Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) | ||||||||||
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Part of the First Jewish–Roman War | ||||||||||
![]() Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez. Oil on canvas, 1867. | ||||||||||
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Belligerents | ||||||||||
Roman Empire |
Remnants of the Judean provisional government
| Zealots | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | ||||||||||
Titus Julius Alexander |
Simon bar Giora ![]() |
John of Giscala (POW) Eleazar ben Simon † | ||||||||
Strength | ||||||||||
70,000 | 15,000–20,000 | 10,000 | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
Unknown | 15,000–20,000 | 10,000 |
Part of a series on |
Jerusalem |
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The Siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. Following a five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple.[1][2][3]
In April 70 CE, three days before Passover, the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem.[4][5] The city had been taken over by several rebel factions following a period of massive unrest and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government. Within three weeks, the Roman army broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn rebel standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall.[4][6] According to Josephus, a contemporary historian and the main source for the war, the city was ravaged by murder, famine, and cannibalism.[7]
On Tisha B'Av, 70 CE (August 30),[8] Roman forces overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple.[9] Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well, and the city was burned to the ground. Titus spared only the three towers of the Herodian citadel as a testimony to the city's former might.[10][11] The siege had a major toll on human life, with many people being killed and enslaved, and large parts of the city destroyed. This victory gave the Flavian dynasty legitimacy to claim control over the empire. A triumph was held in Rome to celebrate the victory over the Jews, with two triumphal arches erected to commemorate it, including the Arch of Titus, which still stands today. The treasures looted from the Temple were put on display.[7]
The destruction of Jerusalem marked a major turning point in Jewish history.[7][12][13] The loss of the mother-city and Second Temple necessitated a reshaping of Jewish culture to ensure its survival. With sacrificial worship no longer possible, Jewish practices shifted to prayer, Torah study, and synagogue gatherings. According to Rabbinic tradition, Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped Jerusalem during the siege and secured Roman permission to establish a study center in Yavneh,[13][14][15] This event was foundational in the development of Rabbinic Judaism, which emerged from Pharisaic traditions and eventually became the mainstream form of Judaism.[2][7][16] Jewish sects such as the Sadducees and Essenes faded into obscurity,[17] while surviving followers of Jesus of Nazareth continued to spread his teachings, leading to the rise of Christianity as a new, separate religion.[7] After the war, Legio X Fretensis established a military camp on Jerusalem's ruins.[18][19] the city was later re-founded as the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina. Foreign cults were introduced and Jews were forbidden entry.[20][21][22] This is often seen as a catalyst for the Bar Kokhba revolt.[23][24]
The historical description is consistent with the archeological finds. Collapses of massive stones from the walls of the Temple Mount were exposed lying over the Herodian street running along the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The residential buildings of the Ophel and the Upper City were destroyed by great fire. The large urban drainage channel and the Pool of Siloam in the Lower City silted up and ceased to function, and in many places the city walls collapsed. [...] Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, a new era began in the city's history. The Herodian city was destroyed and a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion established on part of the ruins. In c. 130 CE, the Roman emperor Hadrian founded a new city in place of Herodian Jerusalem next to the military camp. He honored the city with the status of a colony and named it Aelia Capitolina and possibly also forbidding Jews from entering its boundaries
Schäfer
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).War of the Jews
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).The capitulation of the rest of Jerusalem was rapid. Those parts of the lower city already under Roman control were deliberately set on fire. The erection of new towers to break down the walls of the upper city was completed on 7 Elul (in mid-August), and the troops forced their way in. By 8 Elul the whole city was in Roman hands – and in ruins. In recompense for the ferocious fighting they had been required to endure, the soldiers were given free rein to loot and kill, until eventually Titus ordered that the city be razed to the ground, 'leaving only the loftiest of the towers, Phasael, Hippicus and Mariamme, and the portion of the wall enclosing the city on the west: the latter as an encampment for the garrison that was to remain, and the towers to indicate to posterity the nature of the city and of the strong defences which had yet yielded to Roman prowess. All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely levelled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited.'
Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.
Under the leadership of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai and his circle at Yavneh, Judaism sought to reconstitute itself and find a new equilibrium in the face of the disaster of 70.
Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.
After the destruction of the Herodian city of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion was established on part of the ruins to guard the former center of the revolt. This is clearly stated by Josephus (Jos. BJ, 7:1–5, 17; Vita, 422); it can be understood from the text of a diploma of 93 CE: "(veterani) qui militaverunt Hierosolymnis in legione X Fretense", and it is also clear from epigraphic finds from the town. A bulk of military small finds recovered from several sites around the Old City indicates the presence of the XFretensis in Jerusalem