In the year 825 from the founding of the City, when that storm of tyrants — brief indeed, but turbulent — had been dispersed, a tranquil calm returned under the leadership of Vespasian.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXV, breui illa quidem sed turbida tyrannorum tempestate discussa, tranquilla sub Vespasiano duce serenitas rediit.
For, to go back a little further: the Jews, wholly forsaken by the grace of God after the passion of Christ and beset on every side by every kind of evil, were led astray by certain oracles on Mount Carmel which foretold that leaders arising from Judaea would gain the mastery of the world; and, applying the prediction to themselves, they blazed up into rebellion, wiped out the Roman garrisons, and put to flight the legate of Syria too as he brought help, seizing his eagle and cutting down his forces.
2 namque, ut paulo altius repetam, Iudaei post passionem Christi destituti in totum gratia Dei cum omnibus undique malis circumuenirentur, quibusdam in Carmelo monte seducti sortibus, quae portenderent exortos a Iudaea duces rerum potituros fore, praedictumque ad se trahentes in rebellionem exarserunt extinctisque Romanis praesidiis legatum quoque Syriae suppetias ferentem rapta aquila et caesis copiis fugauerunt.
Vespasian, sent against them by Nero, had his elder son Titus among his legates; for he took many strong legions across with him into Syria. And so, when he had captured many of their towns and had shut up the Jews under siege in the city of Jerusalem, where they had gathered chiefly on account of a festival, on learning of Nero’s death he obtained the empire at the urging of very many kings and generals — above all on the word of Josephus, a leader of the Jews, who, when he was captured and being thrown into chains, had declared most steadfastly, as Suetonius relates, that he would soon be released by the same man, but as emperor. Leaving his son Titus in the camp to conduct the siege of Jerusalem, he set out for Rome by way of Alexandria; but on learning that Vitellius had been killed, he stayed for a little while at Alexandria.
3 ad hos Vespasianus a Nerone missus Titum filium suum maiorem inter legatos habuit; nam multas et ualidas legiones secum in Syriam traiecit. itaque cum Iudaeos multis eorum oppidis captis in urbem Hierosolymorum praecipue ob diem festum congregatos obsidione clausisset, cognita Neronis morte hortatu plurimorum regum et ducum - maxime Iosephi Iudaeorum ducis sententia, qui captus cum in uincla coiceretur, constantissime dixerat, sicut Suetonius refert, continuo se ab eodem sed imperatore soluendum - imperium adeptus est, relictoque in castris ad procurationem obsidionis Hierosolymorum filio Tito, per Alexandriam profectus est Romam; sed cognita interfectione Vitelli paulisper Alexandriae substitit.
Titus, pressing the Jews with a great and long siege, at last broke through the walls of the city with engines and every kind of military work, not without much bloodshed among his own men. But to storm the inner fortification of the temple, which a multitude of priests and leading men, shut up within, was defending, greater force and longer delay were needed.
4 Titus uero magna ac diuturna obsidione Iudaeos premens, machinis cunctisque bellicis molibus non sine multo suorum sanguine tandem muros ciuitatis inrupit. sed ad expugnandam interiorem templi munitionem, quam reclusa multitudo sacerdotum ac principum tuebatur, maiore ui et mora opus fuit.
When, however, it had been brought into his power, and he gazed upon it in wonder at its workmanship and antiquity, he deliberated for a long time whether he should burn it, as an incitement to the enemy, or preserve it as a witness to his victory. But since the Church of God was already springing up most abundantly throughout the whole world, this temple, as something worn out and empty and fit for no good use, was to be taken away by the judgement of God.
5 quod tamen postquam in potestatem redactum opere atque antiquitate suspexit, diu deliberauit utrum tamquam incitamentum hostium incenderet an in testimonium uictoriae reseruaret. sed Ecclesia Dei iam per totum orbem uberrime germinante, hoc tam quam effetum ac uacuum nullique usui bono commodum arbitrio Dei auferendum fuit.
And so Titus, proclaimed emperor by the army, burned and demolished the temple in Jerusalem, which had stood for 1,102 years from the day of its first founding to the day of its final overthrow. All the walls of the city he levelled with the ground.
6 itaque Titus, imperator ab exercitu pronuntiatus, templum in Hierosolymis incendit ac diruit, quod a die conditionis primae usque ad diem euersionis ultimae manserat annis mille centum et duobus. muros urbis uniuersos solo adaequauit.
Cornelius and Suetonius report that 600,000 Jews were killed in that war; but Josephus, a Jew, who was then in command in that war and had earned pardon and favour with Vespasian for having foretold his empire, writes that 1,100,000 perished by the sword and by famine, and that the remnants of the Jews, driven off under various conditions, were scattered over the whole world: their number is said to have come to 90,000 people.1
7 sexcenta milia Iudaeorum eo bello interfecta Cornelius et Suetonius referunt; Iosephus uero Iudaeus, qui ei tunc bello praefuit et apud Vespasianum propter praedictum imperium ueniam gratiamque meruerat, scribit undecies centena milia gladio et fame perisse, reliquias uero Iudaeorum diuersis actas condicionibus toto orbe dispersas: quarum numerus ad nonaginta milia hominum fuisse narratur.
1Tacitus (Histories 5.13) gives 600,000 as the number of people besieged in Jerusalem, not of the dead; Josephus (Jewish War 6.420) gives 1,100,000 dead and 97,000 prisoners.
The emperors Vespasian and Titus entered the City celebrating a magnificent triumph over the Jews. Among the 320 triumphs that had been celebrated from the founding of the City up to that time, this was a spectacle beautiful and hitherto unknown to all mortals: father and son, borne in one triumphal chariot, carrying off a most glorious victory over those who had offended the Father and the Son.
8 Vespasianus et Titus imperatores magnificum agentes de Iudaeis triumphum urbem ingressi sunt. pulchrum et ignotum antea cunctis mortalibus inter trecentos uiginti triumphos, qui a conditione urbis usque in id tempus acti erant, hoc spectaculum fuit, patrem et filium uno triumphali curru uectos gloriosissimam ab his, qui Patrem et Filium offenderant, uictoriam reportasse.
Immediately, having suppressed all wars and tumults at home and abroad, they proclaimed the peace of the whole world, and decreed that twin Janus be shut up behind bolted doors — only the sixth time since the founding of the City. For rightly was the same honour bestowed on the avenging of the Lord’s passion as had been granted to his nativity.
9 qui continuo omnibus bellis ac tumultibus domi forisque conpressis pacem totius orbis pronuntiauerunt et Ianum geminum obseratis cohiberi claustris sexto demum ipsi post urbem conditam censuerunt. iure enim idem honos ultioni passionis Domini inpensus est, qui etiam natiuitati fuerat adtributus.
Then, after that, without any tumults of wars, the Roman commonwealth was carried forward to an immense extent: for Achaea, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium, Samos, Thrace, Cilicia and Commagene were then for the first time reduced to provinces and obeyed Roman judges and laws.
10 tunc deinde sine ullis bellorum tumultibus in inmensum respublica Romana prouehitur: siquidem Achaia Lycia Rhodus Byzantium Samus Thracia Cilicia Commagene tunc primum redactae in prouincias Romanis iudicibus legibusque paruerunt.
In the ninth year of his rule, however, three cities of Cyprus collapsed in an earthquake, and there was a great pestilence at Rome.
11 Nono autem imperii eius anno tres ciuitates Cypri terrae motu corruerunt et Romae magna pestilentia fuit.
Vespasian died of a flux of the bowels at his own villa in the Sabine country, in the ninth year of his principate.
12 Vespasianus autem in uilla propria circa Sabinos nono anno principatus sui profluuio uentris est mortuus.
In the year 828 from the founding of the City, Titus — the eighth from Augustus, if Otho and Vitellius are set apart from the number of the princes — reigned for two years after Vespasian. Such was the tranquillity of his rule that he is reported to have shed no one’s blood at all in governing the commonwealth.
13 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXVIII Titus, segregatis a numero principum Othone et Vitellio ab Augusto octauus, biennio post Vespasianum regnauit. cuius tanta tranquillitas in imperio fuit, ut nullius omnino sanguinem in republica administranda fudisse referatur.
And yet at that time a fire suddenly broke out at Rome and very many public buildings were burned down. They say too that the summit of Mount Vesuvius then burst open and poured forth great fires, and with torrents of flame destroyed the neighbouring parts of the region together with their cities and people.2
14 et tamen tunc Romae orto repente incendio plurimae aedes publicae concrematae sunt. abruptum tunc etiam Bebii montis uerticem magna profudisse incendia ferunt torrentibusque flammarum uicina regionis cum urbibus hominibusque delesse.
2Orosius writes Bebius mons. The eruption of AD 79 buried Pompeii and Herculaneum; the fire at Rome followed in 80.
Titus was carried off by disease, amid the vast grief of all, in the same villa as his father.
15 Titus cum ingenti omnium luctu in eadem uilla, qua pater eius, morbo absumptus est.