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
