The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder

by Sean McFate

Cestius Gallus watched the situation with alarm. He was the Roman legate in neighboring Syria and knew that if one province successfully revolted, others would follow. Soon, the entire empire could be in rebellion, and the Eternal City lacked the troops to suppress it. Better to quash dissent while it was still budding, and that’s what Gallus intended to do.

Gallus assembled an army of 30,000 to 36,000 troops, with the mighty Twelfth Legion at its core. The others were “auxiliary” troops, mercenaries and foreign allied armies. Legions were the backbone of the empire, and Rome brought its known world to heel with just twenty-seven of them. Each consisted of about 5,200 elite heavy infantry, recruited exclusively from

The Judeans and legionnaires smashed into one another, heavy infantry head on head. The combat was intense. The Judeans fought as if commanded by God, while the legionnaires battled for Roman honor, their religion. Numbers won out. In the end, the 12th Legion was annihilated, and their prized eagle standard, called an aquila, was taken as booty. In the empire’s thousand-year history, only a few aquila had ever been lost to enemy forces. Beth Horon was one of Rome’s worst defeats.

Now it became personal for Rome. The superpower dispatched its finest general, Vespasian, with an army of 60,000 troops—including three full legions—to crush Judea. It was the world’s most powerful army, bearing a grudge. The Romans quickly reconquered Galilee, collapsing the rebellion in the north. An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed or enslaved. Some were insurgents, most were not. It didn’t matter in the eyes of the Romans. Abetting rebellion was a capital offense, a lesson they wished to instill across the empire.

Vespasian was a self-made Roman general, the kind that built a millennial civilization. This is also why he was called back to Rome in the middle of the campaign to become emperor, ending a civil war that nearly drowned Rome in the Year of Four Emperors (69 CE).

Zealots used trickery to massacre Ananus, his followers, and many common people. Now in control, the extremists murdered anyone who spoke of surrender. Flavius Josephus, an eyewitness, described their rule as a reign of terror, one in which the fanatics executed dissenters using sham tribunals. The Zealots even destroyed the city’s food supply so that the people would be forced to fight against the Roman siege instead of negotiating peace. All it achieved was more starvation.2

Their targets were Romans, Roman sympathizers, and Jews they thought apostate. They also raided Jewish villages like Ein Gedi, where they slaughtered seven hundred women and children during Passover.3 In later Latin, sicarius became synonymous for a murderer.

Defenders made a last stand in the upper city but were overpowered. The five-hundred-year-old Second Temple—the symbol of Judaism—was desecrated, plundered, burned, and torn down stone by stone. When that was done, legionnaires turned their wrath to the Temple Mount, pushing its huge stones over the side, where they lie today at the foot of the Wailing Wall.

Once the fighting was over, the Romans killed the elderly and most military-age men, then sold the women and children into slavery. Tens of thousands were killed or enslaved that day, and Emperor Vespasian used the spoils from the Temple to pay for the Colosseum in Rome.

thousand Sicarii terrorists escaped through hidden underground tunnels and sewers, and made their way to Masada, the ancient world’s most impregnable fortress. Located on the edge of the Dead Sea, Masada was built on a 1,500-foot mesa reminiscent of an island of stone in the Grand Canyon. A few narrow paths carved out of the cliff face were the only way up the mountain, which were easy to defend with a small force. The Sicarii surprised the Roman garrison occupying Masada, killing all seven hundred of them, and took over the mountain fortress.

Who would attempt to conquer Masada but the Romans? General Silva arrived with the 10th Legion and fifteen thousand Jewish slaves from Jerusalem, and methodically set to work building seven fortified camps and a berm, surrounding Masada on all sides. Then, unimaginably, Roman engineers began to build an earthen ramp from the desert floor to the top of the mountain. It took a year to construct the giant ramp using hand tools. They also created a multi-storied siege tower with a battering ram. Somehow, in a colossal engineering feat, they hoisted it up the ramp until it scaled Masada’s fortress walls. It broke through in a single day.

Rather than fight to the death, they opted for mass suicide. Since suicide is prohibited in Judaism, the men killed their wives and children first, then gathered in the bathhouse. Each wrote his name on a shard of pottery and threw it into a pot. They took turns drawing a name, then killing the man listed until only one remained, who either committed suicide or was killed by a woman. When the Romans stormed up the ramp the next morning, they found 960 bodies. Only two women and five children were found alive. After this, the Romans had no more problems in Judea for decades. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) is an example of a successful counterinsurgency, or “COIN.” Winning hearts and minds, which is how the West conceives of COIN today, is irrelevant. The Romans made a desert and called it peace, to paraphrase the ancient historian Tacitus.

The Original Thirty-Six Stratagems Contemporary Maxims 1 Fool the Emperor and Cross the Sea Act in the open, but hide your true intentions. 2 Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao Attack the enemy’s vulnerable area. 3 Kill with a Borrowed Knife Attack using the strength of an ally. 4 Await the Exhausted Enemy at Your Ease Exercise patience and wear the enemy down. 5 Loot a Burning House Hit the enemy when he is down. 6 Clamor in the East while attacking in the West