Despite being one of ancient Rome’s most beloved emperors, Titus has garnered only limited interest from modern historians. The reason is likely due to his incredibly short imperial tenure—a little over two years (79-81 AD), but his battlefield successes have proven unforgettable.
Titus enjoyed not one—but two—triumphal arches in Rome celebrating his victories in the First Jewish War, although only one of the arches is still extant (Josephus recorded an extended narrative highlighting Titus’ martial exploits).
Given all of this, Titus has been remembered as a great commander, but a closer reading of the ancient texts reveals a different story. While incredibly accomplished, Titus at times demonstrated himself to be an inexperienced, headstrong, and impetuous general - a stronger commander could have accomplished underwritten objectives more efficiently and effectively.
Minor to Major: Titus Becomes Commandeering
As I outlined in the first-ever comprehensive English biography of the Flavian—Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian—by Titus’ era, much of present-day Israel fell under Rome’s control—either as an official part of the empire or administered by client-kings. However, after years of oppressive rule and egregious mistreatment, a host of Jews revolted in 66 AD, against the Romans.
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This was no minor uprising either. After realizing the revolt’s seriousness, Emperor Nero appointed Vespasian to quell the rebellion. He subsequently assigned his youthful son—Titus—to be one of his deputies and tasked him with leading the 15th Legion.
Very quickly, Vespasian reduced much of Galilee and brought it back into the Roman fold, but Titus only played relatively minor roles at first. These included liaising with the Jewish royal family; serving as a conduit between Vespasian and the Syrian governor Mucianus; and participating in smaller-scale—but nevertheless risky and important—military operations, like the sacking of Japha, Jotapata, Tarichaea, and Gamala.
By late 67 AD, Vespasian decided to give Titus his first major assignment—the sacking of Gischala where John, one of the rebel leaders, was centered—but this turned out to be Titus’ first major blunder. Titus quickly reached Gischala and understood that the city would easily fall to his forces, and he opened negotiations with John. He claimed that he wanted to surrender the town to Titus but couldn’t confer with his comrades and come to an agreement on the matter because it was the Sabbath.
16th century portrait of Roman emperor Vespasian, ruling from 69-79; Titus was his right-hand man, according to the author. (Peter Paul Rubens/Public domain)
Believing that John genuinely respected Jewish customs, Titus granted him another day, but he and his fellow revolutionaries used this reprieve to flee to Jerusalem. Gischala ultimately fell to Titus, but John and many of his men escaped unscathed to Jerusalem where they continued to defy Rome.
This humiliation aside, Vespasian, Titus and their countrymen continued to slowly seize control of more and more Jewish cities, but a shocking sequence of events upset the order in Rome. Nero was deposed, killed himself with the help of a companion, and various claimants vied to be the next emperor.
First Galba seized the throne, then Otho and Vitellius. Aware of these matters, during a period known as “the year of the four emperors,” Vespasian organized a meticulous plan to overthrow Vitellius and establish the Flavian dynasty, and he was successful. Now Rome’s undisputed emperor, Vespasian handed control of the Jewish War to his son.
Jerusalem: The Last Major Stronghold
By this point of the conflict, Jerusalem was the last major stronghold standing in the way of a Roman victory, although the fortresses of Herodium, Masada and Machaerus were still under Jewish control. Leading around 65,000-80,000 soldiers, Titus prepared to besiege Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
When he neared the holy city, he eagerly wanted to reconnoiter it, and he and some of his elite cavalry galloped toward it and, after only briefly scanning the field, saw no danger. That’s when the insurgents sprung their trap and severed his cavalry column.
The majority of the horsemen retreated back to their camp—leaving Titus and a small number of his comrades behind. They desperately fought their way out of the ambush, which could have easily claimed Titus’ life, but a more cautious commander might not have nearly fallen prey in this manner.
As the bulk of Titus’ remaining troops approached Jerusalem, he gave orders to the 10th Legion to make a defensive camp on the nearby Mount of Olives. The soldiers started to follow his directive, but were disorganized and left themselves exposed.
Sensing an opportunity, Jewish rebels filed out of Jerusalem and up the Mount of Olives. The 10th Legion fled in the face of this assault, and Titus and his cavalry had to come to their rescue—pushing the combatants down the hill and into the Kidron Valley.
As fighting drew to a close, Titus left soldiers near the Kidron stream to keep the Jewish combatants at bay and allow the 10th Legion to finish their encampment, and he galloped back to his own bivouac.
With Titus and his cavalry departing, the revolutionaries once again attacked—forcing those guarding the Kidron Valley to withdraw. The 10th Legion saw this disaster-in-the-making but resolved to defend themselves, regardless of the risks. In the process, Titus also recognized the developments, and he and his cavalry were forced to save the day once more.
Titus showed himself to be a brave and adept field commander, but the battle of the Kidron Valley and Mount of Olives laid bare the reality that his legionaries were at times unprepared and undisciplined, which does not reflect well on Titus.
Despite some setbacks, Titus began the long and arduous endeavor of besieging the resplendent city of Jerusalem, which was defended by three different walls and numerous towers. Outside of the first wall, the Romans raised three siege ramps, installed three 75-foot siege towers and battered the wall using rams. Realizing their purpose, the Jewish defenders repeatedly targeted the siege works. Titus personally came to the ramps, towers and engines’ defense, but he may have suffered an injury at this juncture, which left one of his arms permanently weakened.
Titus continued battering the wall until the ram nicknamed Nikon, or “the Conqueror,” broke through the first wall 15 days after the siege began—giving the Romans admittance into part of the city where they demolished a section of the wall to allow the Romans to enter and exit with ease.
Shortly thereafter, Titus gave word to begin battering the second wall. Days later, the Romans breached it, but Titus made another critical error. This time he opted against widening the gap to permit his men to enter and exit in great numbers, and he and a select corps of Romans passed through it.
Defeated Jewish army and citizenry kneeling before the victorious emperor, Titus. (Public domain)
Upon squeezing through the narrow gap, the revolutionaries attacked them from nearly all angles. Some Roman sentries then abandoned their posts, but Titus and his men couldn’t retreat in formation through the small breach. Because of his blunder, they had to fight fiercely to allow everyone to escape. In this case, he managed to withdraw, and the Romans subsequently had to battle once more to secure the second wall. In due time, they were successful and resolved to pull down much of it.
Titus’ Military Commandeering: Reconfiguring Tactics, Upping the Ante
The siege subsequently dragged on, and Titus made other errors in judgement. As he labored to penetrate the third wall, capture the Antonia Fortress and the hallowed Temple grounds, he employed the use of numerous siege works, but the insurgents repeatedly found ways to destroy many of them—either by setting them ablaze or undermining them.
Why they were so vulnerable to counter-attacks is a mystery, but this was disheartening considering that they took hard work and considerable resources to complete. By the end of the siege, the Romans had denuded much of the region of trees, and they were forced to forage for them more than 11 miles away.
Toward the end of the siege when Titus was frustrated with the insurgents’ tenacity, the commander met with his deputies to reconsider his battle plans, but instead of staying the course, he briefly changed tactics. First, he built a wall around Jerusalem to hem the Jews in, starve them and protect his legionaries, and afterward, he returned to his earlier strategy of employing siege works. They slowly neared their goal of capturing the remainder of Jerusalem, but legionary discipline withered in the process—which led to tragic results.
Earlier in the blockade, a flood of starving Jewish refugees streamed out of Jerusalem and into the Roman camps. These were not combatants, just innocent bystanders, and on their way out, they swallowed valuable coins to smuggle them out of the city. Some Roman legionaries and allied auxiliaries learned of this, and one day, they slaughtered thousands of them and ripped open their stomachs in search of loot. It was an unconscionable crime, and it happened on Titus’ watch even though it appalled him.
Some of his cavalry and other seasoned legionaries likewise forgot their military training, although in far less disturbing ways. Some cavalrymen began to let their horses graze freely, which became easy targets for the besieged who absconded with them. In another episode of waning discipline, the Romans were striving to capture the Temple complex, and the Jews took advantage of their eagerness.
They placed highly combustible materials inside one of the colonnade roofs, and then they feigned retreat. Without orders, the Romans gleefully climbed atop the colonnade to seize it, and the combatants then set it alight—killing an untold number of Romans.
The Siege of Jerusalem: The Final Thrust
Regardless of these events, Titus continued his siege, and his soldiers eventually seized the rest of Jerusalem and devastated the holy city. Despite supposedly giving orders to preserve the sacred Jewish Temple, his legionaries razed it—even ignoring him when he went in-person to save it.
It should be noted that while Josephus claimed Titus desperately wanted to save the Temple, other ancient writers disagreed. Whatever the case, it burned, and Josephus described the terrible scene:
“The Temple hill, one huge mass of fire, seemed to be boiling over from its very roots, but you would also have seen rivers of blood outrunning the flames and the killed outnumbering the killers. Nowhere could the ground be seen for the corpses covering it.”
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Jerusalem fell, and the Romans razed it and the Temple, which has not been rebuilt since. Josephus reported that during the siege and sacking of Jerusalem, over one million Jews lost their lives—a large portion to famine—but Tacitus places the number to no more than 600,000. Whatever the astronomical number, Titus also enslaved, crucified and killed a host of others in arenas across the empire. It was a heart-wrenching and shockingly cruel end to a siege, which lasted months.
In the end, Titus succeeded in sacking Jerusalem and mostly bringing the Jewish War to a close, and the conflict showed that Titus was a brave but flawed commander. Soldiers under him struggled with discipline and following orders; Titus left valuable siege works vulnerable to attack; he made tactical errors; and he vacillated on strategy toward the end of the siege.
While the Jewish combatants deserve credit for their tenacity and creativity in countering Titus, it is hard to imagine all of the aforementioned blunders happening under a more seasoned general. Nevertheless, Titus was triumphant, but he was far from the consummate Roman commander some would have you believe.
Top image: Emperor Titus granting rights to Rome Source: Franciszek Smuglewicz/ Public domain
Marc Hyden is a Roman historian and the author of “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”
