Daughter of My People: Jesus' Jerusalem destroyed

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Alexandria

A.D. 69-70

The Egyptian city of Alexandria may well be the capital of Egypt—if it were still independent. But Rome happened. By the way, Alexandria may be the greatest of all the cities in the Roman Empire—obviously, with Rome as the exception.

Vespasian receives "this good news" that now he is the emperor. People come to felicitate him. There are so many that even Alexandria "proved too narrow to contain the multitude that then came to it", as Josephus will later recall.

(By the way, during their stay in Alexandria, Titus Flavius Josephus, still Joseph bar Matthias, has a divorce with that virgin that Vespasian forced him to marry earlier. It just didn't seem right for him anyway. But this historian-in-training will later say "I married another wife at Alexandria".)

With all this celebrating and the sort, Vespasian then thinks about those rebel Jews in Judea. The winter is soon to end, and so that means he could go to Rome then. He is determined to. So he is settling the affairs in Alexandria. But he can't go to Jerusalem himself.

Then he thinks of his son.

Vespasian sends part of his army with Titus to destroy rebel Jerusalem.

So Titus marches on a long trip with 2,000 Alexandrian troops and 3,000 others under command of a certain apostate of the Jews, Tiberius Alexander.

Josephus decides to go along with them.

So the Roman troops are ready for war with Jerusalem.

And Titus could not have chosen a better time.