Pompey Takes the Temple

Angered by this, Pompey put Aristobulus under guard and went to the city, where he looked around to see how he should make his attack. He saw that the strength of the walls would make them hard to master, that the ravine in front of them was fearsome, and that the temple inside the ravine was very strongly walled, so that if the town were taken it would be a second refuge for the enemy. While he hesitated for a long time, faction broke out among those inside. Aristobulus’s party wanted to fight and rescue the king; Hyrcanus’s party wanted to open the gates to Pompey; and fear, as they looked at the Romans’ discipline, made the latter numerous. Aristobulus’s party was beaten and withdrew into the temple. They cut the bridge that joined it to the city and prepared to hold out to the last. The others received the Romans into the city and handed over the palace, and Pompey sent Piso, one of his generals, into it with an army. Piso posted guards throughout the city, and since he could not persuade any of those who had fled into the temple to come to terms, he made the ground around it ready for assault, finding Hyrcanus’s people eager to help with both advice and labor.

Pompey himself filled in the ditch and the whole ravine on the north side, the army bringing timber for the work. Filling it was hard because of its immense depth, and because the Jews tried in every way to stop them from above. The Romans’ labor would never have been finished if Pompey had not watched for the seventh days, on which the Jews, for religion’s sake, keep their hands from all work. On those days he raised the earthwork, while keeping his soldiers from hand-to-hand fighting; for on the Sabbath the Jews fight only to defend their lives. When the ravine had been filled, he set up high towers on the earthwork, brought up the siege engines that had been fetched from Tyre, and began to try the wall, while the stone-throwing engines drove back those who resisted from above. But the towers on this side held out a long time; they were outstanding for size and beauty. [a]

There, while the Romans suffered many hardships, Pompey admired the Jews’ endurance in general, and above all that they did not neglect any part of their worship though missiles were flying all around them. As though the city were in deep peace, the daily sacrifices, the offerings and all the service of God were carried out exactly; and not even during the capture itself, as they were being slaughtered around the altar, did they abandon the daily rites of their worship. It was in the third month of the siege that the Romans, with great difficulty, threw down one of the towers and burst into the temple. The first who dared to cross the wall was Faustus Cornelius, the son of Sulla, and after him two centurions, Furius and Fabius. Each was followed by his own company. They surrounded the temple on every side and killed some as they fled toward the sanctuary, others as they fought back for a little while. [b] Then many of the priests, seeing the enemy coming at them sword in hand, calmly went on with their worship. They were cut down as they poured libations and burned incense, putting their own safety second to the service of God. Most of the dead were killed by their own countrymen of the opposite faction; countless others threw themselves down the cliffs; and some, maddened by their helplessness, set fire to the buildings around the wall and were burned up with them. Twelve thousand Jews were killed; of the Romans very few died, but a greater number were wounded.

Nothing in the disasters of that time affected the nation so deeply as the exposure to foreigners of the holy place, until then unseen. Pompey and those around him went into the sanctuary, where only the high priest was permitted to enter, and saw what was inside: the lampstand and its lamps, the table, the libation cups and the censers, all of solid gold, a great mass of spices piled up, and some two thousand talents of sacred money. Yet he touched none of these, nor any other of the sacred treasures. On the day after the capture he ordered the temple servants to cleanse the temple and to offer the customary sacrifices. He appointed Hyrcanus high priest again, both because he had shown the greatest zeal during the siege and because he had kept the people of the countryside from fighting for Aristobulus, as they had been eager to do. In this way, as a good general should, he won the people over by goodwill rather than by fear. Among the prisoners was Aristobulus’s father-in-law, who was also his uncle. Those most to blame for the war Pompey punished with the axe; Faustus and those who had fought bravely with him he honored with splendid rewards; and he laid tribute on the country and on Jerusalem. [d]

He took from the nation the cities of Coele-Syria they had captured and placed them under the Roman governor appointed there, and confined the Jews within their own borders. He also rebuilt Gadara, which the Jews had destroyed, as a favor to one of his own freedmen, Demetrius of Gadara. He freed from their rule the inland cities they had not already razed — Hippos, Scythopolis, Pella, Samaria, Jamnia, Marisa, Ashdod and Arethusa — and likewise the coastal cities of Gaza, Joppa and Dora, and the one formerly called Strato’s Tower, which King Herod later rebuilt with the most splendid buildings and renamed Caesarea. All these he gave back to their lawful citizens and put into the province of Syria. He handed over that province, together with Judea and the lands as far as Egypt and the Euphrates, to Scaurus to govern, with two legions, while he himself hurried through Cilicia toward Rome, taking Aristobulus and his family with him as prisoners. Aristobulus had two daughters and two sons. One son, Alexander, escaped on the journey; the younger, Antigonus, was taken to Rome with his sisters. [f]