The ambitions and divisions of the Judaean ruling class thus brought war onto their country. Shunned by the Roman procurator after a series of mishaps, of which the most serious was the cover-up for the perpetrators of the joke which had hurt the governor's dignity, the rulers of Judaea clung onto power by courting popularity through the advocacy of rebellion. Their leadership turned popular discontent into full-scale revolt against Rome, and the Romans recognized this both by the power and ferocity of their response to the ruling class in a.d. 66 and by the exceptional violence with which the province was treated after its defeat.

The Judaean ruling class was consigned to oblivion and the worship of God in the Jerusalem Temple was brought to an end. Many rich landowners were imprisoned, enslaved or executed. Priests who surrendered when the Temple was already on fire were put to death on the grounds that, as Titus said, it behoved them to perish with the sanctuary (B.J. 6.322). His attitude to the rest of the rebels was as rigorous: many of Josephus' friends and acquaintances, including his brother, were rescued from punishment only by the historian's intervention with Titus (Vita 419), and three other acquaintances were saved by him only after they had already been crucified with many other prisoners; two of these had already suffered too much to survive (Vita 420–1).