The Siege of Gamala

All the Galileans who had revolted from the Romans after the taking of Jotapata came over to them again when those at Taricheae were defeated, and the Romans took possession of every fortress and city except Gischala and the men who had seized Mount Tabor. Gamala, a city lying opposite Taricheae on the high ground across the lake, also joined the rebels. It belonged to Agrippa’s territory, as did Sogane and Seleucia. Gamala and Sogane both lay in the Gaulanitis, Sogane in what is called the Upper Gaulanitis and Gamala in the Lower. Seleucia stood on Lake Semechonitis, which is about three and three-quarter miles wide and seven and a half long. Its marshes stretch as far as Daphne, a delightful spot in other ways too, with springs that feed what is called the Little Jordan and send it on, below the temple of the golden cow, into the Great Jordan. At the very beginning of the revolt Agrippa had won over Sogane and Seleucia by pledges, but Gamala would not come over. It trusted in the difficulty of its ground, which was even greater than at Jotapata. [a]

A rugged ridge runs down from a high mountain and lifts a hump in its middle. From that rise it stretches out, sloping down as far in front as behind, so that it looks like a camel; from this it takes its name, though the people of the country do not pronounce the name exactly. On its sides and face it breaks away into impassable ravines. At the tail, where it hangs from the mountain, it is a little less difficult, but the inhabitants cut a ditch across this part too and made it hard to approach. The houses were built against the steep flank and packed dreadfully close one upon another, so that the city seemed to hang in the air and to be tumbling down upon itself, so sheer was the slope. It faced south. Its southern height, rising to an immense altitude, served the city as a citadel, and beyond it an unwalled precipice ran down into the deepest ravine. There was a spring inside the wall, where the town came to an end. A city so hard to take by nature Josephus had made stronger still, by walling it and by mines and trenches. Its people were bolder than those of Jotapata because of the nature of the place, but they had far fewer fighting men. Trusting the position, they took in no more, for the city was already full of those who had fled to it for its strength. That was why it had held out for seven months against the force Agrippa first sent to besiege it. [e]

Vespasian broke camp at Ammathus, where he had been encamped in front of Tiberias (the name Ammathus, translated, would mean “hot baths,” for there is a spring of hot water there that is good for healing), and came to Gamala. With the city lying as it did he could not surround the whole of it with guards, but he posted sentries wherever it could be done and seized the mountain that rises above it. When the legions had fortified their camps on it, as their custom was, he began the earthworks at the tail. On the eastern side, where the highest tower of the city stood, the fifteenth legion worked; the fifth was busy opposite the middle of the city, and the tenth filled in the trenches and the ravines. Meanwhile King Agrippa came up to the walls and tried to talk with the men on them about a surrender, and one of the slingers hit him on the right elbow with a stone. His own men quickly closed round him. The Romans were spurred on to the siege both by anger on the king’s account and by fear on their own: men who were so savage toward one of their own race, and one who counseled them only to their own advantage, would stop at no extreme of cruelty against foreigners and enemies. [f]

The earthworks were finished quickly, thanks to the many hands and the men’s practice at such work, and they brought up the engines. Chares and Joseph, the most powerful men in the city, drew up their armed men, though these were already terrified, since they did not expect to hold out long against a siege with too little water and other necessities. Even so, their leaders cheered them on and led them out onto the wall. For a while they drove off the men bringing up the engines, but when the catapults and stone-throwers struck them they withdrew into the city. Then the Romans brought up battering rams at three points and shook the wall to pieces. They poured in over the fallen parts with a great blare of trumpets and clash of arms, raising the war cry, and fell upon the men in the city. For a time the defenders held their ground at the first entrances, kept the Romans from going farther and stoutly drove them back. But hard pressed by many on every side, they fell back to the upper parts of the city. There they wheeled round, fell upon the enemy pressing after them, drove them down the slope, and cut them down as they struggled in the narrow, difficult ground. [h]

The Romans could neither fight off those above them nor force their way back through their own men pushing forward, so they climbed up onto the enemy’s houses, which were low. Filled with men and unable to bear the weight, the houses quickly collapsed; one falling brought down many below it, and those in turn the ones below them. This destroyed great numbers of the Romans. In their helplessness they leapt onto the roofs even though they saw them sinking, so that many were buried under the ruins, many were pinned by some part of the body as they tried to escape, and still more were choked to death by the dust. The people of Gamala took this for God’s help working with them, and paying no heed to their own losses they pressed on. They forced the enemy up onto the roofs, and as the Romans slid and kept falling in the steep, narrow alleys, they shot at them from above and killed them. The ruins gave them stones in plenty, and the enemy’s dead supplied them with iron, for they pulled the swords from the fallen and used them to finish off those who were slow to die. Many Romans threw themselves down from the houses as they were falling and died that way. Even those who were routed could not easily escape. They did not know the streets, and the dust was so thick that they could not recognize one another, but were jammed together and fell over each other.

Those who could find the ways out, though with difficulty, withdrew from the city. But Vespasian stayed all the while with the men who were in trouble. He was deeply moved at seeing the city falling in ruins about his army, and forgetting his own safety he advanced little by little, without noticing it, to the highest part of the city, and was left there in the midst of the danger with only a very few men; even his son Titus was not with him, having been sent into Syria to Mucianus at the time. He thought it neither safe nor honorable to turn and run. Remembering the hardships he had borne since his youth and his own courage, as if inspired, he had the men with him close their shields together over their bodies and armor, and stood up under the battle pouring down from above. Without flinching before the numbers of men or of missiles he held on, until the enemy, perceiving something superhuman in his firmness of spirit, slackened their attacks. When they pressed him less fiercely he withdrew step by step, never showing his back, until he was outside the wall. A great many Romans fell in this battle, among them the decurion Aebutius, a man who had shown the highest courage not only in the fight in which he fell but everywhere and before, and who had done the Jews a great deal of harm. A centurion named Gallus, cut off in the confusion with ten soldiers, slipped into someone’s house. There he overheard the people talking at supper about what the townspeople were planning against the Romans or for their own defense, for he and his men were Syrians. In the night he rose up, cut all their throats, and got safely back to the Romans with his soldiers. [k]

Vespasian’s army was disheartened, because they were not used to defeat and had never before met with such a disaster, but most of all because they were ashamed of having left their general alone in danger. He comforted them. About himself he held back, so as not to seem to blame them in the least. He told them that they must bear their common fortunes like men, considering the nature of war: victory is never won anywhere without bloodshed, and fortune takes her toll and then comes round again. They had killed so many tens of thousands of Jews and had now paid fate a small contribution of their own. As it is the mark of vulgar men to be too elated by success, so it is the mark of cowards to cower under reverses; for the change is swift either way, and the best man is the one who keeps a sober head even in good fortune, so that he stays steady and can cheerfully fight back from his setbacks. [m]

“What has happened now is not due to any softness of yours, nor to the courage of the Jews. The difficulty of the ground gave them their advantage and caused our failure. On that score one might blame your unchecked eagerness. When the enemy fled to the heights you should have held back, and not followed the danger to where it hung over your heads. Once you were masters of the lower city you should have drawn the fugitives down little by little into a safe and steady battle. Instead you rushed on to victory without restraint and neglected your safety. Recklessness in war and frenzied rushing are not the Roman way; we succeed in everything by skill and discipline. They are a barbarian’s way, and the very thing by which the Jews are chiefly ruled. We must return to our own courage, and be angry rather than downcast at a setback we did not deserve. Let each man look for his best comfort in his own hand. So you will avenge the dead and punish those who killed them. As for me, I will try, as I did today, to go before you against the enemy in every battle and to be the last to withdraw.”

With words like these Vespasian put heart back into his army. As for the people of Gamala, for a little while their success, so great and so unexpected, gave them courage. But afterward, reckoning that they had cut themselves off even from any hope of terms, and realizing that they could not escape, since their provisions were already failing, they lost heart badly and their spirits sank. Still, they did not neglect their safety as far as they could: the bravest guarded the breaches in the wall, and the rest manned what remained of it. When the Romans strengthened their earthworks and tried another assault, most of the people slipped out of the city through impassable ravines where no guards were posted, and through the underground tunnels. Those who stayed behind for fear of being caught died of want, for food from every quarter was collected for those who could fight.

Such were the sufferings the people of Gamala held out under. During the siege Vespasian took on a side task: the men who had seized Mount Tabor, which lies midway between the Great Plain and Scythopolis. Its height runs to about three and three-quarter miles, and it can hardly be climbed on its northern side. Its top is a plateau some three and a quarter miles in extent, all of it walled. Josephus raised this great circuit in forty days, with the materials, and water as well, brought up from below, for the inhabitants had only rainwater. A great crowd had gathered on the mountain, and Vespasian sent Placidus there with six hundred horsemen. It was impossible for him to climb up, so he invited the crowd to make peace, holding out the hope of pledges and of his good offices. They came down, but with a plot of their own to answer his. Placidus spoke gently because he was eager to catch them on the plain; they came down as if persuaded, meaning to fall on him off his guard. But Placidus’s cunning won. When the Jews began the fight he pretended to flee, drew them in pursuit far across the plain, and then wheeled his horsemen round. He routed them and killed a great many of them, and cut off the rest of the crowd from the way back up. These abandoned Tabor and fled to Jerusalem. The people of the place received pledges, for their water had given out, and surrendered the mountain and themselves to Placidus. [o]

At Gamala the bolder spirits escaped by stealth and the weak died of hunger, but the fighting men held out against the siege until the twenty-second day of the month Hyperberetaeus. Then, about the morning watch, three soldiers of the fifteenth legion crept up under the tower that jutted out in front of their sector and quietly undermined it. The guards on top of it noticed neither their approach, for it was night, nor their arrival. The soldiers took care to make no noise, rolled out five of the strongest stones, and sprang back. The tower suddenly collapsed with a tremendous crash, and its guards went headlong down with it. The men at the other posts were thrown into confusion and fled. The Romans killed many who tried to break out, among them Joseph, whom someone shot dead as he was escaping over the breach in the wall. Throughout the city people were shaken by the crash. They ran this way and that in great panic, as though the whole enemy had burst in. At that moment Chares, who was lying ill under treatment, died, his great fear helping the sickness to kill him. But the Romans remembered their earlier defeat and did not go in until the twenty-third of the same month. [p]

Titus, who had now returned, was angry at the blow the Romans had suffered while he was away. He picked two hundred horsemen, and foot soldiers besides, and quietly entered the city. As he got in, the guards noticed and ran to arms with a shout, and his entry was quickly known to those inside. Some snatched up their children and dragged their wives along and fled up to the citadel, wailing and crying out; others went to meet Titus and fell one after another. Those who were prevented from running up to the summit were at a loss and fell into the hands of the Roman guards. Everywhere there was endless groaning of the slain, and blood poured down the slope and flooded the whole city. Vespasian came up in support against those who had fled to the citadel, bringing in his whole force. The summit was rocky on every side and hard to climb, rising to an immense height, and was surrounded on all sides by precipices. From there the Jews did great harm to the men climbing up, with missiles and with rocks they rolled down, while they themselves were so high that a missile could hardly reach them. But for their destruction a supernatural storm arose full in their faces. It carried the Romans’ missiles onto them, and turned back their own and swept them aside. They could not keep their footing on the edges of the precipices for the force of the wind, having nothing firm to stand on, nor could they see the men climbing toward them. The Romans climbed up and surrounded them. Some they cut down while they were still defending themselves, others as they held out their hands, and the memory of those who had died at their first entry sharpened their rage against all. Most of the defenders, surrounded on every side and despairing of escape, flung their children and wives and then themselves down into the ravine, which near the citadel had been hollowed out to a vast depth. So it turned out that the Romans’ fury seemed milder than the madness of the captured against themselves: four thousand were slaughtered by the Romans, but those who had thrown themselves down were found to be more than five thousand. No one survived except two women. They were daughters of Philip’s sister; Philip himself was the son of Jacimus, a notable man who had held high command under King Agrippa. They escaped because they hid from the fury of the Romans during the capture, for then the Romans did not spare even infants, but again and again seized many of them and hurled them from the citadel. So Gamala was taken on the twenty-third of the month Hyperberetaeus, the revolt having begun on the twenty-fourth of the month Gorpiaeus. [r]