The sack of Jerusalem and burning of the temple by Roman forces under Titus at the end of the first Jewish revolt. It ended sacrificial worship and the priestly system built around it, and the Judaism that survived is the one that replaced them: prayer, study and the household table in place of the altar. Josephus, who had changed sides, is the main narrative source and writes with an interest in excusing both the Romans and himself. The day is mourned each year on Tisha B'Av together with the destruction of the first temple.
Facts
Disputed
Death TollJosephus's own figure for total deaths across the whole siege, drawn from The Jewish War, widely repeated in ancient historiography since. Modern historians and demographers regard it as a substantial exaggeration measured against scholarly estimates of Jerusalem's ordinary population at the time, which was far smaller, though Josephus attributes the swollen number to Passover pilgrims trapped in the city by the siege. No alternative ancient aggregate figure survives to set against his, and no modern demographic reconstruction has produced a competing precise total, so no minimum is recorded here; Josephus's own number stands as the one figure on record, offered with the scholarly doubt around it stated plainly. Displaced (Low Estimate)Josephus's own figure, from The Jewish War, for the total number of prisoners taken across the whole First Jewish-Roman War of 66 to 73 CE, not the siege of Jerusalem alone; many were sold into slavery or sent to labor in Egypt or die in arena spectacles elsewhere in the empire. As with his death toll figure, modern historians treat Josephus's numbers with caution, though no competing ancient total survives. Displaced (High Estimate)The same single figure recorded as the minimum: Josephus supplies one number, not a range, for prisoners taken across the whole war, so the minimum and maximum recorded here are identical pending any competing ancient or modern total. Status
Official RecognitionNot formally recognized by any body 2 No modern legal or international body has classified the Roman destruction of the Second Temple as genocide or a crime against humanity; the event, in 70 CE, predates any such framework by roughly nineteen centuries. The absence of a formal designation reflects that gap, not doubt about the siege, the sack of Jerusalem and the temple's destruction, which are independently attested by Josephus, Roman sources and archaeology alike. Recognition BasisAs an ancient event with no modern legal successor pursuing a claim and no genocide or crimes-against-humanity framework in existence at the time, the destruction of the Second Temple has never been the subject of a formal international determination. Its basic facts rest on Josephus's own eyewitness and participant account in The Jewish War, read alongside Roman sources such as the Arch of Titus, not on any modern adjudicative process. 2 Scholarship
Where It Is RecordedJosephus, who had commanded in Galilee and then changed sides, is the main narrative source and writes with an interest in excusing both the Romans and himself. 1 The Event
When It Happened70 CE, traditionally on the ninth of Av. 1 Victim GroupThe Judean population of Jerusalem, and the priestly and sacrificial system centered on the Second Temple, targeted in the Roman suppression of the First Jewish-Roman War of 66 to 73 CE. 2 Perpetrator RegimeThe Roman Empire, under the general Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian and himself emperor from 79 CE, commanding the siege that ended the First Jewish-Roman War. 2 Consequences
What It SettledThe sack of Jerusalem by Roman forces under Titus and the burning of the temple, ending sacrificial worship and the priestly system built around it. 1 Lasting ConsequenceMourned annually on Tisha B'Av together with the destruction of the first temple, with fasting, the reading of Lamentations and the suspension of ordinary comforts. 2 Lasting ConsequenceThe Judaism that survived is the one that replaced the altar: prayer, study of Torah and the household table, developed by the rabbinic movement over the following centuries. 2 Learn More
The Siege and the Fire
The revolt that began in 66 was as much a civil war as a war against Rome. Factions inside Jerusalem fought each other through the siege, burned each other's grain stores, and were still fighting when the walls were breached. Titus took the city in the summer of 70, and the temple burned. Whether the fire was ordered is disputed in the sources themselves: Josephus says Titus wished to spare the building, which is exactly what a historian writing under Titus's family would say.
The loss was not only of a building. The temple was the only lawful place of sacrifice, the seat of the priesthood, the destination of pilgrimage three times a year, the treasury and the effective centre of Jewish public life. Its destruction ended the sacrificial system at a stroke and left the priesthood without a function. The Arch of Titus in Rome still shows the menorah and the temple vessels carried in triumph.
The rabbinic tradition remembers the period through Yohanan ben Zakkai, who is said to have been carried out of the besieged city and to have obtained from the Roman commander permission to establish a school at Yavneh. The story is told in several versions with different details, which is a sign of legend, but the institution at Yavneh was real and the shift it represents, from temple to study house, is the central fact of what followed.
The Judaism That Replaced the Altar
Every form of Judaism that exists today descends from the response to this catastrophe, and the response was a substitution carried out with remarkable deliberateness. Prayer took the place of sacrifice, and the daily services were arranged to correspond to the offerings that had been made. The study of the laws of sacrifice continued as a religious act in itself, on the principle that one who studies the offerings is credited as having brought them. The household table took on the sanctity of the altar, with washing, bread and blessing.
The groups that could not make the transition disappeared. The Sadducees, whose position was bound to the temple and its priesthood, are not heard of afterwards. The Essene settlement at the Dead Sea ended in the same war. The rabbinic movement, heir to the Pharisees, survived because its religion was already portable: it was built around interpretation of Torah, a practice that requires a text and a teacher and nothing else.
The mourning was institutionalised rather than resolved. Tisha B'Av, the ninth of Av, fasts for both destructions on one day, with Lamentations read in a darkened synagogue and the ordinary comforts suspended. A glass is broken at weddings. A patch of a house is customarily left unfinished. A religion that had lost its centre built the loss into its calendar and its architecture rather than moving past it.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The temple destroyed by Roman forces in 70 CE was the one he built; work on its outer courts had finished only a few years before.
Rome destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE while suppressing the First Jewish-Roman War.
The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE ended the sacrificial system.
Rome's destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE closed the Second Temple Period.
The daily offering ceased during the Roman siege and has not resumed.
The temple stood on the platform now known as the Temple Mount and al-Haram al-Sharif.
Tisha B'Av mourns the destruction of both temples on the same day.
Titus commanded the Roman forces at the siege of Jerusalem.
Belongs to Tradition
Conducted By
Persecuted Group
Related To
The second destruction is read in Jewish tradition through the first, and both are mourned on the same day.
The second revolt followed the first war by two generations and ended Jewish hopes of restoring the temple by force.
Sources
1. The Jewish War
Flavius Josephus, No single modern publisher; the work survives through numerous manuscript traditions and modern critical editions, most commonly consulted today in the Loeb Classical Library edition (Harvard Universi, 78
2. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition
Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.), Macmillan Reference USA, 2007View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
How Many Died in the Destruction of the Second Temple?
Josephus claims 1.1 million dead over the course of the siege; Tacitus gives six hundred thousand. Menahem Stern's standard critical edition of the classical sources treats Tacitus's figure, and by extension Josephus's higher one, as rhetorical rather than reliable, and proposes no replacement. No modern historian has converted demographic or archaeological evidence into a defensible death toll for the siege itself.
What would resolve this A published demographic or archaeological reassessment of the siege's casualties, of the kind Raviv and Ben David produced for the Bar Kokhba War from settlement-survey evidence, applied to first-century Jerusalem's population and the siege's own documented timeline.
Roman-period Judaean history; historical demography; classical source criticismMenahem Stern, Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, Volume Two: From Tacitus to Simplicius (1980)
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