If you look at the bas-reliefs on the Arch of Titus in Rome, you can see the soldiers carrying their plunder away from the Temple, including the menorah, which Josephus tells us it was made of gold.’
‘Have you found anything similar in your excavations?’
‘Nothing made out of gold, but two pieces of a menorah in unpainted plaster were discovered in the ruins of a house in Jerusalem from the Herodian period. Probably is a copy of the menorah used in the Temple.’
‘I believe a curtain separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies.’
‘Yes like in the Tent.’
Shlomo then went on to describe how in April 70AD, during the Feast of the Passover, the Roman General Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian, laid siege to Jerusalem. His legions surrounded the city, to the north-east, on Mount Scopus, the XII Fulminata and XV Apollinaris legions camped together with the V Macedonica nearby and the X Fretensis camped on facing the Temple on Mount Olives.
The Old Town stood on a steep plateau and was almost impossible to assail. To the west of the Temple was the New Town with its own walls. After the initial clashes Titus decided on a display of strength, with a march past that lasted for four days, to intimidate the defenders to surrender. However, the Jewish leaders were not impressed and the Romans relaunched the attack though without success. The Romans soon realised that the siege of Jerusalem would be long and decided to starve the city into surrender. The Kedron valley and the Valley of Hinnom soon were filled with the dead bodies of those who tried to flee Jerusalem.
Then at the beginning of August, a small group of Roman soldiers climbed the walls of the fort killed the guards and sounded a trumpet. The defenders fled to the Temple and the Romans demolished the fort to build a ramp to the Temple. At the end of the month the Romans set fire to the Temple and a few days later Titus took the remainder of city.
Titus returned to Rome, where he and his father the Emperor Vespasian celebrated a triumph, parading through the streets of the capital the prisoners and the sacred vessels and treasure of the Temple, including the Menorah, and the curtain of the Holy of Holies. The treasure was transformed into coins marked with the legend Judaea defeated. A total of almost one hundred thousand prisoners had been taken during the course of the war many of whom were forced to become gladiators or slaves to build the Temple of Peace where the Menorah was placed and the Colosseum.
A triumphal arch can still stands in the Forum Romanum in Rome, another that was demolished in the Middle Ages bore the inscription: Senate and People of Rome to their Princeps, Imperator Titus Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, son of the divine Vespasian, high priest, in the tenth year of his tribunal powers, seventeen times Imperator, eight times consul, father of the Rome, put-down the Jews and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, something which none of the leaders, kings and armies before him failed to do.