1. The rank of the commander of Masada’s Roman cohort has not come down to us. The fact that when six cohorts of the legion went from Caesarea to Moesia six months after the Masada massacre, they went commanded by their chief centurion, Arrius Varus, the legion’s next most senior officer after its camp prefect, supports the belief that the 3rd Gallica’s camp prefect was killed in the early days of the uprising.
2. Josephus, Jewish War.
3. Deuteronomy 21:10–12.
4. Deuteronomy 23:17.
5. Deuteronomy 13:16 and 7:25.
6. Zias and Gorski, “Capturing a Beautiful Woman at Masada.”
7. Josephus, Jewish War.
8. Mishna Shekalim 5.
9. Centurion Julius is named in Acts, New Testament. The escort of ten legionaries was typical; when, fifty years later, Ignatius Theophorus, Christian bishop of Antioch, the later St. Ignatius, was similarly sent to Rome for trial, his escort consisted of a centurion and ten legionaries.
10. Josephus, Jewish War.
11. Why Nero gave the new legion the number 18 is puzzling. Following the Varus Disaster massacre of Roman troops in the Teutoburg Forest, Augustus abolished the 17th, 18th, and 19th Legions, whose eagle standards had been lost in the massacre, permanently removing these numbers from the legion list. Thereafter, these numbers had never been contemplated for new legions, as they were considered unlucky by superstitious Roman soldiers.
12. In the first century, a proconsul, literally “as good as a consul,” was the governor of any “armed” Roman province that contained at least one legion, with the exception of Egypt. A proconsul’s appointment was by the Senate, not the emperor, who could only appoint propraetors, governors of “unarmed” provinces.
13. Josephus, Jewish War.
14. Ibid.
15. Tacitus, Annals.
16. In the second century the system changed so that prefects could command auxiliary cohorts before becoming a military tribune, with the post of prefect of cavalry following the tribuneship. Under the third and fourth century reforms of Diocletian and Constantine, prefects commanded legions, with the rank of legate abolished.
17. Secundus’s family name is sometimes given as Emilius. It’s possible that an Aemilius Rufus who’d served as a prefect of cavalry under Corbulo in Armenia several years earlier was also related to Jucundus and Secundus.
18. Josephus, in his Life, says the cavalry unit left at Sepphoris was “of the legions.” With Legate Gallus commanding the 12th Fulminata Legion, this unit would have been his own legion’s cavalry troop—every legion had a single troop of up to 124 mounted legionaries, used primarily for scouting and courier duties.
19. Dating by Stern, Calendar and Community.
20. Josephus, Jewish War.
21. Frontinus, Stratagems.
22. Josephus, Jewish War, gives the numbers for Roman losses in this and later phases.
23. Tacitus, Histories.
24. Albright, “The Excavations at Ascalon.”
25. Josephus, Jewish War.
26. Ibid.
27. Suetonius, in The Twelve Caesars, “Vespasian,” describes the morning massage as a part of Vespasian’s daily routine. Josephus’s Jewish War says that Vespasian left his son in Achaea with the imperial party when he was banished. The “out of the way town” Josephus says Vespasian took himself to was likely on an Aegean island, enabling him to return promptly by sea when and if summoned by Nero.
28. Tacitus, Annals.
29. Suetonius, “Vespasian,” in The Twelve Caesars.
30. Dio, Roman History VIII, Book LXII.
31. Tacitus, Annals. Dio, Roman History VIII. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars.
32. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars.
33. Josephus’s Jewish War tells us that after escaping the rebels in Jerusalem, Philip hid for months in Gamala, from where he’d smuggled letters to the king’s deputy Mobius, who passed them on to Agrippa at Beirut. In response, the king had sent cavalry to Gamala who linked up with Philip after he slipped from the city and took him to the king in Beirut. Agrippa received reports from Jewish enemies of Philip that he had sided with the rebels in Jerusalem, but the king didn’t believe a word of it. Giving Philip a large cavalry force, he’d sent him to bring the royal servants trapped at Gamala to Beirut and restore the families of the “Babylonian Jews” who served in his army to their home in Batanaea in Perea east of the Jordan. Philip returned to Beirut following this mission in time to lead the king’s delegation to Gallus and then Nero.
34. Nero’s words, and Vespasian’s assessment of him, come from Josephus’s Jewish War. Vespasian apparently communicated both to Josephus.
35. Ibid.
36. Suetonius, “Titus,” in The Twelve Caesars.
37. Josephus’s Jewish War states that the two legions taken from Egypt were the 5th Macedonica and 10th Fretensis, which we know to be incorrect. The 10th Fretensis was in Syria all this time. Josephus subsequently puts the 15th Apollinaris Legion in Vespasian’s force. He also states that the infantry cohorts that accompanied the legions from Egypt contained six hundred men, which shows his outdated Roman military knowledge; that had been the case a century before, in the days of the Roman Republic, but by Josephus’s day most of Rome’s cohorts had been reduced to 480 men, although Roman authors invariably rounded that up to 500.
38. Suetonius, “Vespasian,” in The Twelve Caesars.
39. Tacitus, Annals.
40. Nineteenth-century German historian Theodor Mommsen speculated that the 10th Fretensis’s title originated from a battle in the Strait of Messina, despite any evidence to support that supposition. The sea battle that Mommsen referenced didn’t even occur in the Strait of Messina; it took place off the north coast of Sicily. The evidence for the Strait of Otranto origin is much stronger. See Dando-Collins, Legions of Rome, for a detailed discussion.
41. Clemens’s career is detailed on an inscription from Heliopolis; see Campbell, The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook. Clemens’s death between AD 67 and 69 can be established with some certainty by the fact his memorial described his Judean War service under Vespasian but not under Titus. Others who served in this campaign under both Vespasian and Titus, such as Chief Centurion Velius Rufus, mentioned later in this work, had both commanders mentioned on their memorials.
42. Josephus’s Jewish War tells of the Roman troops brought out of Egypt by Titus. Roman navy expert Professor Chester Starr, in Roman Navy, was convinced that Titus used the Alexandrian Fleet for these troop movements in Egypt.
43. Albright, “The Excavations at Ascalon.”
44. Josephus, Jewish War.
45. Suetonius, “Vespasian,” in The Twelve Caesars.
46. Josephus’s Jewish War describes this assembly routine and its triple war cry.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Josephus, Jewish War. Vitruvius, On Architecture, gives catapult stone weights. Vegetius, Military Institutions of the Romans, gives the number of catapults per cohort.
51. Metcalf, “Whistling Sling Bullets Were Roman Troops’ Secret Weapon.”
52. Josephus, Jewish War.
53. Josephus, Jewish War, gives these precise casualty figures.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Plutarch, “Galba,” in Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.
58. Josephus’s Jewish War gives these numbers. Some modern scholars consider these numbers inflated.
59. Josephus, Jewish War.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Dio, Roman History VIII, Book LXII.
64. Ibid.
65. Suetonius, “Nero,” in The Twelve Caesars.
66. Josephus’s Jewish War gives Lucius Annius’s name. He is otherwise unknown. Josephus possibly confused him with Lucius Alienus, a probable client of Vespasian. Alienus was married to Domitia Longina, second daughter of the late general Corbulo. At Rome, Vespasian’s youngest son, Domitian, was having a secret affair with Alienus’s young wife, and in AD 70 he forced Alienus to divorce Domitia so he could marry her. If Alienus was indeed a client of Vespasian, his wife would have mixed with Vespasian’s family, giving Domitian easy entrée to her. And if Alienus was away on military service in Judea with Vespasian, Domitian was free to secretly have his way with Domitia in Rome.
67. Tacitus, Histories.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. One of four hundred Roman tablets discovered in London in 2014 during excavations for the new Bloomberg offices on Queen Victoria Street has Classicus and his cohort stationed in London in AD 61. This collection is called the Bloomberg Tablets.
71. Josephus, Jewish War.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. Tacitus, Annals, says that just two Praetorian cohorts were then at Rome, with the remaining fourteen cohorts stationed in the Apennines. Placidus was probably serving with one of the cohorts at Rome. Less likely, he’d been given command of an auxiliary cohort in the Vespasianist army of Antonius Primus—the only cohorts commanded by tribunes in this era were those of the Praetorian Guard and City Guard.
75. Josephus, Jewish War.
76. Ibid.
77. Tacitus, Annals, gives 600,000 Jews in Jerusalem; Josephus, Jewish War, gives 1.2 million.
78. Queen Helena reportedly married King Abgarus of Edessa, consequently becoming Edessa’s queen as well as queen of Adiabene.
79. Josephus, Jewish War.
80. Roman legionary deserters were rare. Most fled punishment for infringing Roman military law. Death was the legion penalty for cowardice, disobedience of orders, and homosexual practices.
81. Josephus says ballista balls were painted black during the Third Wall assault, but the 2016 unearthing of unpainted balls at Third Wall foundations indicates this only occurred later in the siege.
82. Josephus, Jewish War.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid.
85. For details of legionary pay and its buying power, see Dando-Collins, Legions of Rome.
86. Josephus, Jewish War.
87. Josephus, Jewish War.
88. Josephus’s Jewish War relates the Legionary Sabinus episode, inclusive of the dialogue reprinted here.
89. Ibid.
90. Josephus, Jewish War. Pet animals were not killed and eaten by the besieged, as Jews didn’t keep pets. Dogs were considered “unclean” and couldn’t be eaten under Jewish law, no matter how hungry people were. Pet dogs and guard dogs were relatively common to Greeks and Romans. There was even a pet dog at Rome’s Palatium at this time.
91. Josephus, Jewish War.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. Josephus, Jewish War.
98. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church.
99. In AD 72, Rufus escorted Epiphanes of Commagene and his brother to Rome from Parthia, after they fled there following an ill-judged confrontation with Roman troops in Commagene. For Rufus’s career details, see Kennedy, “C. Velius Rufus.”
100. Suetonius, “Vespasian,” in The Twelve Caesars.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid.
103. Josephus, Life.
104. Eusebius, Church History.
105. Dillenberger, Images and Relics.
106. Eusebius, Church History and Life of Constantine.