7 September – On this day

Before he became the emperor of Rome Vespasian had been appointed to subdue the Jewish rebellion against the emperor Nero and had begun campaigning in AD 66. Vespasian and his second in command Titus (Vespasian’s eldest son) marched into Judaea with 4 Roman legions. His campaigns were interrupted by Nero’s suicide on the 9th of June AD 68 and the following civil war commonly known as the year of four emperors. Vespasian seized the principate for himself in AD 69 and left Titus to finish the Jewish war. Titus occupied and plundered Jerusalem on the 7th of September AD 70.

First_century_Iudaea_province

Picture Credit: “First century Iudaea province” by Wikipedia User:Andrew c. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_century_Iudaea_province.gif#/media/File:First_century_Iudaea_province.gif