The Final Assault

September.

With the Temple destroyed, only the upper city remained in rebel hands. Simon bar Giora and John of Gischala, the surviving factional leaders, continued to resist from the palaces and fortifications of the upper city. But their position was hopeless. The Romans constructed new siege ramps and brought their engines to bear on the remaining walls.

On September 26, the Romans breached the walls of the upper city. What followed was a massacre.

Roman soldiers, enraged by the long siege and the loss of comrades, showed no mercy. They killed indiscriminately, slaughtering combatants and non-combatants alike. The streets ran with blood. Josephus describes the Romans as wading through corpses, the city so filled with dead that there was no room to walk without stepping on bodies.

The Romans systematically demolished Jerusalem's fortifications, leaving only three towers—Phasael, Hippicus, and Mariamne—as monuments to the city's former strength and to demonstrate what Roman power had overcome. The rest of the city was razed. Titus ordered that Jerusalem be plowed under, leaving almost no trace of the once-magnificent city.