Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70): Destruction of the Second Temple

The Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 was the decisive event of the First Jewish-Roman War. A Roman army under Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian, besieged the city from about April to September, broke through its three lines of walls, burned the Second Temple and largely destroyed Jerusalem. The loss of the Temple transformed Judaism and left a lasting mark on Jewish, Christian and Roman history.

Background: the First Jewish-Roman War

Judaea had been under Roman control since Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 BC, first through client kings such as Herod the Great and from AD 6 largely through Roman governors. Tensions grew over taxation, the conduct of governors, religious insults and conflict between Jews and Greek-speaking neighbours. Within Jewish society there were also sharp divisions between the priestly elite, moderates and radical groups who wanted independence.

In AD 66 the governor Gessius Florus took money from the Temple treasury, and violence in Jerusalem escalated into open revolt. The daily sacrifice offered on behalf of the emperor was stopped, the Roman garrison was overwhelmed, and in November AD 66 the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, was defeated at the pass of Beth Horon as he withdrew from the city.

Nero then gave command to the experienced general Vespasian. In AD 67 he reconquered Galilee; among those captured was the Jewish commander Joseph ben Matthias, who later became the historian Flavius Josephus. By AD 68 most of the country was back under Roman control, but campaigning paused after Nero’s death and the civil wars of the Year of the Four Emperors. When Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in July AD 69, he left the war to his son Titus.

Jerusalem before the siege

Jerusalem in AD 70 was one of the largest cities in the eastern Mediterranean. It was dominated by the Temple, rebuilt on a massive scale by Herod the Great on a vast artificial platform, the Temple Mount. The city was protected by three northern walls, deep valleys on other sides, the Antonia fortress beside the Temple, and the towers of Herod’s palace in the Upper City.

Inside, the rebels were bitterly divided. Simon bar Giora held much of the Upper and Lower City, John of Gischala controlled the Temple Mount, and a Zealot group under Eleazar ben Simon held the inner Temple courts until John’s men absorbed them during Passover AD 70. Josephus reports that in the infighting stores of grain were burned, which worsened the famine to come. Thousands of pilgrims who had come for the festival were trapped in the city.

The siege

Titus arrived shortly before Passover in AD 70 with four legions, the V Macedonica, X Fretensis, XII Fulminata and XV Apollinaris, together with auxiliaries and troops of allied kings. Estimates of his total force usually range from about 60,000 to 70,000 men. Josephus, who was with the Roman army as an adviser and interpreter, is our main eyewitness source.

The Romans attacked from the north, where the ground was weakest. Using siege ramps, battering rams and artillery, they breached the outer, or third, wall in May and the second wall a few days later. The defenders fought back fiercely, destroying Roman siege works with sorties and fire.

To tighten the blockade, Titus had a wall of circumvallation built around the whole city, which Josephus says was completed in just three days. Famine now became severe. Josephus describes people searching sewers for food and bodies being thrown into the valleys; whatever the exaggerations, hunger clearly killed huge numbers. Those caught slipping out to forage were crucified in large numbers in view of the walls.

The fall of the Temple

In July the Romans captured the Antonia fortress and demolished much of it to open a route to the Temple platform. Around this time the daily sacrifices ceased, an event later remembered in the Jewish fast of the 17th of Tammuz. Weeks of fighting followed in the porticoes around the Temple courts.

In late August AD 70, during the assault on the inner courts, the Temple caught fire and was destroyed. Jewish tradition places the destruction on the 9th of Av, the same date as the fall of the First Temple to Babylon in 587 BC. Josephus insists that Titus wanted to save the building and that a soldier set it alight against orders. A later Christian writer, Sulpicius Severus, possibly drawing on a lost passage of Tacitus, says instead that Titus deliberately chose to destroy it. Historians remain divided.

After the Temple fell, the defenders retreated into the Upper City. The Romans built new ramps against it and took it in September. Simon bar Giora and John of Gischala were captured. The city was then systematically destroyed, except for three towers of Herod’s palace and part of the western wall, which were left standing to show the strength of what Rome had overcome. The legion X Fretensis was stationed on the ruins.

Key people

• Titus (AD 39-81): Vespasian’s elder son and commander of the siege; he later ruled as emperor from AD 79 to 81.
• Vespasian (AD 9-79): commander in Judaea from AD 67 and emperor from AD 69, founder of the Flavian dynasty.
• Simon bar Giora: the strongest rebel leader in the city; he was paraded in Rome and executed at the triumph of AD 71.
• John of Gischala: rebel leader who held the Temple Mount; he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
• Flavius Josephus (c. AD 37-c. 100): former rebel commander turned Roman client, whose Jewish War is the main narrative source.

By the numbers

Consequences

Vespasian and Titus celebrated a joint triumph in Rome in AD 71. Treasures from the Temple, including the golden menorah and the table of the showbread, were carried in procession and later displayed in Vespasian’s Temple of Peace. Coins with the legend Iudaea Capta (“Judaea captured”) were issued across the empire. The war’s spoils also helped pay for new building, very probably including the Colosseum.

Jews across the empire now had to pay the two-drachma tax that had supported the Temple to a special treasury, the fiscus Judaicus, for the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol in Rome. Judaea became a separate province with its own legionary garrison. The war was not quite over: rebels held out in several fortresses, the last of them the Siege of Masada in AD 73 or 74.

Legacy

The destruction of the Temple ended the system of sacrifices at the centre of Jewish worship and the power of the priestly elite. Groups such as the Sadducees, closely tied to the Temple, faded away. According to rabbinic tradition, Yohanan ben Zakkai left the besieged city and founded an academy at Yavneh, and the rabbis there helped reshape Judaism around the study of the Torah, prayer and the synagogue. This rabbinic Judaism became the basis of Jewish life for the next two thousand years.

Hopes of rebuilding the Temple remained strong and fed the later Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136. For early Christians the destruction was read as a fulfilment of prophecies attributed to Jesus, and it helped widen the separation between Christianity and Judaism.

In Rome, the Arch of Titus, erected under Domitian after his brother’s death in AD 81, still shows soldiers carrying the menorah in its famous relief. Archaeology in Jerusalem has revealed the destruction vividly: the “Burnt House” in the Jewish Quarter, a priestly household destroyed by fire, and huge stones of the Temple Mount walls still lying where Roman troops toppled them onto the street below.

Myths and facts

Myth: the Western Wall is a wall of the Temple itself. It is a section of Herod’s retaining wall around the Temple Mount platform, not part of the sanctuary building.

Myth: Josephus’s death toll is a reliable figure. Ancient writers often inflated numbers, and the population of Jerusalem, even with pilgrims, is unlikely to have reached the figures he implies.

Myth: Titus certainly ordered the Temple burned, or certainly tried to save it. The two traditions conflict, and Josephus wrote under Flavian patronage. The question remains open.

Timeline

• AD 66, spring-summer: Revolt breaks out in Jerusalem after Gessius Florus seizes Temple funds.
• AD 66, November: Cestius Gallus is defeated at Beth Horon.
• AD 67: Vespasian conquers Galilee; Josephus surrenders at Jotapata.
• AD 69, July: Vespasian is proclaimed emperor and leaves Titus in command.
• AD 70, April: Titus begins the siege of Jerusalem shortly before Passover.
• AD 70, May: The Romans breach the third and second walls.
• AD 70, July: The Antonia fortress falls and the daily sacrifices cease.
• AD 70, August: The Second Temple is burned.
• AD 70, September: The Upper City is captured and Jerusalem is destroyed.
• AD 71: Vespasian and Titus celebrate their triumph in Rome.

Why it matters

The fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 ended the Second Temple period of Jewish history. It forced Judaism to reinvent itself without a Temple, shaped how Christians understood their relationship to Judaism, and was celebrated by Rome in monuments that still stand. Few single events of antiquity have had such long religious consequences.