The Triumph of Vespasian and Titus

Titus Caesar stayed for some time at Berytus, as we said before. Leaving there, he held costly shows in every city of Syria he passed through, using the Jewish captives to display their own destruction. On the way he saw a river whose nature deserves a place in history. It flows between Arcea, in Agrippa's kingdom, and Raphanaea, and it has an astonishing peculiarity. When it runs, it is full and its current is swift; then its springs fail entirely, and for six days it leaves its bed dry for anyone to see. On the seventh day it flows again just as before, as though no change had happened, and it has always been observed to keep this order exactly. That is why they have named it the Sabbath River, after the sacred seventh day of the Jews. [a]

When the people of Antioch learned that Titus was near, they were too glad to stay inside their walls and hurried out to meet him. They went out more than three and a half miles: not the men only, but a crowd of women and children too poured out of the city. When they saw him coming, they lined both sides of the road, stretched out their right hands in greeting, hailed him with every kind of acclamation, and turned back with him. Yet through all their acclaim they kept up one constant request: that he expel the Jews from the city. Titus gave no ground to this request but listened quietly to what was said. The Jews, meanwhile, not knowing what he thought or what he would do, were in great and painful fear. For Titus did not stay at Antioch, but pressed on at once to Zeugma on the Euphrates. There envoys from Vologeses, king of Parthia, came to him, bringing a gold crown for his victory over the Jews. He accepted it, gave the king's men a banquet, and from there returned to Antioch. The council and people of Antioch begged him many times to come into their theater, where the whole population had gathered and was waiting for him, and he graciously agreed. Again they pressed him very hard and kept begging him to drive the Jews out of the city. He gave them a well-aimed answer: “But their own homeland, where they would have to be sent since they are Jews, has been destroyed, and no place would take them in anymore.” So the Antiochenes gave up their first request and turned to a second: they asked him to take down the bronze tablets on which the rights of the Jews were inscribed. Titus would not grant this either. He left everything as it had been for the Jews of Antioch and set off for Egypt. [d]

On the way he came to Jerusalem. He set the dreary desolation before his eyes against the city's former splendor, and called to mind the grandeur of its ruined buildings and their old beauty, and he pitied the city's destruction. He did not boast, as another might have, that he had taken so great and fine a city by storm. Rather, he often cursed those who had started the revolt and brought this punishment on the city. So plain was it that he would not have wished the display of his own valor to come from the disaster of those who were punished. Even among the ruins, no small part of the city's great wealth was still being found. The Romans dug up much of it, but they recovered still more on information from the captives: gold and silver and the most precious of other goods, which their owners had buried in the ground against the uncertain chances of war.

So Titus made his intended journey to Egypt, crossed the desert as quickly as he could, and came to Alexandria. Having decided to sail to Italy, he sent the two legions that had come with him back to where each had come from: the Fifth to Moesia and the Fifteenth to Pannonia. Of the captives, he ordered the leaders, Simon and John, together with seven hundred other men he had picked out for exceptional height and beauty of body, to be taken to Italy at once, since he meant to lead them in his triumph. His voyage went as he wished. Rome welcomed him and went out to meet him just as it had for his father, but what made it more splendid for Titus was that his father himself came to meet and receive him. And the crowds of citizens felt a joy beyond the ordinary at seeing the three of them together at last. Not many days later, the two decided to hold a single triumph in common for their achievements, although the senate had voted each of them a triumph of his own. The day on which the victory procession was to take place was announced in advance, and not one person of that immense population stayed home. Everyone went out and took any place where it was even possible to stand, leaving only the passage needed for those who were to be seen. [f]

While it was still night, the whole army had marched out in companies and ranks under their commanders, and was stationed around the doors, not of the palace on the hill, but near the temple of Isis, for the emperors had spent that night there. At the very break of dawn Vespasian and Titus came out, crowned with laurel and wearing the traditional purple robes, and went on to the Porticoes of Octavia. There the senate, the chief magistrates, and the men of equestrian rank were waiting for them. A platform had been built in front of the colonnades, with ivory chairs set on it, and they came and sat down on them. At once the soldiers acclaimed them, all of them bearing loud witness to their courage. The two were unarmed, dressed in silk, and crowned with laurel. Vespasian accepted their acclaim, but while they still wanted to go on, he gave the signal for silence. When complete quiet had fallen on everyone, he rose, covered most of his head with his cloak, and offered the customary prayers, and Titus prayed in the same way. After the prayers Vespasian spoke briefly to them all together and dismissed the soldiers to the customary meal the emperors provided for them. He himself withdrew to the gate that takes its name from the triumphs always being sent through it. There they first took some food, put on their triumphal robes, and sacrificed to the gods whose images stand beside the gate. Then they sent the triumph on its way, driving through the theaters so that the crowds could see more easily. [h]

It is impossible to describe as they deserve the number and magnificence of those spectacles, in everything one could imagine: works of craftsmanship, kinds of wealth, or rarities of nature. Almost everything that fortunate men have ever acquired, piece by piece, marvels and treasures held by different peoples in different places, was gathered together on that day and displayed the greatness of the Roman empire. Silver and gold and ivory, worked into every kind of form, could be seen not as if carried in a procession but, as one might say, flowing like a river. There were woven hangings of the rarest purple, and others embroidered with lifelike pictures by Babylonian art. Transparent precious stones, some set in gold crowns and some in other settings, went by in such numbers that we learned how wrongly we had supposed any of them to be rare. Statues of their gods were carried too, amazing in size and made with no ordinary skill, and not one of them of anything but costly material. Many kinds of animals were led along, each decked in its own proper trappings. The great number of men carrying each of these things were dressed in purple robes woven with gold, and those picked to take part in the procession itself wore finery of extraordinary and astonishing cost. Even the crowd of captives was not unadorned: the variety and beauty of their clothing hid from view the ugliness of their battered bodies. [k]

But what gave the most wonder was the construction of the floats that were carried along. Their size was such that anyone might fear whether they could be carried steadily, for many were built three and even four stories high, and the costliness of their workmanship gave pleasure mixed with astonishment. Many were draped with cloth woven with gold, and worked gold and ivory was fastened on all of them. The war was shown in many scenes, divided episode by episode, and presented a most vivid picture of itself. One could see a prosperous country laid waste and whole formations of the enemy slaughtered; some fleeing and others led off to captivity; walls of enormous size battered down by engines; the strongest fortresses taken; the walls of populous cities overpowered outright; an army pouring in within the walls; every place full of slaughter; the pleading of men who could no longer lift their hands against them; fire set to sanctuaries; and houses torn down on top of their owners. And after great desolation and gloom, there were rivers flowing, not over farmland, nor as drink for men or cattle, but through a country blazing on every side. For it was to suffer such things that the Jews had given themselves up to the war. The art and grandeur of these constructions showed what had happened to those who had not seen it, as though they were there. On each of the floats stood the general of a captured city, in the way he had been taken. Many ships followed as well. The other spoils were carried in heaps, but conspicuous above all were those taken in the temple at Jerusalem: a golden table weighing hundreds of pounds, and a lampstand, likewise of gold, but made on a pattern different from those we use in daily life. Its central shaft was fixed on a base, and from it slender branches extended, arranged much like a trident, each with a lamp wrought at its tip. There were seven of these, showing the honor the Jews give to the number seven. After these, last of all the spoils, was carried the Law of the Jews. Next came many men carrying statues of Victory, all made of ivory and gold. After them Vespasian drove first and Titus followed, while Domitian rode alongside, splendidly dressed himself and riding a horse worth seeing.

The procession ended at the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, and when they reached it they halted. For it was an ancient custom of their fathers to wait there until someone announced the death of the enemy's general. This was Simon son of Gioras, who had just been led in the procession among the captives. A noose had been thrown around him, and he had been dragged to the place above the Forum, while those leading him tortured him as they went. That is where Roman law has men condemned to death for their crimes put to death. When it was announced that he was dead and everyone had shouted their acclaim, they began the sacrifices. Having offered them with good omens and with the customary prayers, they went off to the palace. Some guests the emperors entertained at their own feast, and for all the rest, preparations had been made for feasting in their own homes. For the city of Rome kept this day as a festival: a celebration of victory over the enemy in the field, the end of its civil miseries, and the beginning of its hopes of happiness. [r]

After the triumphs, with the Roman empire now established on the firmest footing, Vespasian decided to build a sacred precinct to Peace. It was finished very quickly, and in a way beyond anything people could have imagined. Drawing on his extraordinary wealth, he also adorned it with masterpieces of painting and sculpture achieved long ago. For everything that people had once wandered across the whole world to see, longing to see the things that lay in one land and another, was gathered and set up in that temple. He dedicated there also the golden vessels from the temple of the Jews, taking pride in them. But their Law and the purple curtains of the sanctuary he ordered to be laid up and guarded in the palace. [s]