Titus Comes Before Jerusalem

As Titus advanced into enemy country, the troops sent by the kings led the way, together with all the other allies. After them came the road-makers and the men who measured out the camps; then the commanders’ baggage, and behind the soldiers who guarded it, Titus himself with the rest of his picked troops and the spearmen. Behind him rode the cavalry of the legion. All these went ahead of the siege engines. After the engines came the tribunes and the prefects of the cohorts with picked men; after them the standards around the eagle, with the trumpeters of the standards in front of them; and then the main column, its ranks spread six abreast. Next came the servants of each legion, with the baggage going before them, and last of all the mercenaries, with a rear guard to watch over them. [a]

Leading his force forward in good order, as the Romans are accustomed to do, Titus marched through Samaria to Gophna, a town his father had taken earlier and which was then held by a garrison. He spent one night there and set out again at dawn. After a day’s march he camped in the place the Jews in their own language call the Valley of Thorns, near a village called Gabath Saul, which means “Saul’s Hill,” about three and three-quarter miles from Jerusalem. From there he took about six hundred picked horsemen and rode out to look over the city: to see how strong it was and what spirit the Jews were in, and whether they might take fright at the sight of him and give in before it came to blows. For he had been told, and it was true, that the common people, cowering under the rebels and the robbers, longed for peace, but kept quiet because they were too weak to rise against them.

As long as he rode straight along the highway that runs up to the wall, no one showed himself at the gates. But when he turned off the road toward the tower Psephinus and led his body of horsemen across at an angle, a huge number of Jews suddenly leaped out near the towers called the Women’s Towers, through the gate opposite the monuments of Helena, and broke through the cavalry. Standing face to face with those still riding along the road, they kept them from joining the men who had turned off, and so they cut Titus off with a few others. [c]

He could not go forward, for all the ground out from the wall around the gardens had been cut with trenches and divided by cross walls and many fences. To get back to his own men he saw was impossible too, because of the mass of enemies between them; and he saw that those on the highway had turned around. Most of them did not even know the danger their king was in, but thought he had turned back with them, and were riding away. Realizing that his safety lay in his own strength alone, he wheeled his horse, shouted to those around him to follow, and charged into the middle of the enemy, forcing his way through toward his own men.

Here above all one could see that the turns of war and the dangers of kings are in God’s care. Of all the missiles thrown at Titus, who wore neither helmet nor breastplate, since he had gone out, as I said, not to fight but to look, not one touched his body. They all whizzed past him harmlessly, as if they were missing on purpose. With his sword he kept beating back those who came at his side, overturned many who met him head-on, and rode his horse over the fallen. The enemy shouted at Caesar’s daring and urged one another to rush at him; yet wherever he rode at them, they fled and scattered in crowds. Those who shared his danger kept close to him, though they were struck in the back and in the side; for each of them had one hope of safety, to break through together with Titus before they could be surrounded. Two of those farther off did fall: one they surrounded and speared to death, horse and all; the other leaped down from his horse and was killed, and they led his horse away. But Titus came through safely to the camp with the rest. This advantage in their first attack lifted the Jews’ spirits with a thoughtless hope, and that short-lived swing of fortune gave them great boldness for what was to come.

When the legion from Emmaus had joined Caesar during the night, he broke camp at daybreak and advanced to the place called Scopus. From there the city first came into view, with the great bulk of the temple shining out; and since the ground next to the northern quarter of the city lies low, the place is rightly named Scopus, “the Lookout.” There, seven-eighths of a mile from the city, he ordered a camp fortified for two legions together, and another for the fifth legion about a third of a mile behind them; for he thought that men worn out by marching all night deserved protection, so that they could build their wall with less fear. They had just begun building when the tenth legion also arrived, having come by way of Jericho, where a detachment of soldiers was posted to guard the pass that Vespasian had seized earlier. This legion had orders to camp about three-quarters of a mile from Jerusalem, at the Mount of Olives, which faces the city on the east and is divided from it by a deep ravine called the Kidron. [e]

Until then the factions in the city had been clashing with one another without a break. Now, for the first time, the war from outside, coming on them suddenly and in strength, put a stop to their strife. Watching in alarm as the Romans pitched three camps, the rebels began an ugly sort of harmony and talked it over among themselves: “What are we waiting for? What has come over us, that we put up with three walls being built to choke off our breath, while the war builds itself a rival city at its leisure, and we sit behind our walls with idle hands and our armor laid aside, like spectators watching some fine and useful work? It seems we are brave only against ourselves, they shouted, and the Romans will win the city from our faction without shedding a drop of blood.” [h]

With such words they stirred one another up as they gathered. They snatched up their armor, suddenly sallied out against the tenth legion, and dashing across the ravine with a tremendous shout, fell on the enemy as they were fortifying their camp. The Romans were split up for the work and had laid aside most of their weapons for that reason. They did not think the Jews would dare a sally, and supposed that even if they wanted to, their faction would divert their energies. So they were thrown into confusion unexpectedly. Some left their work and retreated at once; many ran for their weapons, but were struck down before they could turn to face the enemy. More and more Jews kept joining, encouraged by the success of the first, and with fortune on their side they seemed, both to themselves and to the enemy, many times more than they were. Disorder that strikes first throws into confusion most of all those who are used to formation and know how to fight in order and by command; and so the Romans, taken by surprise, gave way before the attacks. Whenever those who were overtaken turned around, they checked the Jews’ charge and wounded them, since in their rush they were less on their guard; but as the sally kept swelling, the Romans were thrown into greater confusion, and at last they were driven from their camp.

It seems the whole legion would then have been in danger if Titus, on hearing of it, had not quickly come to their help. He heaped reproaches on them for their cowardice and turned back the fugitives. Then he himself fell on the Jews’ flank with the picked men he had brought, killed a good many, wounded more, routed them all and drove them down into the ravine. They suffered heavily on the slope, but when they got across, they turned around and fought the Romans with the gully between them. They kept up the fight like this until midday. A little after noon, Titus set the men who had come to help with him and the men from the cohorts to face the sallying Jews, and sent the rest of the legion up to the ridge to build their wall.

To the Jews this looked like flight. When the lookout posted on the wall shook his cloak, a fresh crowd of them leaped out, with such force that their charge could be compared to that of the wildest beasts. Indeed, not one of those drawn up against them stood up to the onset; as if struck by an engine of war, they broke ranks, turned, and fled up the mountain. Titus was left with a few men halfway up the slope. [j]

His friends, who out of respect for their commander had stood their ground in disregard of the danger, urged him again and again to give way to Jews who were eager to die, and not to run risks for men who ought to be standing in front of him; to think of what his own fortune was, and not to fill a common soldier’s place when he was master of the war and of the world; and not to face so sudden a turn of fortune when everything rested on him. He did not seem even to hear them. He stood against those who ran up at him, met them head-on and killed them as they forced their way at him, and charging into the crowds down the slope, he drove the mass back. Astonished at his daring and his strength, they still did not flee back to the city; instead they swerved away from him on the other side and pressed on after those fleeing higher up. But he attacked these too in the flank and cut short their charges.

Meanwhile, those who were fortifying the camp above saw the men below running away, and confusion and fear fell on them again. The whole legion scattered, thinking that the Jews’ sally could not be withstood and that Titus himself had been routed, since the others would never have fled if he had stood firm. As though hemmed in by a panic, they scattered in every direction, until some caught sight of their commander turning to fight in the thick of the battle. Badly frightened for him, they shouted his danger to the whole legion. Shame turned them back. Reproaching one another with something worse than flight, the abandoning of Caesar, they threw all their strength against the Jews, and once they had forced them off the slope, they pushed them down into the hollow. The Jews fought on, giving ground step by step; but the Romans had the advantage of being above them and drove them all into the ravine. Titus kept pressing those in front of him. He sent the legion back to building the camp, and with the men who had stood with him before, he held the enemy off. So, if I am to tell the truth, neither adding anything out of flattery nor taking anything away out of envy, Caesar himself twice rescued the entire legion when it was in danger, and gave them the chance to fortify their camp in safety.