![[Arch_of_Titus_Menorah.png]] *Detail of the Arch of Titus, erected in Rome in 81, showing the looting of the Jerusalem Temple and theft of its solid gold menorah.* The new emperor's son Titus (who had been with him in the campaign from its start and who would become the first emperor to inherit the throne from his biological father) besieged Jerusalem for five months in 70. Starvation may have killed up to half a million people before the city was conquered, the Temple burned, and 97,000 residents were enslaved. Vespasian, who had inherited an empty treasury from Nero, brought home tens of thousands of talents as loot from the Levant. This wealth financed the building of the Colosseum and aid for refugees from the eruption of Vesuvius. A small community of Jesus' followers, the first Christians, seem not to have been involved and had probably already left the region. The destruction of the Temple and Vespasian's banning of Jews from Jerusalem, along with the halving of the Jewish population from about 3 million to 1.5 million, accelerated the diaspora of the Jewish people. This dispersion of Jewish people into foreign cultures had begun with the Assyrian conquest and Babylonian Captivities. By the second century, Jews had recovered to about 5 million, but only 10% lived in Palestine. ![[Colosseum_Ses_Titus_80AD.jpg]] *[Sestertius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestertius "Sestertius") of Titus celebrating the inauguration of the Colosseum (minted 80 CE)* One of the final holdouts in the Revolt was the fortress of Masada, which had been built in 37 BCE by King Herod on the edge of the Judean Desert. Standing 1300 feet above the Dead Sea, the fortress had a two mile perimeter wall with 28 watchtowers and cisterns that held 200,000 gallons of water. Although it had been partially abandoned after Herod's death, Zealots and Sicarii (assassins) occupied it and massacred a Roman garrison there, after the fall of Jerusalem. A Roman legion built eight forts and a 6.5 mille wall around the fortress and began a siege that lasted about nine months. In the summer and fall of 72, 10,000 workers carried stones up sheer cliffs to build a 1,400 foot ramp. In April 73, when the Romans stormed the walls via the ramp, they found 960 bodies. The defenders had committed mass suicide, except for two women and five children who had hidden in a cistern, who told the tale. ![[Israel-2013-Aerial_21-Masada 1.jpg]] *Masada, in the Judean Desert, with the Dead Sea in the distance* ----- Next: [[7.18 - Pax Romana]] Back: [[7.16 - First Jewish Revolt]]