in far off rome the emperor nero is very displeased with the defeat of cestius gallus
but he realizes that he has to take matters in hand and so he sends a much more significant
general here shown as vespasian to deal with these rebels in judea and at this point we should
introduce very briefly josephus who originally was given command of the northern region in the galil
and he's a very important figure for us because he is the primary historian that we rely upon not
only for the first roman jewish war he wasn't a first person participant in that war and so he's
actually relaying things that he saw himself but he also goes on to a great career as one of the
really important roman historians overall providing a particular a detailed look at judaism
in antiquity and we have had occasion to return to many cases but anyway josephus a fairly young man
is an associated primarily with the pharisees although he had some experience with all of the
relevant groups at the time he's given command of the north very important region but unfortunately
the first that is attacked by vespasian who comes in with 60 000 troops and in space of 67 the year
67 he essentially conquers the entire region in the center there you see the city of yotapata
in modern hebrew yodfat which is uh where josephus was housed and he actually withstood a long siege
of over a month until finally they were forced to surrender as a result of a bizarre suicide pact
that josephus manages to survive he surrenders to vespasian and then convinces vespasian that he can
be a very useful ally for him and a tool for him vespasian ultimately takes josephus at his word
and he ends up becoming kind of like the official jewish expert he in other
words he turns coat he becomes a an ally of the romans betraying his countrymen which makes him
a difficult source to rely on in many ways but nevertheless josephus is our main resource for the
entire period and josephus will describe the rest of the war in jerusalem there's tremendous chaos
the rebel leaders who are active particularly in the galil region in the north flee the conflict
and they make their way to jerusalem where there are now several different competing leaders there
are the leaders of the local aristocracy and the high priesthood who were at the center of what
ended up becoming sort of a provisional government that was set up in the beginning of the war in 66
but the competing factions fight bitterly and in fact execute the heads of united leadership
including the high priest there is tremendous rivalry between all the factions of the zealots
to the point that they not only fight with each other they even burn each other's siege supplies
which turns out to be disastrous because of course vespasian will ultimately organize a siege against
them it gets so awful that the zealots who are based in masada at this time that's a very
important fortress on the uh banks of the dead sea not too far south of jerusalem they actually
attack the nearby village a jewish village of engetti on passover night as a result of these
kind of internal conflicts meanwhile the jews are fighting with each other bitterly in jerusalem and
in the region vespasian takes his time and he mops up the naval resistance at yafo there were several
sea battles there and some smaller conflicts around jerusalem but he leaves jerusalem alone
throughout the year 68. at that point nero dies and there is a very significant competition
in rome for who is going to be the next emperor ultimately vespasian is invited to take that role
and he returns to rome in the year 70. he hands the command over to his son titus also
a very able general who will ultimately bring the battle to its conclusion by attacking jerusalem
itself by the time titus approaches jerusalem there are two main leaders left in the region
shimon bengioria and john of gescala and they're fighting bitterly with each other but when they
realize they're about to be attacked by titos they decide to put aside their differences temporarily
by the time titus arrives there are about 25 000 rebels in the city who are fighting against four
roman legions of about 80 000 battle hardened troops on the map here you can see how the battle
goes uh first vespasian and his forces breached the outer wall in the summer of the year 70. they
enter the northern part of the city and after a week they're able to breach the second wall
that lets them into the the old city towards uh the temple mount which is the primary uh goal of
their advance they attacked the antonia fortress which is this region that was built by herod at
the very north of the temple mount complex you see in that square area there on the center right
but the rebels actually managed to push away the spatian's attack in mid-june of that year
vespasian then turns his attention to building a siege wall all the way around the city in order
to choke off any food supplies that could come in he lets the jews essentially starve for about
two weeks they're softened up by hunger let us not forget that the zealots in their zeal to beat one
another they actually burned most of their siege supply so they did not have extensive foodstuffs
and after about two weeks or so of the uh the impermeable wall being in place then he makes
a second advance in late july of the year 70. the fortress ultimately falls and this results
in the destruction of the temple itself this occurred on the ninth day of the month of of it
would have been in late august of the year 70 and to the present day this particular event is marked
by fasting by jews all around the world they sit on the floor they read the book of lamentations
and they they endure this day of mourning for an event that occurred two thousand years ago
the temple has burned to the ground the fighting would continue throughout jerusalem
but we'll continue with that in the next video thank you for watching