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I : The First Revolt, A.D. 66–74
attackers are engrossed in setting up the catapults and ballistae. Josephus tells us that some of the men held back because they believed there was not enough water and supplies to last through a prolonged siege — somewhat contradicting Josephus’s earlier reference to the indigenous spring. The nervously watching townsfolk were eventually persuaded to try to disrupt the positioning of the siege engines. They made a sortie only to be repulsed by bombardment from the engines that were already emplaced. The Romans immediately sought to exploit the retreat and brought up battering rams, which succeeded in breaching the walls at three separate stations. They poured into the breaches, trumpets blaring and shouting while they fiercely threw themselves upon the defenders, who resisted for a while, but then withdrew to the upper, precipitous tiers of the citadel as the Romans tried to outflank them. Regrouping in the upper town, the Jews turned around and counter-attacked the Romans as the latter were tediously winding their way up declivitous passageways through the serpentine, constricted alleys. The Romans, thus penned in below the Jews were sandwiched between the still advancing groups behind and the Jewish rush ahead. Many were cut down or crushed. Many others tried to avoid catastrophe by climbing onto the roofs of the houses, which collapsed under their weight, the toppling debris inflicting yet more casualties on the Romans, as the collapsed buildings higher up avalanched upon the lower structures, collapsing them as well. Jewish attackers, who furnished themselves with swords from fallen legionnaires, cut down those Romans not crushed by the stones. Choking dust hampered the efforts of others to rescue their trapped comrades. The Jews rolled stones and hurled darts down upon any Romans still struggling to extricate themselves from the tangle of bodies and wreckage. Groups of Romans who tried to exit, became lost in the maze of alleyways and sinuous side streets, and blinded by the dust, even attacked their own troops. Vespasian had tried to rally his overwhelmed troops and had in fact scaled a lofty, isolated tier of buildings, where he realized that he was separated from his men and in danger of being surrounded. Uncharacteristically, his son Titus was not at his side. Josephus enigmatically informs us at this moment that Vespasian’s son was up in Antioch at the time on some unspecified mission to Mucianus, who had recently replaced the disgraced Cestius as governor of Syria. Vespasian was able to rally the few men around him into forming a testudo and holding off the Jewish assault long enough to retire down the slopes in good order, facing the enemy and exiting the gates with shields still interlocked. Roman casualties were quite heavy, though Josephus does not give us any numbers here. Josephus divulges that among the fallen was the decurion Aebutius, familiar to us from the pre-invasion skirmishes with Josephus, when the latter was