Companions to the Jewish War?


Active Member
I'm currently working on a chronology of the Jewish War. Regarding the Battle of Beth Horon (66), how does this:
Afterwards Cestius no longer wanted to remain inactive while the Jews were everywhere up in arms, so he marched to Ptolemais with the entire twelfth legion from Antioch and with two thousand chosen from each of the rest, with six cohorts of infantry and four troops of cavalry, besides those allies sent by the kings. Of these, Antiochus sent two thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry, with as many archers, and Agrippa sent the same number of infantry and one thousand cavalry. Sohemus followed with four thousand, a third of them cavalry, but most were archers. There were also many allies gathered from the cities, less skilled than the regular soldiers, but making up for it by their zeal and their hatred for the Jews.
become this:
? Who figured out the identities of those detachments and how?
Anyone aware of any good companion books - ideally with information on inscriptions and archaeology?
I'm currently only aware of these:


Active Member
Also, this looks like a mistake:
In 66, after a Zealot revolt had destroyed the Roman garrison in Jerusalem, the XII Fulminata, with vexillationes of IV Scythica and VI Ferrata, was sent to retaliate, but it was sent back by Gaius Cestius Gallus, legatus of Syria, when he saw that the legion was weak. On its way back, XII Fulminata was ambushed and defeated by Eleazar ben Simon at Beit-Horon, and lost its aquila. However, XII Fulminata fought well in the last part of the war, and supported its commander T. Flavius Vespasian in his successful bid for the imperial throne. At the end of the war, XII Fulminata and XVI Flavia Firma were sent to guard the Euphrates border, camping at Melitene.
Eleazar ben Simon is not mentioned in reference to this?
But Simon Bar-Giora is mentioned:


Active Member
BTW, it seems like there IS a biography for emperor Titus (The Emperor Titus by Jones, 1984), but it's extremely expensive:
I will try to get from my local library and photocopy it.

Here's a good online biography:
Apparently, the Jones book has a more comprehensive bibliography than that!

Wikipedia lists the primary sources for Titus:
Primary sources[edit]
This has something to do with Titus and Christianity:

Besides that there are coins and - the hardest thing to research in Roman history - inscriptions.