Alexander, as a proven commander with experience of Jewish affairs, was sent by Vespasian to join Titus as his chief of staff and adviser, second only to Titus himself. The siege of Jerusalem was conducted by four legions, and even after the city walls were overcome, the defenders held out in the Temple. Alexander participated in an initial decision not to destroy the Temple, which would remain an ornament, but to quench the fire. Two subsequent assaults by Jewish forces were repelled, and the survivors retreated to the inner temple. In a sortie, according to Josephus they clashed with the Roman troops tasked with putting the flames out, and one enraged Roman soldier threw a brand into the sanctum, destroying it. Josephus's accounts of the sequence of events, and of who was responsible, is highly contradictory, though, as in rabbinic tradition, both this and the earlier destruction of the Temple were due to God's will, Nebuchadnezzer and the Romans being but his instruments. He makes Titus willing and unwilling to destroy the Temple, depending on what passage of his works one relies on. Later career By this time, Vespasian's position in Rome was secure. The details of Alexander's career under the new emperor remain unclear. A damaged papyrus refers to Alexander as holding the position of "Praetorian Prefect", which is open to two interpretations. It could indicate his rank during Titus' campaign in 70, which would mean that he held his own independent imperium (commanding authority). According to another view, it means that he became Prefect of the Praetorian Guard at Rome, which in later years became a common position for former Prefects of Egypt. In either case, Alexander attained a position in the Roman Empire that was unparalleled for a man of Jewish birth, not to mention one who suffered from the further stigma of an Egyptian origin. The xenophobic speaker of Juvenal's first Satire, composed in the late 1st or early in the 2nd century AD, complains of passing the Forum's triumphal statues, "where some Egyptian Arabarch's had the nerve to set up his titles. At his image it's right to do more than piss!" This is very likely a reference to Alexander. See also Prefects, Procurators, and Legates of Roman Judaea Notes References Ancient Josephus, Antiquities 18.259, 19.276, 20.100–103 Josephus, The Jewish War 2.220, 2.309, 2.490–497, 4.616–617, 5.45–46, 5.205, 6.236–243 Juvenal, Satires 1.129–131 Suetonius, Vespasian 6.3 Tacitus,