Cestius Before Jerusalem

Gallus, seeing no further signs of revolt in Galilee, returned with his army to Caesarea. Cestius broke camp with his whole force and marched into Antipatris. When he learned that no small Jewish force had gathered in a tower of Aphek, he sent troops ahead to engage them. Before it came to blows these scattered the Jews by fear alone, and when they arrived they burned the deserted camp and the villages around it. From Antipatris Cestius went on to Lydda and found the city empty of men, for the whole population had gone up to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles. He killed fifty of those who showed themselves, burned the town, and pushed on. Going up by way of Beth-horon, he made camp at a place called Gibeon, about six miles from Jerusalem. [a]

When the Jews saw that the war was now coming close to the mother city, they left the feast and ran to arms. Trusting greatly in their numbers, they rushed out to battle in disorder and with shouting, giving no thought even to the seventh day of rest, though it was the sabbath, which they keep most strictly of all. But the fury that shook them out of their piety also gave them the upper hand in the fight. They fell on the Romans with such force that they broke through their ranks and went right through the middle of them, killing as they went. If the cavalry had not wheeled around and come to the help of the part of the line that had given way, together with those of the infantry who were not yet exhausted, Cestius and his whole army would have been in danger. Of the Romans five hundred and fifteen were killed, four hundred of them foot soldiers and the rest horsemen; of the Jews, twenty-two. Those who seemed bravest among the Jews were Monobazus and Kenedaeus, kinsmen of Monobazus, king of Adiabene; after them came Niger of Perea, and Silas the Babylonian, who had deserted to the Jews from King Agrippa, for he had served in his army. Checked in front, the Jews turned back toward the city. But Simon son of Gioras fell on the Romans from behind as they were going up toward Beth-horon, cut up much of the rear guard, and carried off many of the baggage animals and brought them into the city. While Cestius stayed where he was for three days, the Jews seized the heights and watched the passes, and it was plain that they would not stay quiet once the Romans began to march. [c]

Then Agrippa, seeing that even the Romans were not out of danger, with a countless multitude of enemies holding the mountains around them, decided to try the Jews with words. He thought he would either persuade them all to give up the war, or at least detach those who were not of one mind with the leaders of the resistance. So he sent Borcius and Phoebus, the men of his court best known to them, promising pledges from Cestius and a secure pardon from the Romans for their offenses, if they would throw down their arms and come over to them. But the rebels feared that the whole people, in hope of safety, would go over to Agrippa, and they rushed to kill his envoys. Before he could utter a word they killed Phoebus; Borcius was wounded but managed to escape. Those of the people who showed their anger at this, the rebels beat with stones and clubs and drove into the town. [f]

Cestius saw that their quarrel among themselves gave him a good opening for an attack. He brought up his whole force, routed the Jews, and pursued them to Jerusalem. He pitched camp on the place called Scopus, which is less than a mile from the city, and for three days made no attempt on the city, expecting perhaps that those inside would give way somewhat; meanwhile he sent many of his soldiers out to the surrounding villages to seize grain. On the fourth day, which was the thirtieth of the month Hyperberetaeus, he drew up his army and led it into the city. The people were held down by the rebels. The rebels, though, were dismayed at the good order of the Romans; they gave up the outer parts of the city and withdrew into the inner city and the temple. When Cestius had come in, he set fire to the district called Bezetha, to the New City, and to the place called the Timber Market. Then he came to the upper city and pitched his camp opposite the royal palace. If he had been willing at that very hour to force his way inside the walls, he would have taken the city at once, and the war would have been over. But Tyrannius Priscus, the prefect of the camp, and most of the cavalry commanders had been bribed by Florus and turned him from the attempt. That is why the war dragged on so long, and why the Jews were overwhelmed with disasters past remedy. [h]

Meanwhile many of the notable citizens, persuaded by Ananus son of Jonathan, invited Cestius in, intending to open the gates to him. But Cestius disregarded the offer, partly out of anger and partly because he did not fully trust it, and he kept putting it off until the rebels discovered the treachery. They threw Ananus and his party down from the wall, drove them into their houses with stones, and then took up positions at intervals on the towers and shot at those who were trying the wall. For five days the Romans attacked from every side, and the assault got nowhere. On the next day Cestius took a large body of picked men, with the archers, and attacked the temple on its northern side. The Jews held them off from the colonnade, and many times beat back those who reached the wall, but at last, overwhelmed by the mass of missiles, they fell back. Then the front rank of the Romans braced their shields against the wall, the men behind them set theirs against those, and the next rank likewise, and so they formed what they call the tortoise. The missiles that struck it slid off harmlessly, and the soldiers, suffering no harm, began to undermine the wall and made ready to set fire to the gate of the temple.

A terrible panic seized the rebels, and many of them were already slipping away from the city, as though it were about to be taken. The people, on the other hand, took heart at this, and wherever the wicked gave ground, they came forward to open the gates and receive Cestius as their benefactor. If he had pressed the siege only a little longer, he would have taken the city at once. But God, I think, had already turned away even from the sanctuary because of the wicked, and he kept the war from ending on that day. [l]

Cestius, however, saw neither the despair of the besieged nor the spirit of the people. He suddenly recalled his soldiers, gave up his hopes though he had suffered no setback, and against all reason withdrew from the city. At his unexpected retreat the robbers took courage again. They rushed out against his rear and killed many of his horsemen and foot soldiers. That night Cestius stayed in his camp on Scopus. On the next day, as he moved farther off, he drew the enemy on all the more. They pressed on his rearmost men and killed them, and they ran along both sides of the road and hurled javelins into the column’s flanks. The men at the rear did not dare to turn on those wounding them from behind, thinking that some countless multitude was pursuing them; nor could they bring themselves to drive off those pressing on their flanks, since they were heavily armed themselves and afraid of breaking their ranks, while they saw that the Jews were light and quick to dash in. So it came about that they suffered heavily without doing any harm in return to their enemies. All along the road they were struck down, and the men shaken out of the column fell. Many were killed, among them Priscus, commander of the Sixth Legion, Longinus, a tribune, and Aemilius Jucundus, commander of a squadron of horse. At last, with difficulty, they reached their former camp at Gibeon, after losing much of their baggage. There Cestius stayed for two days, at a loss what to do. On the third day he saw that the enemy were far more numerous, and that all the country around was full of Jews, and he realized that his delay had worked against him, and that if he stayed longer he would have still more enemies to deal with. [m]

To speed his flight, he ordered everything that held the army back to be cut loose. The mules and donkeys were killed, and the other pack animals too, except those that carried the missiles and the engines. These they kept because they needed them, and above all because they feared that the Jews might capture them and use them against them. Then he led the force on toward Beth-horon. In the open stretches the Jews pressed them less, but once the Romans were crowded into the narrow descent, some of the Jews got ahead of them and blocked their way out, others pushed the rearmost down into the ravine, and the whole multitude, spread out along the heights above the neck of the road, covered the column with missiles. There, while the infantry did not know how to defend themselves, the danger to the cavalry was greater still. Under the volleys they could not keep their ranks on the road, and the slope up toward the enemy was too steep for horses. On the other side were cliffs and ravines, over which they slipped and were killed. There was no place to flee and no means of defense that anyone could think of. In their helplessness they broke into wailing and the lamentations of despair, and the answer that echoed back to them was the Jews’ cheering and the shouts of men rejoicing and raging at once. The Jews would almost have carried off Cestius’s entire army, if night had not come on. The Romans took refuge in Beth-horon, and the Jews occupied all the ground around and watched for them to come out.

Then Cestius, giving up hope of marching openly, planned his escape. He picked out about four hundred of his bravest soldiers and posted them on the rooftops, with orders to call out the watchwords of the camp sentries, so that the Jews would think the whole army was still there. He himself took the rest and advanced quietly for nearly four miles. At dawn the Jews saw that the Romans’ quarters were deserted and ran at the four hundred who had deceived them. They quickly shot them down with javelins and went in pursuit of Cestius. But he had gained a good part of the night, and he fled even faster by day, so that in their panic and fear the soldiers left behind their siege engines, their bolt-throwers and most of their other machines. The Jews took them then, and afterward used them against those who had abandoned them. They pursued the Romans as far as Antipatris. Then, since they could not overtake them, they turned back, carried off the engines, stripped the dead, collected the plunder left behind, and ran back to the mother city singing songs of victory. They themselves had lost very few, while of the Romans and their allies they had killed five thousand three hundred foot soldiers and four hundred and eighty horsemen. This happened on the eighth of the month Dius, in the twelfth year of Nero’s reign. [n]