Commander in Judea, later emperor
Vespasian
He was commanding operations in Judea when he established himself as emperor, after three emperors had followed one another in a single year. He founded the Flavian dynasty, Josephus's patrons. In the rabbinic story about Yohanan ben Zakkai, he is the general to whom the sage foretells the throne and who lets him go to Yavneh.
What the sources say
Each block is a sourced statement. Click the number to see the cited page.
5 statements
The picture of foolish rebels comes from Josephus, who wrote after the disaster and with sympathy for Rome. At the time there were grounds for optimism: Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria sent by Nero, was unexpectedly beaten; after Nero's death in 68, three emperors followed one another in a year until Vespasian seized power; the Jews greatly outnumbered the few Roman troops in the region, knew the land and held Jerusalem, with its three walls, and fortresses such as Masada.
When Vespasian went back to Rome to become emperor, the campaign halted; his son Titus resumed it with a huge army and won within a year. The rebel factions were attacking one another for mastery of the Temple Mount, and the city was crowded with refugees and Passover pilgrims. Some six months into the siege the walls gave way; in August of 70 CE the Temple was destroyed.
Josephus's credibility also suffers from his interests. He needed to answer the charge of treason and to please Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, a dynasty whose standing rested on victory over the Jews; hence the name Flavius, taken from the imperial family, and the claim, perhaps inflated, that Titus approved his account. The result extols Rome and blames the rebels, not the emperors, for the loss of the Temple.
Tradition or narrative
A famous story tells how Yohanan ben Zakkai got from Jerusalem to Yavneh. During the Jewish Revolt the rebels watched the city so that no one would desert to the Romans, and Yohanan got out only by hiding in a coffin borne by his disciples. Brought to Vespasian, he announced that the general would come to power, and soon a messenger from Rome brought word that Vespasian was emperor. In gratitude the general let the sage make one request; in one version Yohanan asks to settle at Yavneh with his disciples, which would thereby have become the first seat of rabbinic study and legal authority once the Temple was gone.
The story dates from long after Yohanan and survives in several divergent versions. The prophecy about Vespasian is suspiciously similar to a story Josephus tells about himself, and escapes in coffins appear in Josephus and classical authors. It is impossible to tell which details belonged to the original version, or whether any reflects what really happened.