez depicts the destruction of the Second Temple by Roman soldiers. Oil on canvas, 1867.

    Overlooking the Temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple's walls. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus's goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. However, the fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. The Temple was captured and destroyed on 9/10 Tisha B'Av, sometime in August 70 CE, and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city.[7][30] Josephus described the scene:

    As the legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuosity: passion alone was in command. Crowded together around the entrances many were trampled by their friends, many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins of the colonnades and died as miserably as the defeated. As they neared the Sanctuary they pretended not even to hear Caesar's commands and urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands. The partisans were no longer in a position to help; everywhere was slaughter and flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the Altar the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom.[37]

    Josephus's account absolves Titus of any culpability for the destruction of the Temple, but this may merely reflect his desire to procure favor with the Flavian dynasty.[37][38]

    The Roman legions quickly crushed the remaining Jewish resistance. Some of the remaining Jews escaped through hidden tunnels and sewers, while others made a final stand in the Upper City.[39] This defense halted the Roman advance as they had to construct siege towers to assail the remaining Jews. Herod's Palace fell on 7 September, and the city was completely under Roman control by 8 September.[40][page needed][41] The Romans continued to pursue those who had fled the city.

    Destruction

    The account of Josephus described Titus as moderate in his approach and, after conferring with others, ordering that the 500-year-old Temple be spared. According to Josephus, it was the Jews who first used fire in the Northwest approach to the Temple to try and stop Roman advances. Only then did Roman soldiers set fire to an apartment adjacent to the Temple, starting a conflagration which the Jews subsequently made worse.[42]

    Josephus had acted as a mediator for the Romans and, when negotiations failed, witnessed the siege and aftermath. He wrote:

    Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City], as were the towers [the three forts] also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.[43]
    And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it.[44]

    Archeological evidence

    Fresco showing signs of burning, Wohl Archaeological Museum, Jewish Quarter

    Over the years, various remains that provide evidence of Jerusalem's destruction have been discovered, leading scholars to believe that Josephus' description is accurate.[4][45] Ronny Reich wrote that "While remains relating to the destruction of the Temple are scant, those pertaining to the Temple Mount walls and their close vicinity, the Upper City, the western part of the city, and the Tyropoeon Valley are considerable. [...] It was found that in most cases the archaeological record coincides with the historical description, pointing to Josephus' reliability".[45]

    In the 1970s and 1980s, a team led by Nahman Avigad discovered traces of great fire that damaged the Upper City's residential buildings. The fires consumed all organic matter. In houses where there was a beamed ceiling between the floors, the fire caused the top of the building to collapse with the top rows of stone, along with the top rows of stone, and they buried everything that remained in the home under them. There are buildings where traces remain only in part of the house, and there are buildings that have been completely burned. Calcium oxides have been discovered in several locations, indicating that a lengthy burning damaged the limestones. The Burnt House in the Herodian Quarter, for example, shows signs of a fire that raged at the site during the city's destruction.[45][46]

    The fire left its mark even on household utensils and objects that were in the same buildings. Limestone vessels were stained with ash or even burned and turned into lime, glass vessels exploded and warped from the heat of the fire until they could not be recovered in the laboratory. In contrast, pottery and basalt survived. The layer of ash and charred wood left over from the fires reached a height of about an average meter, and the rock falls reached up to two meters and more.[45]

    Stones from the Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Jerusalem) thrown onto the street by Roman soldiers on the Ninth of Av, 70

    Massive stone collapses from the Temple Mount's walls were discovered laying over the Herodian street that runs along the Western Wall.[47]

    The great urban drainage channel and the Pool of Siloam in the Lower City silted up and stopped working, and the city walls collapsed in numerous places.[48]

    Massacre

    Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish. Josephus attributes this to the celebration of Passover which he uses as rationale for the vast number of people present among the death toll.[49] The revolt had not deterred pilgrims from Jewish diaspora communities from trekking to Jerusalem to visit the Temple during the holiday, and a large number became trapped in the city and perished during the siege.[50] Armed rebels, as well as the frail citizens, were put to death. All of Jerusalem's remaining citizens became Roman prisoners. After the Romans killed the armed and elder people, 97,000 were enslaved.[51] Of the 97,000, thousands were forced to become gladiators and eventually expired in the arena. Many others were forced to assist in the building of the Forum of Peace and the Colosseum. Those under 17 years of age were sold into servitude.[1]

    Josephus' death toll assumptions were rejected as impossible by Seth Schwartz (1984), as according to his estimates at that time about a million people lived in Palestine, about half of whom were Jews, and sizable Jewish populations remained in the area after the war was over, even in the hard-hit region of Judea.[52]

    Triumph

    Titus and his soldiers celebrated victory upon their return to Rome by parading the Menorah and Table of the Bread of God's Presence through the streets. Up until this parading, these items had only ever been seen by the High Priest of the Temple. This event was memorialized in the Arch of Titus.[1][49]

    Some 700 Judean prisoners were paraded through the streets of Rome in chains during the triumph, among them Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala.[51][53] Simon bar Giora was executed by being thrown to his death from the Tarpeian Rock at the Temple of Jupiter after being judged a rebel and a traitor,[54] while John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment.[55][56]

    According to Philostratus, writing in the early years of the 3rd century, Titus reportedly refused to accept a wreath of victory, saying that the victory did not come through his own efforts but that he had merely served as an instrument of divine wrath.[57]

    Aftermath

    Suppression of the revolt

    Further information: Siege of Masada

    After the Fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the city and its Temple, there were still a few Judean strongholds in which the rebels continued holding out, at Herodium, Machaerus, and Masada.[58] Both Herodium and Machaerus fell to the Roman army within the next two years, with Masada remaining as the final stronghold of the Judean rebels. In 73 CE, the Romans breached the walls of Masada and captured the fortress, with Josephus claiming that nearly all of the Jewish defenders had committed mass suicide prior to the entry of the Romans.[59] With the fall of Masada, the First Jewish–Roman War came to an end.

    In Jewish and Christian thought

    The Jewish Amoraim attributed the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as punishment from God for the "baseless" hatred that pervaded Jewish society at the time.[60] Many Jews in despair are thought to have abandoned Judaism for some version of paganism, many others sided with the growing Christian sect within Judaism.[52]: 196–198 

    The destruction was an important point in the separation of Christianity from its Jewish roots: many Christians responded by distancing themselves from the rest of Judaism, as reflected in the Gospels, which portray Jesus as anti-Temple and view the destruction of the temple as punishment for rejection of Jesus.[52]: 30–31 

    Bar Kokhba revolt

    Further information: Bar Kokhba revolt

    Six decades after the suppression of the revolt, another revolt known as the Bar Kokhba revolt erupted in Judaea.[61] The construction of a roman colony named Aelia Capitolina over the ruins of Jerusalem and the construction of a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount, among other things, are thought to have been major catalysts for the revolt.[62] The Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in the extensive depopulation of Judean communities, more so than during the First Jewish–Roman War.[63] The Jewish communities of Judea were devastated to an extent which some scholars describe as a genocide.[63][64] However, the Jewish population remained strong in other parts of Palestine, thriving in Galilee, Golan, Bet Shean Valley, and the eastern, southern, and western edges of Judea.[65] Emperor Hadrian wiped the name Judaea off the map and replaced it with Syria Palaestina.[66][67][68]

    Commemoration

    The victory was commemorated in Rome with the Arch of Titus, which depicts the valuables seized from the Temple, including the Temple menorah

    Monuments

    • Temple of Peace: In 75 CE, the Temple of Peace, also known as the Forum of Vespasian, was built under Emperor Vespasian in Rome. The monument was built to celebrate the conquest of Jerusalem and it is said to have housed the Temple Menorah from Herod's Temple.[69]
    • The Colosseum, otherwise known as the Flavian Amphitheater, was built in Rome between 70-82 CE. Archaeological discoveries have found a block of travertine that bears dowel holes that show the Jewish Wars financed the building of the amphitheater.[70]
    • Arch of Titus: c. 82 CE, Roman Emperor Domitian constructed the Arch of Titus on Via Sacra, Rome, to commemorate the capture and siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which effectively ended the First Jewish–Roman War, although the Romans did not achieve complete victory until the fall of Masada in 73 CE.[71] The bas-relief in the Arch of Titus has been influential in establishing the Menorah as the most dramatic symbol of the looting of the Second Temple.[citation needed]

    Coinage

    • Judaea Capta coinage: Judaea Capta coins were a series of commemorative coins originally issued by Vespasian to celebrate the capture of Judaea and the destruction of the Temple by his son Titus.[72]

    Jewish commemoration

    Culture

    The siege and destruction of Jerusalem has inspired writers and artists through the centuries.

    'Siege and destruction of Jerusalem', La Passion de Nostre Seigneur c.1504

    Art

    The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850).

    Literature

    Film

    See also

    References

    1. ^ a b c "Titus' Siege of Jerusalem – Livius". www.livius.org. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
    2. ^ a b Josephus. BJ. 6.9.3., Perseus Project BJ6.9.3, .
    3. ^ "Atrocity statistics from the Roman Era". Necrometrics.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
    4. ^ a b c Weksler-Bdolah, Shlomit. Aelia Capitolina - Jerusalem in the Roman period: in light of archaeological research. p. 3. ISBN 978-90-04-41707-6. OCLC 1170143447. The historical description is consistent with the archeological finds. Collapses of massive stones from the walls of the Temple Mount were exposed lying over the Herodian street running along the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The residential buildings of the Ophel and the Upper City were destroyed by great fire. The large urban drainage channel and the Pool of Siloam in the Lower City silted up and ceased to function, and in many places the city walls collapsed. [...] Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, a new era began in the city's history. The Herodian city was destroyed and a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion established on part of the ruins. In around 130 CE, the Roman emperor Hadrian founded a new city in place of Herodian Jerusalem next to the military camp. He honored the city with the status of a colony and named it Aelia Capitolina and possibly also forbidding Jews from entering its boundaries
    5. ^ a b Westwood, Ursula (1 April 2017). "A History of the Jewish War, AD 66–74". Journal of Jewish Studies. 68 (1): 4. doi:10.18647/3311/jjs-2017. ISSN 0022-2097.
    6. ^ Ben-Ami, Doron; Tchekhanovets, Yana (2011). "The Lower City of Jerusalem on the Eve of Its Destruction, 70 CE: A View From Hanyon Givati". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 364: 61–85. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.364.0061. ISSN 0003-097X.
    7. ^ a b c d e f Schäfer, Peter (2003). The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World: The Jews of Palestine from Alexander the Great to the Arab. Conquest Routledge. pp. 129–130. ISBN 9781134403172.
    8. ^ a b War of the Jews Book V, sect. 99 (Ch. 3, paragraph 1 in Whiston's translation); dates given are approximations since the correspondence between the calendar Josephus used and modern calendars is uncertain.
    9. ^ Si Shepperd, The Jewish Revolt AD 66–74, (Osprey Publishing), p. 62.
    10. ^ "Hebrew Calendar". www.cgsf.org.
    11. ^ Tisha B'Av is a day of mourning, which is considered inappropriate for the joyful atmosphere of the Sabbath. Thus, if its date falls on a Sabbath, it is observed on the 10th of Av instead. If this modern Jewish practice was followed in the Second Temple period, Tisha B'Av would have fallen on Sunday August 5 in 70 CE. Josephus gives the date of 10 Loos for the destruction, in a lunar calendar almost identical to the Hebrew calendar.
    12. ^ Bunson, Matthew (1995). A Dictionary of the Roman Empire. Oxford University Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-0195102338.
    13. ^ The destruction of both the First and Second Temples is still mourned annually during the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av.
    14. ^ a b Rocca (2008), pp. 51-52.
    15. ^ Goodman, Martin (2008). Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. Penguin. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-14-029127-8. OCLC 1016414322. The capitulation of the rest of Jerusalem was rapid. Those parts of the lower city already under Roman control were deliberately set on fire. The erection of new towers to break down the walls of the upper city was completed on 7 Elul (in mid-August), and the troops forced their way in. By 8 Elul the whole city was in Roman hands—and in ruins. In recompense for the ferocious fighting they had been required to endure, the soldiers were given free rein to loot and kill, until eventually Titus ordered that the city be razed to the ground, "leaving only the loftiest of the towers, Phasael, Hippicus and Mariamme, and the portion of the wall enclosing the city on the west: the latter as an encampment for the garrison that was to remain, and the towers to indicate to posterity the nature of the city and of the strong defences which had yet yielded to Roman prowess. All the rest ofthe wall encompassing the city was so completely levelled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited."
    16. ^ Sebag Montefiore, Simon (2012). Jerusalem: The Biography (First Vintage books ed.). New York. p. 11. ISBN 9780307280503.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
    17. ^ Weksler-Bdolah, Shlomit (9 December 2019), "The Camp of the Legion X Fretensis", Aelia Capitolina – Jerusalem in the Roman Period, BRILL, pp. 19–50, retrieved 19 May 2022, After the destruction of the Herodian city of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion was established on part of the ruins to guard the former center of the revolt. This is clearly stated by Josephus (Jos. BJ, 7:1–,5,17; Vita, 422); it can be understood from the text of a diploma of 93 CE: "(veterani) qui militaverunt Hierosolymnis in legione X Fretense", and it is also clear from epigraphic finds from the town. A bulk of military small finds recovered from several sites around the Old City indicates the presence of the XFretensis in Jerusalem
    18. ^ Geva, Hillel (1984). "The Camp of the Tenth Legion in Jerusalem: An Archaeological Reconsideration". Israel Exploration Journal. 34 (4): 239–254. ISSN 0021-2059.
    19. ^ Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah (16 December 2019). Aelia Capitolina – Jerusalem in the Roman Period: In Light of Archaeological Research. BRILL. pp. 54–58. ISBN 978-90-04-41707-6.
    20. ^ Jacobson, David. "The Enigma of the Name Īliyā (= Aelia) for Jerusalem in Early Islam". Revision 4. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
    21. ^ The Jewish War 6:4
    22. ^ Lehmann, Clayton Miles (22 February 2007). "Palestine: History". The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. The University of South Dakota. Archived from the original on 10 March 2008. Retrieved 18 April 2007.
    23. ^ Har-El, Menashe (1977). This Is Jerusalem. Canaan Publishing House. pp. 68–95. ISBN 0-86628-002-2.
    24. ^ Rocca (2008), p. 8.
    25. ^ "Josephus, The Jewish War V, 142". Archived from the original on 2 October 2009. Retrieved 18 December 2009.
    26. ^ Kass, Larry. The Story of Kamsa and Bar Kamsa. Jewish Magazine. July 1999, accessed May 14, 2007.
    27. ^ Kamtza and Bar-Kamtza. Orthodox Union. accessed May 14, 2007.
    28. ^ Rocca (2008), p. 8.
    29. ^ Sheppard, Si (20 October 2013). The Jewish Revolt AD 66–74. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 42. ISBN 9781780961842.
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    63. ^ a b Taylor, J. E. (15 November 2012). The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199554485. These texts, combined with the relics of those who hid in caves along the western side of the Dead Sea, tells us a great deal. What is clear from the evidence of both skeletal remains and artefacts is that the Roman assault on the Jewish population of the Dead Sea was so severe and comprehensive that no one came to retrieve precious legal documents, or bury the dead. Up until this date the Bar Kokhba documents indicate that towns, villages and ports where Jews lived were busy with industry and activity. Afterwards there is an eerie silence, and the archaeological record testifies to little Jewish presence until the Byzantine era, in En Gedi. This picture coheres with what we have already determined in Part I of this study, that the crucial date for what can only be described as genocide, and the devastation of Jews and Judaism within central Judea, was 135 CE and not, as usually assumed, 70 CE, despite the siege of Jerusalem and the Temple's destruction
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    74. ^ Soloveichik, Meir (12 July 2018). "How Rembrandt Understood the Destruction of Jerusalem (and Poussin Didn't)". Mosaic Magazine. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
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