Taricheae and the Lake

Vespasian then advanced and camped between Tiberias and Taricheae. He fortified this camp more strongly, suspecting that the war would drag on for him there; for every rebel had flocked into Taricheae, trusting in the strength of the city and in the lake, which the people of the country call Gennesaret. The city, like Tiberias, lies at the foot of a mountain, and on every side not washed by the lake Josephus had fortified it strongly, though less strongly than Tiberias. He had walled Tiberias at the beginning of the revolt, when he had plenty of money and power; Taricheae got only what was left of his generosity. They had many boats ready on the lake, both to flee to if they were beaten on land and, if need be, fitted out to fight on the water. While the Romans were walling their camp, Jesus and his followers, undaunted by the enemy’s numbers or their discipline, made a sally. At the first onset the wall builders scattered, and the Jews tore down a little of the work. But when they saw the heavy infantry gathering, they fled back to their own men before they suffered anything. The Romans pursued them and drove them into their boats. They put out just far enough to reach the Romans with their missiles, dropped anchor, closed up their boats side by side like a phalanx, and from the water fought the enemy on land. Then Vespasian heard that the main mass of them had gathered in the plain in front of the city, and he sent his son with six hundred picked horsemen. [a]

Titus found the enemy’s numbers enormous, and he sent to his father to say that he needed a larger force. But he saw that most of his horsemen were eager to fight even before help arrived, while some were quietly dismayed at the numbers of the Jews. So he took his stand where they could hear him and spoke as follows: “Romans — for it is good to remind you of your race at the start of what I have to say, so that you know who you are and whom we are about to fight — no one in the whole inhabited world has escaped our hands until now. But the Jews, to say this for them as well, have not yet grown tired of being beaten. It would be a disgrace for us to grow weary in success while they stand firm in misfortune. I am glad to see the eagerness you show openly, but I am afraid the numbers of the enemy may have struck a hidden fear into some of you. Let such a man think again who is fighting whom. The Jews are very daring and despise death, but they are undisciplined and untried in war; you could call them a mob rather than an army. And what need is there to speak of our experience and discipline? This is the very reason we alone train under arms even in time of peace: so that in war we need not count our numbers against the enemy’s. What good is our constant soldiering if we must meet untrained men with equal numbers? [c]

“Remember that you are heavy-armed men fighting light-armed, horsemen fighting foot soldiers, men with a general fighting men with none. These advantages make you many times more than you are, and their disadvantages take much away from the numbers of the enemy. It is not a multitude of men, however warlike, that wins wars, but courage, even in a few. A few are easy to marshal and to help one another, while overgrown armies are hurt more by themselves than by the enemy. The Jews are led by daring, presumption and desperation — passions that run strong in success but are snuffed out by the smallest setback. We are led by valor, obedience and nobility, which flourish in all our other successes and in failure are not overthrown to the end. And you will be fighting for greater things than the Jews. If they run the risks of war for liberty and country, what greater thing is there for us than glory, and than not seeming, after ruling the world, to treat the Jews as our match? Consider too that we have no reason to fear any disaster that cannot be repaired: those who will help us are many, and near. But we can seize the victory ourselves, and we ought to forestall the allies my father is sending us, so that the success will be ours alone, and greater. I think that in this hour my father, I and you are all on trial: whether he is worthy of his past victories, whether I am his son, and whether you are my soldiers. Victory is his habit, and I could not bear to go back to him beaten. And how could you not be ashamed to be beaten when your commander goes first into danger? For I will go first into danger, be sure of it, and be the first to charge the enemy. Do not fall behind me. Be convinced that God stands beside my charge as an ally, and know clearly beforehand that we will win something more than a battle outside the walls.”

As Titus said this, a more than human ardor fell on the men. When Trajan arrived with four hundred horsemen before the fighting began, they were annoyed, as though the victory would be diminished by being shared. Vespasian had also sent Antonius Silo with two thousand archers, with orders to seize the mountain opposite the city and keep the men on the wall at bay. They did as they were ordered and checked those who tried to come out and help from that side. Titus drove his horse first at the enemy, and the rest followed with a shout, spreading themselves out across the plain as far as the enemy’s line stretched, so that they seemed far more numerous than they were. The Jews, though stunned by the force and order of their charge, held out against their attacks for a little while. But pierced by the lances and overturned by the rush of the horsemen, they were trampled underfoot. As many were being killed on every side, they scattered and fled for the city as fast as each could. Titus pressed on those at the rear and killed them. He cut his way through others where they were crowded together, got ahead of some and ran them through face to face, and leaped upon many as they fell over one another and trampled them down. He cut off every line of flight to the wall and turned them back into the plain, until at last by sheer numbers they forced their way through and fled together into the city. [g]

But a fierce sedition awaited them inside. The townspeople, for the sake of their property and their city, had not been minded to fight from the start, and after the defeat they were even less so. But the foreigners, who were numerous, pressed them all the harder, and as they raged at one another there was shouting and uproar, as though they were on the point of taking up arms. Titus heard the turmoil, for he was not far from the wall. “Now is the moment!” he shouted. “Why do we wait, fellow soldiers, when God is handing the Jews over to us? Take the victory. Do you not hear the shouting? The men who escaped our hands are at odds with one another. The city is ours if we are quick. But besides speed we need toil and resolve, for nothing great is usually achieved without danger. We must forestall not only the enemy’s coming to harmony, which necessity will soon force on them, but also the help of our own men, so that we few, besides defeating so great a multitude, may also take the city alone.” [h]

As he said this he leaped onto his horse and led the way down to the lake. Riding through the water, he entered the city first, and the rest after him. Terror at his daring fell on the men on the walls, and no one dared to fight him or stand in his way. They abandoned their posts. Jesus and his followers fled across the country; others ran down to the lake and ran straight into the enemy coming at them. Some were killed as they climbed into the boats, others as they tried to reach the boats that had already put out. In the city there was a great slaughter. The foreigners who had not managed to escape resisted, but the townspeople were killed without a fight; for in the hope of a pledge of safety, and in the knowledge that they had never wanted war, they held back from fighting, until Titus killed the guilty and, pitying the townspeople, stopped the slaughter. Those who had fled onto the lake, when they saw the city taken, put out as far as they could from the enemy. [i]

Titus sent one of his horsemen to bring his father the good news of the deed. Vespasian, as was natural, was overjoyed at his son’s valor and his success, for it seemed that the greatest part of the war had been removed. He came himself and ordered his men to surround the city and guard it, so that no one could slip out of it, and to kill any who tried. The next day he went down to the lake and ordered rafts to be built to go after those who had fled onto it. These were quickly made, for there was plenty of timber and a great many craftsmen. [j]

The Lake of Gennesaret takes its name from the country beside it. It is about five miles wide and seventeen long, and yet its water is fresh and very good to drink. It is finer than the thick water of marshes, and the lake is clean, ending on every side in beaches and sand. Its water is of an even temperature when drawn, milder than river or spring water, yet always cooler than one would expect of so wide a sheet of water. Set out in the open air, it is as cold as snow, and the people of the country make a practice of doing this on summer nights. There are kinds of fish in it that differ in taste and in look from those found elsewhere. The Jordan cuts the lake down the middle. Panium is thought to be the source of the Jordan, but in fact the river is carried there secretly underground from the place called Phiala. Phiala lies on the way up to Trachonitis, about fifteen miles from Caesarea, not far off the road on the right-hand side. It is rightly named Phiala, “the Bowl,” from its round shape, for it is a lake as round as a wheel. Its water always stands at the brim, neither sinking nor overflowing. That the Jordan begins here was unknown until it was proved by Philip, the tetrarch of Trachonitis. He had chaff thrown into Phiala, and it was found carried up at Panium, where the ancients had thought the river was born. The natural beauty of Panium has been further enhanced by royal munificence, adorned at the cost of Agrippa’s wealth. From this cave the Jordan begins its visible stream. It cuts through the marshes and fens of Lake Semechonitis, runs another fifteen miles, and after the city of Julias passes through the middle of the Lake of Gennesaret. After that it travels a long way through the desert and empties into Lake Asphaltitis. [k]

Along the Lake of Gennesaret stretches a country of the same name, wonderful in its nature and its beauty. Its soil is so rich that it refuses no plant, and those who farm it have planted everything; and the mildness of its air suits even very different kinds. Walnuts, the most wintry of trees, flourish there in countless numbers beside palms, which thrive on heat, and next to them figs and olives, which need a gentler air. One might call it an ambition of nature, forcing things that are at war with one another to come together in one place — a happy rivalry of the seasons, each of them laying claim to the country. For it not only produces the most varied fruits beyond all expectation, it keeps them a long time. The choicest of them, grapes and figs, it supplies without a break for ten months of the year, and the other fruits ripen one beside another all year round. For besides the good temper of its air, it is watered by a most fertile spring, which the people of the country call Capernaum. Some have thought this spring a vein of the Nile, because it breeds a fish like the coracinus of the lake at Alexandria. The country stretches along the shore of the lake that bears its name for nearly four miles, and it is two and a half miles wide. Such is the nature of this place. [o]

When the rafts were ready, Vespasian put on board as much of his force as he thought would be a match for those on the lake, and put out after them. The men being driven together on the lake could neither escape to land, where everything was hostile, nor fight on equal terms on the water. Their boats were small, built for piracy, and too weak to face the rafts, and the few men sailing in each were afraid to come near the Romans, who stood massed together on the rafts. Still, they sailed around the rafts, and sometimes came close, pelting the Romans with stones from a distance or striking at them as they grazed alongside. But they suffered more themselves either way. Their stones did nothing but make one clatter after another, since they were throwing at men in armor, while they themselves were within reach of the Romans’ missiles. And when they dared to come close, they suffered before they could do anything and went down, boats and all. Of those who tried to break through, the Romans ran many through with their lances; on others they leaped, sword in hand, into the boats; and some were caught between the converging rafts and taken, together with their boats. When those who had gone under came up for air, a missile caught them or a raft ran them down, and if in their helplessness they tried to climb onto the enemy, the Romans cut off their heads or their hands. Everywhere the slaughter was great and of every kind, until the rest were routed and driven toward land, their boats surrounded. As they poured out, many were speared in the lake itself, and many who leaped ashore the Romans killed on land. One could see the whole lake mixed with blood and full of corpses, for not one of them escaped. In the days that followed a dreadful stench and a dreadful sight lay over the country. The beaches were full of wrecks and swollen bodies, and the corpses, scorched by the sun and rotting, poisoned the air, so that the calamity was not only pitiable to the Jews but hateful even to those who had done it. Such was the end of that sea fight. The dead, counting those who fell earlier in the city, numbered 6,700. [q]

After the battle Vespasian took his seat on the tribunal at Taricheae and separated the foreign multitude from the townspeople, for the foreigners were thought to have started the war. He considered with his commanders whether these too should be spared. They said that releasing them would be harmful: once let go, men stripped of their homelands would not stay quiet, and they would be able to force those with whom they took refuge to go to war. Vespasian recognized that they did not deserve to be saved, and that if they got away they would turn against those who had freed them, but he deliberated over how to put them to death. If he killed them there, he suspected he would turn the townspeople into enemies, for they would never stand by while so many suppliants were slaughtered among them; and he could not bring himself to fall on men after giving them pledges. But his friends prevailed. They said that nothing done against Jews could be impious, and that when both could not be had, the advantageous must be chosen over the fitting. So he gave them his assent, and granted the prisoners an ambiguous amnesty, allowing them to leave only by the road that led to Tiberias. The prisoners were quick to believe what they wished, and they set out openly with their belongings, feeling safe, by the way they had been allowed. The Romans occupied the whole road as far as Tiberias, so that no one could turn aside, and shut them up in the city. Then Vespasian came and had them all stand in the stadium. He ordered the old men, together with those who were of no use, 1,200 in all, to be killed. From the young he picked out the six thousand strongest and sent them to Nero at the Isthmus. The rest of the multitude, some 30,400, he sold as slaves, apart from those he gave to Agrippa; for those who came from Agrippa’s kingdom he allowed him to deal with as he pleased, and the king sold these too. The rest of the crowd were men of Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, Hippos and the territory of Gadara, for the most part rebels and fugitives, men whose disgraceful conduct in time of peace had recommended war to them. They were taken on the eighth day of the month Gorpiaeus. [t]