His biographer was enthusiastic: “He was the darling and the delight of the human race.” However, there were two groups in the Roman Empire who did not easily subscribe to the historian Suetonius’ characterization of Emperor Titus (39-81). On the one hand there were the senators and knights who had fallen victim to the praetorians when Titus had still commanded the imperial guard. The others were the Jews. Because on September 7th of the year 70, the legions under Titus’ command stormed the last pockets of resistance in Jerusalem and thus ended the great Jewish uprising.
At his birth in 39, no contemporary would have believed that Titus would succeed in such a steep career. The Flavian family had been chivalrous businessmen in the central Italian provinces and their political ambitions had hardly been noticed until now. This was probably the reason why Titus was brought to court as a playmate for the son of Emperor Claudius, Britannicus. Both are said to have been so close friends that Titus also drank from the poisoned cup that killed him. But Titus survived.
The conviction that the Flavians would never make it into the better circles of Rome also propelled the career of Titus’ father Vespasian. As a prudent and reliable officer, he rose to the rank of legate (general) and fought successfully in Germania and Britain. In gratitude, the emperors also opened up a senatorial career for him, which led him to the position of suffect consul, who only held office for a few months.
Nero, who had every reason to fear conspiracies, gave Vespasian the proconsulship for the rich province of Africa in 63/64 and placed him in 67 at the head of the army tasked with putting down the Jewish rebellion that had broken out the year before. Until then, nothing had indicated that the general might reach for the purple.
Titus commanded one of the first three legions with which his father gradually subdued Judea. When the commander of the city of Jotapata, Josephus, was taken captive, he prophesied to Vespasian that he would soon become emperor. However, it is questionable whether the general needed this confirmation. In 68 Nero was overthrown and three generals started the civil war to succeed him. It is said to have been Titus who engineered an alliance with the powerful governor of Syria, who commanded the Roman Army of the Orient. In it, the two generals agreed that the legions of the East should also send a candidate into the race for the throne: Vespasian.
When he made his way to Rome, where he was proclaimed emperor in 69, he gave Titus command of the army, which was meanwhile preparing for the siege of Jerusalem. Josephus, meanwhile accepted among the Flavian clientele, described the battles in detail in his History of the Jewish War. As a Jew, he not only focused on the advances of the Romans, but also described the appalling conditions inside the city.
Civil war was raging in Jerusalem. There was no longer any regard for living relatives, and no more burying the dead: “The friends of peace murdered them as common enemies, so that the only thing they agreed on was the slaughter of those who deserved salvation… no kind of.” They undid cruelty.”
The energy with which those trapped pursued their self-mutilation says something about the reasons that led to the great uprising in 66. 60 years earlier, Rome had made Judea a province. As a neighboring country to the important province of Syria, Judea and the neighboring dominions of Herod’s descendants led a shadowy existence in which social tensions became increasingly acute. The Roman governors also played their part in this, by using their terms of office to increase their finances.
The earthly conflicts found their expression in faith. While most of the imperial subjects gave what was the emperor’s, many Jews increasingly sought salvation from the God of their fathers. But the greater the need became, the more violent the argument raged about how Yahweh’s will was to be interpreted.
While high priests, Herodians and their followers pleaded for peaceful cooperation with the Romans, those who saw the cause of all misfortune in self-inflicted godlessness and who were convinced that the Messiah would soon arrive gained the upper hand in the countryside and in the urban slums. In this sense, these zealots (Greek: zealots) launched guerrilla warfare against the oppressors and terrorized those of their fellow faith who disagreed with them. When the procurator Gessius Florus saw the only chance in the general chaos to get his mite dry by reaching into the Jerusalem temple treasury, the great uprising broke out.
Four years later the country was a desert of rubble. With 60,000 soldiers, four legions and numerous auxiliaries, Titus surrounded Jerusalem. But within the walls the slaughter continued. First, the Zealots killed the traditional elites, the families of the high priests and the members of the Council. Then they fought each other.
While one group terrorized the Upper City and parts of the Lower City, another occupied the Temple Mount. Both allied themselves against the third party, which had entrenched themselves in the inner courtyard of the temple. When its gates were opened for a festival, a bloodbath ensued. Only then did the two victors agree to coordinate their defensive efforts against the Romans.
They, too, had lost all their inhibitions. Those trapped who stole out of the city to find something to eat were taken prisoner and “each nailed to the cross in a different position,” writes Josephus. “Soon there was not enough space for crosses and crosses.” When the order to attack was finally given, “the attacking frenzy of the invading legions could not be stopped by admonitions or threats. In the great crowd the dead gathered around the altar of burnt offerings. Blood poured down the steps of the temple, followed by the sliding bodies of those killed above.”
The upper town held out until September 7th, when it too fell into Roman hands. All survivors were enslaved or killed, and the city was completely destroyed. The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum bears witness to their triumphal procession, which Vespasian and Titus celebrated in Rome in 71. At the same time, the Flavians invested their spoils in a popular symbol of their rule, the Colosseum.
Titus resisted all temptations to seize power prematurely, content as co-regent to be his father’s most important support. This also meant that as a praetorian prefect he “earned the greatest hatred” and that “hardly anyone ever ascended the throne who was so badly said of,” writes Suetonius.
The surprise was all the greater when Titus succeeded Vespasian in June 79. The angel of death became a philanthropist. “Like no other, he held the property of others sacred and was not inferior in generosity to any of his predecessors” (Suetonius). He proved that when, after the serious eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79, he immediately rushed to the disaster area and used power and wealth to rebuild it. The high point of his brief reign was the inauguration of the Coliseum, with splendid games in which many prisoners of war probably had their last performance.
Just a year later, Titus died of a severe fever. Contemporaries were sure that his younger brother Domitian had a hand in it. His – to put it mildly – controversial rule ensured that the short time under Titus was soon remembered as golden years.
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