A Brief History of the World

Quietus
676-695 KR

The death of Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus in the summer of 676 marked the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire, although it could not have seemed clear at the time. Trajan's conquests in Dacia and Mesopotamia had spread the imperium of Rome to its greatest extent. In just over a hundred years the Roman Empire would disappear from the geopolitical scene of the Mediterranean.

Immediately after Emperor Traianus died at Selinus in Cicilia, his wife Pomepeia Plotina claimed that he had adopted Publius Aelius Hadrianus, the governor of Syria, as his heir to the throne, ignoring the stronger claim of Quintus Lucius Quietus, a consular legate of Moorish descent who was serving as governor of Judea, and whom Traianus had designated as his successor. Trajan's army in Syria agreed to this, and this was confirmed by the Senate in Rome within a few days of a messenger's arrival. The Emperor Hadrianus' rule lasted only a few months, however, as he died under mysterious circumstances in Ephesus before he could arrive in Rome. After a few weeks of dicussion, the Senate decided to proclaim Quietus as emperor.

Emperor Quietus was destined to be the last Roman Emperor to reign more than a decade, yet during his reign the impending fall of the Roman Empire was not obvious. Quietus campaigned several times in Scotland (679 to 684) with mixed results, before going to war against the last ruler of the Western Parthian Empire, Mithridates IV, to return the province of Mesopotamia to Roman control in 686. With the sack of Ctesiphon and the execution of Mithridates and his son Sanatruces, Quietus was able to preserve the borders of the eastern provinces which Traianus had conquered a decade before. Unfortunately for Rome, this state of affairs was not to last very long.

In 692, the ruler of the reunited Parthian Empire, Vologases III, advanced with his armies into Mesopotamia, retaking the provinces which Traianus and Quietus had spent much energy and even more treasure trying to hold onto. Quietus prepared a mighty army of fifteen legions, nearly half of the empire's entire military strength, to finish the Parthian menace forever. A few months before his army was ready to begin the advance down the Euphrates from Syria, however, the great Jewish uprising of Prince Simon began with the annihilation of an entire legion in Judea. Furious at having his plans delayed, Quietus marched his army south to deliver what he thought would be a final destruction of the rebellious Jewish people in 695.

Emperor Quietus' plan for the destruction of the Jewish revolt was far different from the successful strategy which Vespasianus and his son Titus had used during their suppression of the rebellious Jews around seventy years before. Quietus learned that the Jews had assembled a huge army at Jerusalem in expectation of his assault. Dio Cassius reports that the number was over a million: this number is obviously exaggerated, but modern scholars believe it is still likely that perhaps 300,000 Jews were in Simon's army, an immense force compared to Quietus' sixty to eighty thousand men. When his officers suggested a “scorched earth” strategy to destroy the Jews' will to fight, Quietus ignored them, preferring to trust in the might of the Rome's legions, perhaps not unwisely.

Leaving four legions behind at Caesarea to keep open lines of communication to Syria and Egypt, Quietus' army marched up from the coastal plain of Palestine through the Shephelah towards Jerusalem, where Quietus intended to either destroy the Jewish army or shut them up in the city and starve them into surrender. Traitorous spies informed Quietus that the Jewish army was remaining under the newly reconstructed walls of Jerusalem, when in fact Simon was preparing one of the largest ambushes in history. It was near the humble village of Chasalon that the Roman Empire was dealt its worst defeat, and it was on that summer day in 695 that the fall of Rome began.

Quietus and his eleven legions were completely surprised as the Jewish fanatics descended on their spread-out column. Discipline was good at first, but as the day got hotter, and the Jews relentlessly continued their waves of attacks, a lack of water began to undermine the legions' strength. If the Romans attempted to reach water in any group smaller than a legion, they were surrounded and either driven back to their column or annihilated. Despite all of this the Romans maintained good morale until just before sundown, when word spread throughout the column that the Emperor had been killed, shot in the eye with a Jewish arrow. The ensuing panic resulted in nearly complete annihilation for the Roman column at Chasalon by night, as the Jews slaughtered the Romans mercilessly as they attempted to escape their vengeful ambushers in unfamiliar territory.

Barely two thousand returned to Caesarea to tell of the horrors of Chasalon. Dio Cassius reports that only two thousand prisoners were taken, and of these all but a few ended up executed by the Jews as examples to the Gentile cities scattered throughout Galilee and the Decapolis that cooperation with the Romans would not be tolerated.

Varus
695-696
Sextus Severus
695-703

News of the disaster at Chasalon traveled quickly throughout the Empire. Quietus had never clearly designated a successor, and he had no surviving children. Within the space of a few months, generals from the Danube, Britain, Germany, and Africa had been raised up as candidates for the imperial purple by the armies which they commanded, and soon the golden eagles which had faced out at the enemies of the Empire since Vespasianus's ascension to the throne once more faced inwards, towards the seat of imperial authority.

As if this state of civil war was not bad enough for the Roman Empire, the withdrawal of the armies from the borders compounded troubles. With a third of the empire's legions reduced to whitening bones in Judea, and another four legions cowering in Caesarea in fear of Simon's Judean hordes, the enemies of Rome attacked on nearly every front. The Parthian king Vologases III, who had at one time been a vassal of Rome, dared to press on through Mesopotamia into undefended Syria and even sacked mighty Antioch. As most of the German legions moved away from the border, the Marcomanni and Quadi began attacking those that remained, straining their abilities to hold off the barbarians. In addition, the Gaetuli and Asphodelodes of Africa increased the frequency and intensity of their attacks as the commander of the Legio III Augusta took his soldiers across the Mediterranean to strengthen his claim to the imperial purple by moving into Italy.

Rome was able to survive this initial crisis without too much trouble: after a brief 'reign' of the African emperor Varus, the governor of Britain, Sextus Julius Severus, was able to crush all other claimants and become Emperor. Severus was an extremely competent general, and after solidifying his position in Rome he was determined to crush the upstart Parthians and rebellious Jews and restore the eastern borders of the Empire. In 698 and 699 Severus avenged the sack of Antioch in a series of campaigns in Syria and Mesopotamia that were concluded successfully with a sack of Ctesiphon and the capture and execution of Vologases. Now Severus was ready to avenge the catastrophe at Chasalon five years before.

It is certain that the emperor despised the rebellious Jews as much as every other Roman general who had been forced to deal with this fanatical people. However, he realized that a quick knife-thrust to the heart of the rebellion at Jerusalem could not be risked: while new legions had been recruited throughout the Empire in the wake of the horrific defeat at Chasalon, the veteran legions he had with him constituted nearly half of the remaining veteran legions. He was determined that no more golden eagles would join the eight which Prince Simon had sent throughout the Judean countryside as trophies of Rome's greatest military disaster, and which now rested as spoils of war above the gates of Jerusalem.

Severus decided to use the strategy which the Emperor Vespasianus had used to crush the Jews in their revolt of 625, namely, to lay waste the countryside of Galilee first, destroying the Jews' will to fight while avoiding a direct confrontation with the Jewish hordes which had only grown in number since Chasalon, and then proceed to do the same to the Judean heartland. Jerusalem would be the last prize: the eagles would be recovered, Simon captured for a magnificent triumph, and the city would be utterly wiped off the face of the earth, so as no longer to trouble mighty Rome. And so, in the spring of 700, his army marched up from the Mediterranean coastal plain and headed cautiously into the hills of Galilee.

The tactical and strategic genius which had made Severus the most renowned of Quietus' generals in the Scottish campaigns was brought to light once more in the Galilean campaign of 700 to 702. City after city was circumvallated, and the resident populations either starved into submission and slavery or, as was more often the case, slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child by the vengeful legionaries. Simon's massive army tried to force Severus into battle, but because no battle was ever fought and because the Galileans in his army were utterly demoralized by the destruction of their homes and families, it rapidly dwindled to around 50,000 soldiers. Dissension among the rabbis and priests in Jerusalem was rife: the Prince was forced to execute those who would question his authority on several occasions, a deed which did little to improve the flagging morale of the Jewish rebels.

As 702 drew to a close, Severus readied his army for the final campaign in Judea. The end of the revived Jewish state seemed to be drawing near after eight years of resistance. The rabbis and priests of the Jews encouraged their followers that God would protect Israel: that He would not allow the Romans to conquer and annihilate the Jewish race forever, a fate which appeared likely to many.

In a way, he answered. Sextus Severus died in Caesarea in the early months of 703, before the final campaign for Jerusalem could take place. His death marked the beginning of a new struggle for power, one that would last a decade and which would sap the waning strength of Rome more than the death of Quietus and eleven legions at Chasalon had.
 
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