21

They trudged in grim silence across the deserted battlefield, littered with the remains of unburied Jewish and Roman dead - shattered skulls, broken vertebrae and cages of shipwrecked ribs, black with dried blood. Everywhere was the obscenity of the scavenging jackals, pulling and tearing, and the ungainly waddle of the vultures which shrieked and squabbled, quarrelling over an abundance of titbits.

Josephus, at the head of his newly formed army, knew this sight would either harden their resolve or fill them with fear. With dusk gentling the hills, they needed to camp, but the thought of sleeping in this charnel house was unbearable. As he turned to speak to one of his lieutenants, he spotted a severed hand amid the debris. It was still firmly clutching the sword that its owner, a Roman soldier, had been carrying. With a grimace he said to one of the men at his side, “Send a mounted scout ahead to find a campsite for the night clear of this abattoir”.

The man nodded and lurched away to pass on the order. He was John, son of Judah, a hunchback who sometimes allowed people to touch his hump for luck in return for a coin. He had attached himself to Josephus’ army for companionship as much as anything, his affliction denying him the company of normal people.

In desperate haste, Josephus had organised the defence of the principal towns in Galilee. Thanks to his efforts and the funds he had brought from Jerusalem, the walls of the towns of Taricheae, Tiberius and Mount Tabor had been rebuilt. They had also managed to strengthen the larger villages in upper and lower Galilee and along the border into Jordan. It had angered Josephus that the people of Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee, had rejected his help. They said, “We will see to our own defences at our own expense”. Knowing that the citizens of Sepphoris were pro-Roman, he left them to it.

Josephus, with his experience of Rome and first-hand knowledge of how formidable Rome’s well trained legions were, had no illusions as to how effective his best efforts would be. At best they would slow the enemy down. Nonetheless, Josephus did not spare himself in knocking his army of peasant farmers into shape. In three months he had sixty thousand infantry that, though untried, knew their business.

More promising was the forty thousand cavalry he had put together. Natural riders on either camels or horses, it was simply a matter of training them to obey orders; to act on command with purpose and grasp basic cavalry tactics. At least ten thousand of these men were either proficient with a bow or capable of teaching others. In the end, Josephus ended up with forty thousand cavalry, twenty thousand armed with sword and lance, and twenty thousand archers armed with sword and bow.

As news of Josephus’ achievement spread he was acknowledged as the most important and most powerful man in Galilee. Local bullies and would-be bandits, who were no better than gangsters, soon learnt that this Pharisee priest turned soldier was a firm believer in the law of the prophets. His justice was biblical and summary. Inevitably his success and imperviousness to bribery brought him enemies; mostly small fry they could be ignored. Larger fish were eventually dealt with. There was one exception - a war lord and racketeer of long standing, with a reputation for brutality that did not stop short of murder. John of Gischala commanded a private army. His principal trade was extortion in the form of a protection racket.

The caravans and traders that passed through the town of Safed, in the wild country north of the town of Gischala, were forced to pay John and his enforcers for their protection against the perils of the journey ahead. Or be attacked by Gischala’s thugs who, when they were not protecting the caravans, terrorised the local hill villages.

A major source of John’s income came from an olive oil monopoly he had established.

Throughout Galilee his men had visited olive oil producers and told them that they and they alone, would buy their oil. They also fixed the price they would pay. Those that refused were warned that they would no longer receive the protection of John. At first nothing happened. Then the unfortunate farmer was subjected to a reign of terror. One day he might find a dead dog in his well. A week later a barn would burn down. If he still said no, his donkeys and other livestock would disappear. Then he would be kidnapped, taken into the desert and beaten, left to crawl back to his farm. A final ultimatum would be a threat to kill his wife and his children. Having suffered at the hands of these gangsters he never doubted that this would happen – so he capitulated. If he didn’t, he would wake up one morning to find the head of his wife in a bucket outside his door.

John also tried to undermine Josephus’ authority, by putting it about that the young Jewish general was preparing to hand the country over to the Romans. He used the charge of traitor and the accusation of collaboration, to demand Josephus’ death. Knowing that Josephus had enemies in the Sanhedrin who were jealous of his success in Galilee, John denounced him to the authorities in Jerusalem, having first paved the way with a substantial bribe.

In response, a commission of three Pharisees and three Sadducees with an armed bodyguard set out for Galilee. Josephus’ father, however, had written to his son from Jerusalem, warning him of the plot against him. Josephus responded by sending men into the countryside to rally the peasants and pay his dues to the local headman. The commission found itself interviewing peasants who declared their respect, admiration and thanks to Josephus for his protection and care.

When the commission tried to speak to Josephus, he sent them a letter of apology. He couldn’t attend the meeting; he was busy fighting Placidus, a lieutenant of Cestius Gallus, who was in charge of a local garrison. He also sent messengers, Galileans, to Jerusalem to report this true state of affairs to the Sanhedrin and their loyalty to Josephus. The commission was immediately recalled, giving Josephus, at the head of his army, the opportunity to march on Tiberius which immediately opened its gates to him, the city elders pledging their loyalty to the Jewish cause.

Meanwhile, during the winter of 66/67, the whole country was as turbulent as Galilee. In Jerusalem, Ananus had ordered that work to defend the city was to be given an overriding priority. The walls had been repaired and artillery captured from Cestius Gallus had been positioned. Vast stores of swords, axes and spear heads had been forged and every able bodied man was under military training.

Taking advantage of the lack of policing in the countryside from anybody’s militia, be it Roman or Jewish, Simon ben Gioras put on the mantle of a warlord and ran riot, burning towns and villages, torturing and killing the inhabitants for their possessions. In response Ananus sent troops to put him down, forcing him to retreat to Massada from where he promptly preyed on Idumaea, forcing its rulers to protect the villages by garrisoning them.