The Histories

At the start of 70 AD, Titus was leading a large military force in Judea and beginning to besiege the city of Jerusalem. Tacitus decides to place the rebellion that led to this siege in its context.

Tacitus starts with the origin of the Jewish people, for which he provides multiple possible stories. He claims that the most common explanation is that the Jewish people were exiled from Egypt when they were cursed by a disease because of divine disfavor. They were led out of Egypt by Moses, who took them to Judea, where they settled. Moses, Tacitus says, also prescribed new religious rights to strengthen the bonds between the people.

Tacitus describes Jewish customs by saying that “everything that [the Romans] hold sacred is regarded as sacrilegious” (146). He says that Jewish people display the image of a donkey in their temple, sacrifice rams to mock the god Hammon, abstain from eating pork because pigs were infected with the same disease that led to them being removed from Egypt, fast to remember the hunger they went through, and eat unleavened bread to remember the hurried meal they had before leaving Egypt. He also notes that they set aside the seventh day of the week to mark the end of their movement to Egypt. He believes that Jewish people now devote this day to indolence. Whatever the origins of their practices, Tacitus says that they are old traditions. He also says that Jewish people are kind to each other but hostile toward the outside world. Their practice of circumcision is to mark them out from others. Tacitus then notes that they have similar beliefs about the afterlife to Egyptians, which is why they bury their dead, but unlike Egyptians, they believe in one God (Tacitus theorizes that this God is the Roman Bacchus).

Judea, the Roman province in which Jewish people live, is bordered by Arabia in the East, Egypt in the South, the Mediterranean and Phoenicia on the West, and Syria in the North. The Jewish people are described as physically healthy and well adapted to live in this hot area. Jerusalem itself is described as having a large defensive wall, a royal palace, and the temple, which has fortifications of its own.

Moving on to Jewish history, Tacitus says that the Jewish kingdom was established while the Seleucids and Parthians were weak. Pompey later conquered the Jewish kingdom and was able to enter the temple in triumph. The boundaries of this kingdom were expanded under Mark Antony and Augustus, but they rebelled during Caligula’s reign because he tried to have his own statue installed in temples. Caligula was assassinated before this rebellion grew, but another rebellion broke out during the reign of Nero. After some initial victories, Vespasian led the Romans in confiding this rebellion to Jerusalem but then became focused on his civil war. This was the situation Titus faced.

Titus and the forces in Jerusalem clashed outside the gates for a few days until he was able to force them within the walls. The city’s defensive works ensured that the siege would be difficult, and it had many supplies, which made starving it out hard. Within the city, there were three factions, which clashed with each other often. They were only temporarily cooperating because of the siege. Tacitus records a rumor that within the city, people saw a flashing in the sky, which the citizens felt predestined their triumph. Tacitus leaves the narrative of the siege with Titus building siege works.