Sabinus Besieged

Before Caesar had decided anything, Archelaus’s mother Malthace fell ill and died, and letters came from Varus in Syria about a revolt of the Jews. Varus had foreseen it. After Archelaus sailed, he had gone up to Jerusalem to restrain the agitators, since it was clear that the people would not stay quiet, and he had left in the city one of the three legions he had brought with him from Syria. He himself went back to Antioch. But Sabinus arrived and gave them a reason for revolt. He tried to force the guards to hand over the fortresses, and searched relentlessly for the king’s money, relying not only on the soldiers Varus had left but also on a crowd of his own slaves, all of whom he armed and used as tools of his greed. When Pentecost came — the Jews’ name for a feast that falls after seven weeks and takes its name from the number of the days — it was not their usual worship that brought the people together but their anger. A countless crowd flocked in from Galilee and Idumea, from Jericho and from Perea beyond the Jordan; but the native people of Judea itself surpassed the rest both in numbers and in eagerness. They divided themselves into three bodies and made three camps: one on the north side of the temple, one on the south by the hippodrome, and the third by the palace on the west. So they surrounded the Romans on every side and besieged them. [a]

Sabinus, alarmed at their numbers and their spirit, kept sending messengers to Varus, begging him to come quickly to his aid, since if he delayed, the legion would be cut to pieces. He himself climbed the highest tower of the fortress, called Phasael after Herod’s brother who was killed by the Parthians, and from there signaled the soldiers of the legion to attack the enemy; for he was so terrified that he did not dare to go down even to his own men. The soldiers were persuaded. They charged into the temple and fought a fierce battle with the Jews. As long as no one attacked them from above, their experience of war gave them the advantage over men without it. But when many of the Jews climbed onto the colonnades and hurled missiles down on their heads, many of them were crushed. It was not easy to strike back at those throwing from above, nor to hold out against those fighting them hand to hand. [c]

Hard pressed on both fronts, the Romans set fire to the colonnades, works to be marveled at for their size and their costliness. The men on top were suddenly surrounded by the flames. Many died in the fire; many others were killed by the enemy as they leapt down among them; some threw themselves backward off the wall; and some, in their helplessness, forestalled the fire with their own swords. Those who crept down from the walls and rushed at the Romans were easily overpowered because of their terror. With some dead and the rest scattered in panic, the soldiers fell on God’s treasury, now left unguarded, and plundered about four hundred talents, of which Sabinus collected whatever had not been stolen. [d]

But the destruction of the buildings and of the men drew far more Jews, and more warlike ones, together against the Romans. They surrounded the palace and threatened to kill everyone in it unless they left quickly; they promised Sabinus safe conduct if he would march out with his legion. Most of the king’s troops deserted and joined them. But the most warlike part of them, the three thousand men of Sebaste, went over to the Romans, and with them Rufus and Gratus — Gratus in command of the king’s infantry and Rufus of the cavalry — each of whom, even without the forces under him, was a weight in the scales because of his strength and his skill in war. The Jews pressed the siege, assaulting the walls of the fortress, and shouting to Sabinus and his men to leave and not stand in their way, now that after so long a time they were recovering their ancestral self-rule. Sabinus would gladly have slipped away, but he did not trust their promises and suspected that their mildness was bait for a trap. At the same time he was hoping for help from Varus, and so he held out under the siege. [f]