In 66 C.E. the Jews of Judaea rose in revolt against the Romans. Among their leaders was Josephus, son of Matthias, who was put in command of Jewish forces in Galilee. After he was taken prisoner in 67 C.E. following the siege of Jotapata, Josephus went over to the Roman side. In 71 C.E. he traveled to Rome with Titus, a Roman general and future emperor, where he was granted Roman citizenship and a pension. From this point on, he was known as Titus Flavius Josephus, the first two names having been chosen to honor his new patrons. While in Rome, he wrote a history of the revolt titled The Jewish War. Seen by many later commentators as a self-serving effort to justify his own treachery, Josephus’s work nonetheless offers unique and valuable insights into Roman warfare. As a Jewish general, Josephus knew what it was like to face the Romans in battle. As an adviser to the Romans, he also came to know how the war in Judaea looked from a Roman perspective. In the first of these two extracts, Josephus describes his efforts to raise an army in Galilee. In the second, he describes the siege of Jotapata.

Preparing an Army to Fight the Romans

Josephus on arriving in Galilee gave first priority to securing the good-will of the inhabitants, knowing that this would serve him in very good stead even if some things went wrong. He saw that he would win the support of the leading men if he shared his authority with them, and of the people in general if he issued his instructions mainly through the channel of well-known residents. So he chose seventy elderly men, the most sensible he could find in the country, and put them in charge of the whole of Galilee, appointing also seven magistrates in every town to settle petty quarrels, on the understanding that major disputes and cases of homicide should be referred to himself and the seventy. When he had made these rules for settling the internal problems of the cities, he turned his attention to their safety from external foes. Realizing that the Romans would invade Galilee first, he fortified the most defensible positions, Jota-pota, Bersabe and Selame, Caphareccho, Japha and Sigopb, Mt Tabor, Tarichaeae and Tiberias, next fortifying the caverns near Lake Gennesareth in Lower Galilee, and in Upper Galilee the rock called Acchabaron, Seph, Jamnith, and Mero. In Gaulonitis he strengthened the defences of Seleucia, Soganaea, and Gamala. Only in Sepphoris were the citizens invited to build a wall on their own responsibility: Josephus saw that they had ample means and that their enthusiasm for the war needed no stimulus. In the same way Gischala was fortified by John, son of Levi, on his own responsibility at the request of Josephus. The building of all the other strongholds was personally supervised by Josephus, who directed the work and himself lent a hand. He also raised in Galilee a force of over 100,000 young men, equipping them all with old weapons that he had got together.

Josephus knew that the invincible might of Rome was chiefly due to unhesitating obedience and to practice in arms. He despaired of providing similar instruction, demanding as it did a long period of training; but he saw that the habit of obedience resulted from the number of their officers, and he now reorganized his army on the Roman model, appointing more junior commanders than before. He divided the soldiers into different classes, and put them under decurions and centurions, those being subordinate to tribunes, and the tribunes to commanders of larger units. He taught them how to pass on signals, how to sound the advance and the retreat, how to make flank attacks and encircling movements, and how a victorious unit could relieve one in difficulties and assist any who were hard pressed. He explained all that contributed to toughness of body or fortitude of spirit. Above all he trained them for war by stressing Roman discipline at every turn: they would be facing men who by physical prowess and unshakable determination had conquered almost the entire world. He would feel certain of their soldierly qualities even before they went into action, if they refrained from their besetting sins of theft, banditry, and looting, from defrauding their countrymen, and from regarding as personal gain the misfortunes of their closest friends. For if those who went to war had a clear conscience, victory was certain; but men whose private life was smirched had not only human enemies but God to contend with. To this effect he exhorted them continually. The army he had raised and trained for battle numbered 60,000 foot and 250 horse, together with the troops he trusted most, about 4,500 professional soldiers. He had also 600 picked men as a personal bodyguard. Maintenance for all except the professionals was easily obtained from the towns, as only half the conscripts from each town served with the colours, the rest staying behind to supply them with rations; thus one party was detailed for combatant duty, the other for fatigues, and those who provided the food were repaid by the combatants with security.

The Siege of Jotapata

Jotapata is almost entirely perched on a precipice, cut off on three sides by ravines of such extraordinary depth that when people look down into them their sight cannot reach the bottom. The only access is from the north, where the town is built up to the lowest slope of the mountain. This slope Josephus had included when he built the walls, so that the enemy could not occupy the ridge which commanded the town. This a ring of heights screened so effectively that until a man was actually inside it could not be seen at all. Such were the bastions of Jotapata.

Vespasian was not going to be defeated either by the natural strength of the place or by the daring resistance of the Jews; he determined to prosecute the siege more vigorously and called a meeting of senior officers to plan the assault. It was resolved to build a platform against the approachable section of the wall, so Vespasian sent out the whole army to collect material. The heights round the town were stripped of their trees, and along with the timber a mountain of stones was piled up. Then as a shelter from missiles descending from above a second party erected a line of hurdles supported by uprights and constructed the platform under their shelter, the bombardment from the walls causing few if any casualties. A third party tore up the hillocks near by and kept up a constant supply of earth to the builders. Thus with the men working in three groups nobody was idle. Meanwhile the Jews launched great rocks from the walls on to the enemy’s screens, together with every kind of missile; even when they failed to reach their mark the noise was frightful and hindered the work.

Vespasian next set up his projectile-throwers in a ring—160 engines in all—and gave instructions to bombard the men on the wall. In a synchronized barrage the catapults shot lances into the air, and stones weighing nearly a hundredweight were discharged from stone-throwers, together with firebrands and a dense shower of arrows, driving the Jews not only from the wall but also from the area inside traversed by the missiles; for a host of Arab bowmen with all the javelinmen and slingers let fly at the same time as the artillery. The defenders, however, though unable to retaliate from the ramparts were by no means idle. They made swift sallies in company strength guerrilla-fashion, tore away the screens that sheltered the working-party, and assailed them in their unprotected state; and whenever the Romans retired they broke up the platform and set light to the uprights and hurdles. This continued till Vespasian realized that the lack of continuity in the earthworks was the cause of the trouble, since the gaps provided the Jews with an avenue of attack. He then linked the screens together and at the same time concentrated his forces, bringing so an end the Jewish penetrations.

As the platform was now rising and had almost reached the battlements, Josephus, thinking it disgraceful if he failed to invent some counter-device to save the town, collected stone-masons and instructed them to raise the wall higher. When they declared that it was impossible to build under such a hail of missiles, he devised protection for them as follows. He ordered the men to fix railings to the wall and over these to stretch raw oxhides, so that when the stones hurled by the engines fell on them they would give without splitting; other types of missile would glance off them and firebrands would be quenched by their moisture. Thus protected the builders worked in safety day and night. They raised the wall to a height of thirty feet, built towers on it at short intervals, and completed it with a stout parapet. At this the Romans, who had fancied themselves already inside the town, were plunged into despondency; the resourcefulness of Josephus and the determination of the defenders amazed them. Vespasian was exasperated both by the cleverness of the stratagem and by the fearlessness of the townsmen, who, encouraged by the new fortifications, resumed their night sorties against the Romans and in the daytime engaged them at company strength. Every device of guerrilla war was brought into play, everything in their path was plundered, and the rest of the besiegers’ works were set on fire. At length Vespasian recalled his troops from the battle and determined to blockade the town till starvation forced it to surrender; for the defenders would either be compelled by lack of provisions to beg for mercy, or if they held out to the bitter end would die of starvation. He was confident that he would overwhelm them much more easily on the battlefield if he waited awhile and made a fresh onslaught when they were exhausted. He therefore ordered watch to be kept on the sally-ports.

Inside there was plenty of corn and all other necessaries except salt, but the water-supply was inadequate as there was no spring within the walls and the townsfolk depended on rainwater—and little or no rain falls in the district during summer. As it was at that season that the siege took place they were terribly despondent at the prospect of having nothing to drink, and fretting already as if the water-supply had failed completely. For Josephus, seeing that the town had all other necessaries in abundance and that morale was high, and wishing to pin down the besiegers longer than they expected, had rationed his men’s drink from the beginning. They, however, found this husbanding of resources harder to bear than actual shortage; unable to please themselves they felt the craving the more acutely, and as if they had already reached the last degree of thirst they began to flag. Their condition could not be hidden from the Romans. From the rising ground they looked over the wall and saw the Jews collecting in one spot to receive their water-ration; so they made this spot the target for their quick-loaders, causing very heavy losses. Vespasian hoped that before long the tanks would be empty and the surrender of the town would inevitably follow. But Josephus, determined to shatter this hope, ordered numbers of men to soak their outer garments and hang them round the battlements, so that the whole wall suddenly ran with water. The result was despondency and consternation in the Roman ranks, when they saw such a quantity of water thrown away in jest by men who were thought to have nothing to drink. The commander-in-chief himself despaired of capturing the town through shortage and reverted to armed onslaught. Nothing could have pleased the Jews better; for they had long despaired of saving the town or themselves, and dreaded hunger and thirst far more than death in battle.

Josephus, however, devised a second stratagem to obtain more supplies than he needed. Down a gully well-nigh impassable and consequently overlooked by the Roman guards, and along the western portion of the valley, he sent out messengers who delivered letters to Jews outside with whom he wished to make contact and brought back their answers, together with ample supplies of all necessaries that the town lacked. The messengers were instructed to crawl past the guard-posts as a rule, and to cover their backs with sheepskins so that if anyone did see them in the night they would be mistaken for dogs. But after a while the pickets detected the device and blocked the gully.

Source: Josephus, The Jewish War, trans. G. A. Williamson (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 171–172, 192–195.

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