It was now time for Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, to interfere. Ile came from Antioch with the twelfth legion, burnt on his way the town of Lidda, and at Bethhoron engaged without result a large body of the rebels who had gone to meet him. He afterwards pushed on towards the city, and encamped for three days at Scopus, a few fur longs off, hoping that the moderate party would propose conditions of surrender. He then made his way into the new suburb, which he occupied, forcing the Jews to take refuge within the walls surrounding the Temple and the inner city. For six days he assaulted the wall without success, and then, apparently without cause, but, as Josephus hints, through the secret influence of Florus, with drew his whole force back to Scopus. Thither he was followed by the now exulting rebels, who spoiled his camp, carried off his war engines, and killed s000 of his troops.
The Jews now began an organized resistance to the sovereign state, and the most important posts throughout the country were assigned to their bravest and best citizens. Josephus, son of Gorion, and the high-priest Ananus had the command at Jerusalem, Josephus the historian in Galilee, and Eleazar in Iturea. And, Cestius„ Gallus and Florus being both dead, Nero gave fhe government of Syria to Vespasian, who desired his son Titus to come to him from Egypt with the seventh and tenth legions.
Father and son met at Ptolemais in the winter of A. D. 66-7, and during the following summer and autumn the important places of the country fell one after another into their hands. Among the rest Jotapata, with its governor Joseplms the historian, who was made prisoner, but treated with respect ; and Giscala, whose chief, John, the subsequently famous John of Giscala, escaped to Jerusalem. That unhappy city in the meantime became the most frightful scene of civil strife and violence. It comprised two great parties, those who wished for order and peace, and those who, guided by wild fanaticism or rapacity, thirsted only for deeds of violence. These latter were now known by the general name of zealots, and were not less dreaded by the quieter citizens than the Romans themselves. while they were ever ready to split into new fac tions and fall upon one another like wild beasts. This was the state of things in the summer of 68, when Vespasian, who had now approached Jeru salem, hearing of the death of Nero, sent Titus for fresh orders from his successor Galba. It was about the same time that the quieter party in Jeru salem, unable to bear the excesses of the zealots led by Eleazar and by John of Giscala, invited Simon, son of Gioras, the leader of a band of marauding Galileans. to come to their assistance, In the middle of the following year Vespasian himself was made emperor and went to Rome. Titus devoted the remainder of it to active preparations for the siege, and, when the city was crowded with the multitudes who came up for the Feast of the Pass over which was to occur in April A. D. 70, he drew up his forces and placed them on the heights which lay to the north and east of Jerusalem, three legions on Scopus and one on the Mount of Olives. When the ground between Scopus and the city was cleared of obstruction, and made fit for the march of an army, the three legions advanced forward, and bearing to the west, made their attack on one of the western faces of Agrippa's wall, in order, as Cestius had done three years and a half before, to break into the new suburb. But the besieged were
now better prepared for resistance, and what Cestius seems to have accomplished by escalade, was not done without the aid of catapult and battering-mm and the erection of mounds surmounted by lofty towers, from which the assailants could cast their arrows at the defenders, who on their side sallied out from the gates, fought from the walls, and made good use of the engines they had taken from the Antonia and the camp of Cestius Gallus. At length, however, they were driven back by the missiles discharged from the Roman towers, a breach was made in the wall on the fifteenth day of the siege, the gates were thrown open, and the whole of the Assyrian camp and Bezetha suburb were in the hands of Titus.
This suburb occupying the ground on the north of the city, Titus had three points of attack before him —the upper city facing him on the west, the Temple and its precincts on the east, and the lower city protected by the second wall, cropping out towards him in the middle. Within this second wall Simon had retired. The same efforts were 110W repeated by both parties as at the first wall. The Jews sallied out and attacked their invaders with des perate bravery, the Romans drove them back with equal courage. This went on for five days, and at length a breach was made in the second wall. Titus did as little harm as he could, hoping the people would now surrender, but he entered with a thousand picked men. They were met with de termined obstinacy by constantly increasing num bers in the narrow streets and lanes of the lower city, and were at leng,th obliged to retreat. But Titus repeated his efforts, an entrance was once more effected, and this time he took care to de molish the whole wall, and become master of all that portion of the city which was not surrounded by the first (or innermost) wall, e., the Temple with the Antonia and the adjoining structures, and the upper city. The engines on the Mount of Olives had been hurling their huge projectiles on the Temple and its precincts since the beginrring of the siege, and four great mounds were now erected within the suburb, two facing the Temple and two facing the upper city, to act upon these places from the north. But the two mounds op posite the Temple had been undermined and sunk by the skill and untiring efforts of John of Giscala, and the engines on the other two had been burnt by the no less pertinacious bravery of Simon and his men. This disheartened the Romans a good deal. But in the meantime famine had begun its horrors, and many daily crept out of the city on the sides where it was not invested to seek for food. Great numbers of these wretched people were caught by the Roman soldiers and cruelly scourged and crucified in the sight of their fellow-citizens. At last, to shut out all hope of escape, Titus de termined to surround the city with a wall. This was completed in three days by the united efforts of the whole Roman army; and the siege was then recommenced with fresh vigour.