Siege of Jerusalem: It Was Bad For Civilians Inside The Wall. Far Worse

[00:00:00]What was happening inside Jerusalem during these weeks was in some ways worse than the fighting outside. The food supply, already [music] devastated by factional fighting, was running out with terrifying speed. The city was consuming its reserves faster than anyone had planned. Hundreds of thousands needed [music] to be fed.

[00:00:19]Josephus' account of the famine inside Jerusalem is one of the most harrowing passages in ancient historical writing.

[00:00:26]He describes people searching houses in the middle of the night for scraps [music] of food. Leather was being boiled and eaten. People ate their own [music] sandals, belts, and straw from their beds. Guards stripped refugees fleeing the city of any hidden food. The fighters, especially [music] Simon's and John's men, had priority access to whatever food remained. Civilians had whatever was [music] left, which was increasingly nothing. People were dying of starvation in the streets. Josephus says that dead bodies piled [music] up faster than anyone could bury them, and eventually they stopped trying.

[00:01:00]Corpses were thrown over the walls. The social order inside Jerusalem was disintegrating.

[00:01:06]>> [music] >> Zealots and Simon's men conducted brutal sweeps through the city. They executed anyone suspected of hoarding food or planning to defect to the Romans.