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"THE HISTORY OF THE ARCH and THE SIEGE OF
JERUSALEM"
TITUS'
ARCH |
The
Arch of Titus or in latin "Arcus Titi" was erected in
81 CE after Titus' death to commemorate his victory in Judea in
70 CE. where he fought together with his father Vespasiano. Jewish
people defended themselves from the Roman attack but more than
six hundreds thousands people died and survivors started what
we call jewish diaspora. Titus anyway is considered today the
last good emperor of the ancient Rome and many historians remembered
Titus as a merciful person. So what is the truth? We believe a
very important thing to understand the situation in Palestina
and the fact that Roman Empire was not in a perfect shape since
the Augusto's death. Most of emperors of family Giulia-Claudia
died murdered and many of them were remembered not certainly as
good people. The civil war nearly was a normal daily fact both
in Rome and Italy and many provinces strongly wanted to obtain
their indipendence. Jewish certainly was not the strongest or
the most warlike population in that time but they never accepted
any domination willingly during the past as others populations
did accepting Roman lays and even becoming cityzens of the empire.
This was not the case of Jewish, they were considered by Romans
a sort of religious fanatics. And the truth was not very far from
here. At the beginning Titus tried to find a compromise with Jewish
hoping they finally accepted to be included in the Roman Empire.
But on the other side the oath was already done: fighting till
the victory or the death. They were in short fighting a religious
war. Romans never accepted this kind of behaviour by their opponents
in their history. The motto for them was "kill superbs and
forgive won people" but here the opponent did not want to
give up so the final decision was the Jewish slaughter and the
demolition of Jerusalem and the Temple. The siege lasted many
days and we have a precise descripition of the facts by Joseph
Matatias who was captured in the besieged city of Jotopata and
later lived in Rome where changed his name in Giuseppe Flavio
to thanks the Flavi dinasty. During the siege Titus sent Giuseppe
many times at the bottom of Jerusalem walls to persuade rebels
to accept the surrender in exchange of life but all the times
they refused. The hunger did the worst part of the job: sons died
before parents, rebels killed people for a piece of bread and
those who managed to flee from the city once arrived to the Roman
field immediately died after eating as their stomaches were not
accostumed anymore to the food. Then Romans, after many attempts
entered in Jerusalem destroying everything and killing all the
population. All the houses were demolished as well as the temple
and the walls of the city. Only a wall was left, the famous "Tears
Wall" still visible today. The leaders of the rebellion were
brought to Rome and beheaded during the triumph held in Rome in
71 CE. Titus later became emperor in 79 CE just for two years.
During his government he never passed death sentence and Pompei
was destroyed by famous eruction of Vesuvius in 79 CE. When he
died entire Rome cried but Domiziano (81-96 CE), his brother. |
