Death
Days prior to the siege of Jerusalem, Eleazar ben Simon was betrayed by John of Gischala and killed. According to Josephus, John sent a party to the Zealot stronghold in the Temple to offer a sacrifice before the coming festival of Passover. Yet when Eleazar and his Zealots opened the gates to permit entry, John's forces slaughtered Eleazar and his officials in order to regain the support of the Zealots. Shortly after Eleazar's death in the summer of 70 AD, Titus Flavius crushed the armies of Simon, John, and Eleazar, crucifying thousands of rebels outside the city. Josephus estimates that approximately one million Jews were killed in the siege, not to mention the destruction of the sacred Temple.
Read more about this topic: Eleazar Ben Simon
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Of Heaven of Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)