<P> Titus began his siege a few days before Passover, surrounding the city, with three legions (V Macedonica, XII Fulminata, XV Apollinaris) on the western side and a fourth (X Fretensis) on the Mount of Olives to the east . If the reference in his Jewish War at 6: 421 is to Titus' siege, though difficulties exist with its interpretation, then at the time, according to Josephus, Jerusalem was thronged with many people who had come to celebrate Passover . The thrust of the siege began in the west at the Third Wall, north of the Jaffa Gate . By May, this was breached and the Second Wall also was taken shortly afterwards, leaving the defenders in possession of the Temple and the upper and lower city . The Jewish defenders were split into factions: John of Gischala's group murdered another faction leader, Eleazar ben Simon, whose men were entrenched in the forecourts of the Temple . The enmities between John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora were papered over only when the Roman siege engineers began to erect ramparts . Titus then had a wall built to girdle the city in order to starve out the population more effectively . After several failed attempts to breach or scale the walls of the Fortress of Antonia, the Romans finally launched a secret attack, overwhelming the sleeping Zealots and taking the fortress by late July . </P> <P> After Jewish allies killed a number of Roman soldiers, Titus sent Josephus, the Jewish historian, to negotiate with the defenders; this ended with Jews wounding the negotiator with an arrow, and another sally was launched shortly after . Titus was almost captured during this sudden attack, but escaped . </P> <P> Overlooking the Temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself . Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple's walls . Destroying the Temple was not among Titus' goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier . Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon . The fire spread quickly and was soon out of control . The Temple was captured and destroyed on 9 / 10 Tisha B'Av, at the end of August, and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city . Josephus described the scene: </P> <P> As the legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuosity: passion alone was in command . Crowded together around the entrances many were trampled by their friends, many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins of the colonnades and died as miserably as the defeated . As they neared the Sanctuary they pretended not even to hear Caesar's commands and urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands . The partisans were no longer in a position to help; everywhere was slaughter and flight . Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught . Round the Altar the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom . </P>

Who destroyed the temple in jerusalem in 70 ad