Cestius Marches Upon Jerusalem
Cestius’ march into Judea was swift and brutal: Antipatris, to Lydda, and soon outside the walls of Jerusalem. Once there, Cestius took a few days to organize his troops and determine a plan of attack. Much to his initial surprise, though, the zealots in Jerusalem proved not to be the most religiously observant Jews. Given the fact that the previous zealot leaders Menahem had murdered the high priest, this should not have come as a surprise.
Nevertheless, on that Sabbath day, another zealot leader, Simon ben-Giora, led a contingent of Jews in a surprise attack on one of the Roman positions and killed 515 soldiers while losing only 22 men. They then were able to retreat back into the city but continued to wreak havoc from the city walls.
As Cestius was preparing his assault, King Agrippa made one last attempt to convince the zealots to surrender the city and avoid the inevitable bloodshed. And so, he sent two of his men, Barceus and Phebus, into Jerusalem to try to negotiate. They told the zealots that if they surrendered that Cestius would forgive them in an effort to restore peace.
The zealots’ answer was clear: they killed Phebus on the spot. Somehow Barceus managed to escape. Once he made his way back to the Roman camp, Cestius began his assault. In no time at all, Cestius managed to take control of the upper city, while the zealots having retreated to the Temple complex, maintained control of the lower city.
The challenge that faced Cestius was how to get into the Temple complex. Amazingly, there were a handful of Jews in the Temple complex, led by a man named Ananus ben-Johnathan, who saw the peril the zealots had invited upon the city, and who secretly sent a message to Cestius that they were willing to open the gates for him. The offer seemed too good to be true, and Cestius, being highly suspicious, hesitated to take them up on their offer.
It was a missed opportunity that actually led to the murder of Ananus and his men, for when word got back to the zealot leaders of what Ananus was trying to do, they quickly descended upon Ananus and his men, slaughtered them, then threw their bodies off the Temple wall.
Having missed his opportunity, Cestius resorted to having to send his soldiers to try to take the wall by force. For five days the fighting at the gate raged, but eventually, after the fifth days, the Roman soldiers had secured a position by the gate and were ready to set fire to it. The zealots know that once the gate was down, their doom was certain.
The Inexplicable Retreat of Cestius
That is why what happened next was utterly inexplicable. The next morning, the zealots awoke to find that Cestius and his army was in full retreat. No explanation was given. Even Josephus, in his telling of these events, simply said that Cestius “retired from the city, without any reason in the world.”
What followed was that the zealots suddenly found courage to go on the attack. The result was that during Cestius’ 40-mile retreat from Jerusalem back to Antipatris, the rebels relentlessly cut down Cestius’ army from behind. This all happened on the eighth day of Marhesvan (October/November), AD 66.
The Zealots Prepare for the Inevitable
After the retreat of Cestius and the subsequent humiliation of his army during the retreat, many of the eminent Jews in Jerusalem knew that Nero would not stand for such a thing, and so they took the opportunity to flee Jerusalem and, ironically enough, defect to Cestius. Cestius, in the meantime, sent a report to Nero in Achaia to alert him as to the chaos that was enveloping the entire region—and, of course, he was sure to blame Florus the procurator for what had transpired.
Jews throughout the region continued to find themselves the victims of retaliatory actions by Gentiles for the insurrection that had happened by the zealots in Jerusalem. In Damascus alone, 10,000 Jews were slaughtered. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, plans were being made to prepare for the inevitable Roman backlash.
Joseph ben-Gorion and Ananus the high priest were appointed as governors of Jerusalem and were charged with repairing the city walls. Two other men, the high priests Jesus ben-Sapphis and Eleazar ben-Ananias, were appointed as governors of the surrounding areas, and Niger was appointed governor of Idumea.
The city leaders also charged Josephus with travelling to Galilee, to raise an army, to secure the region, and to fortify the strategic places throughout Galilee. And so, Josephus was sent about his task.
The next time Josephus would lay eyes on Jerusalem would be as a defector to the Roman army. Within two years, Josephus the Jewish nationalist would be seen as Josephus the traitor.
