When Titus walked into the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem with his commanders in 70 C.E., he found it to be far superior to what he had previously heard, wrote Flavius Josephus, a Jewish priest and historian, in his book The Jewish War. Flames were consuming the adjacent rooms, but they had not reached the sanctuary yet. Titus ordered his soldiers to quench the fire, hoping to save the inner part of the Jewish temple. But, Josephus continues in his book, the Roman commander could not restrain the fury of the soldiers; one of them “threw the fire upon the hinges of the gate, in the dark, whereby the flame burst out from within the holy house immediately,” we read in William Whiston's translation. “And thus was the holy house burnt down.”
After Titus returned to Rome, he was awarded the traditional triumphal ride on a chariot. The spoils from his conquest contributed to the building of the Roman Colosseum. Some of the relics taken from Jerusalem, including the massive, golden menorah, were paraded in the capital.
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