2. The Road to Destruction

The seeds of this disaster were planted decades before the first Roman soldier ever set foot outside Jerusalem's walls. To understand what happened in AD 70, you have to go back to AD 6, when Rome decided it was done playing nice with Jewish sensibilities.

For years, Rome had allowed Judea to maintain the fiction of independence under client kings—local rulers who technically governed their own people but ultimately answered to Caesar. It was a convenient arrangement. Rome got what it wanted (taxes, stability, and strategic control) without having to deal with the messy details of actually running the place. But in AD 6, that arrangement fell apart. Rome converted Judea into a full province, governed directly by Roman prefects (later called procurators) appointed by the emperor.

And that's when the trouble really started.

These Roman governors were a mixed bag, but most of them shared one fatal flaw: they had no idea how to handle the Jews. Or worse, they didn't care. Take Pontius Pilate, for instance—yes, that Pilate, the one who washed his hands of Jesus. He governed from AD 26 to 36, and he seemed to go out of his way to provoke Jewish outrage. He brought military standards bearing the emperor's image into Jerusalem—a direct violation of Jewish law against graven images. He raided the Temple treasury to fund an aqueduct project. He showed nothing but contempt for Jewish religious scruples. When a Samaritan religious gathering got out of hand, his response was so brutal that Rome finally recalled him.

But Pilate was just the beginning. The governors who followed him were often worse.

Antonius Felix, who ruled from AD 52 to 60, faced a new kind of threat: the Sicarii, or "dagger men." These Jewish zealots would melt into crowds in the marketplace, pull out concealed daggers, and assassinate Romans or Jewish collaborators before disappearing back into the throng. Felix's answer was brutal suppression, which only fed the cycle of violence. His successor, Porcius Festus, tried a more moderate approach, but he died after just two years in office. Then came Albinus (AD 62-64), who was so corrupt he literally sold justice to the highest bidder. Need a prisoner released? Pay Albinus. Want charges dropped? Pay Albinus. The man turned the governor's office into a marketplace.

But the final straw—the match that lit the powder keg—was Gessius Florus.

Florus took office in AD 64, and according to Josephus, our main source for this period, he was the worst of them all. Josephus suggests that Florus actually wanted to provoke a rebellion to cover up his own corruption. Whether that's true or not, Florus certainly acted like a man trying to start a war. In May of AD 66, he seized seventeen talents from the Temple treasury—a massive sum—claiming it was for back taxes. When Jewish leaders protested, Florus unleashed his troops on Jerusalem. They plundered part of the city. They crucified Jewish citizens, including some who held Roman citizenship—a flagrant violation of Roman law that should have protected them.

The city exploded.