April – September 70 AD · Judea Theater
April – September 70 AD
Titus encircled Jerusalem with four legions during Passover, when the city was swollen with pilgrims. Inside, rival rebel factions had spent months fighting one another and had burned the city's grain stores. The Romans breached the walls in stages; in August the Second Temple was set ablaze and destroyed. The lower and upper cities fell in turn amid massacre, famine, and fire. Josephus claimed over a million died and tens of thousands were enslaved — figures debated, but the catastrophe was total.
Commanders