In Episode 11, the focus tightens on Titus as the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE moves from positioning to execution. Drawing heavily on Josephus’ rare eyewitness account, the episode walks listeners onto the northern walls of the city to watch Roman engineering doctrine grind into action: suburbs burned, orchards flattened, hills reshaped, and the land itself turned into a weapon. Titus probes for weakness, attempts a final negotiation via Josephus, and when diplomacy is answered with a javelin, commits fully to siege warfare. The discussion explores Roman military engineering at its most methodical—siege ramps, artillery banks, ballistae, scorpios, and stone-throwers hurling thirty-kilogram projectiles—while contrasting Roman pragmatism with Jewish faith in divine intervention. Along the way, the episode reflects on psychology, belief, exhaustion, and the slow terror of watching an enemy quite literally build its way toward your walls, day after relentless day.
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