Destruction of Jerusalem AD 70

Another play I wrote in Riyadh was called "Titus at the Gates of Syon" - ISBN 0 75410 572 5. My reading of history had often brought me up against the 'diaspora' of the Jewish peoples, and my interest in the film 'Ivanhoe', the pogroms of the Crusades, and then the expulsion of the Jews (and Moslems) from Spain in AD 1492 kept the idea alive in my mind. And then I suppose the (fiction) book 'The Da Vinci Code' also revived interest in what exactly happened in the years after the crucifixion. It is such a complex and terrible story that even now is not yet over. I had also become interested in Vespasian and his son Titus! Vespasian was in command of the Second Augusta Legion in AD 43 for the invasion of Britain, and I, as an Englishman, have stood on the ramparts of Maiden Castle in Dorset, England where Vespasian himself must have stood after the assault on the British (Welsh) stronghold had succeeded. (What happened in the first 300 years in the development of Christianity is still a fascinating question and may not have much to do with the austere teachings of Jesus himself).

In AD 66, the XII Legion under the command of Cestius Gallus were set upon by the Jewish army outside the walls of Jerusalem and routed with stragglers eventually getting away to the coast at Caesarea. This affront to Roman honour could not be accepted. The Emperor Nero sent - who? - of course now old Vespasian to settle matters with the Jewish people. On Nero's suicide, four men became emperor in a single year, but Vespasian won out, and became emperor

Titus won the war against the Jews with five legions deployed in the field, dismantled Jerusalem and sent its people into exile. Only Massada held out heroically for another three year before all its garrison committed suicide. My play is the story of the fall of Jerusalem and to some extent the story of Josephus, the Jewish general, who went over to the Romans and wrote extensively on the history of the period! (I have always wondered why I was not taught this at school. Perhaps it was too sensitive a subject for young Christian boys to be allowed to read!)

I find all this fascinating as it seems to me we are reaching a watershed in world history where the events of the last 2000 years were always safely separated by distance. This cannot continue as distance now has no meaning and disparate ideas and faiths are now coming into close proximity to each other (eye-ball to eye-ball!). These will have to fight it out to find out where the true faith really lies - it is by no means certain that anyone knows the answer to such a question.