made by the inhabitants of the town either before or during the siege, in order to enhance the town's natural defences. Today, modern houses have been built in the depression, along with the planting of fruit trees. Although the general ruin is now used by the villagers of Battir for growing olive trees, along the purlieu of the site can still be seen the partial, extant remains of a Herodian wall and a Herodian tower.The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 95; Gittin 58, et al.) and the Midrash (in Lamentations Rabbah) mention the city Betar, the siege, and the fate of its inhabitants. The siege was also mentioned by Eusebius and Hieronymus. According to Eusebius, "The war reached its height in the eighteenth year of the reign of Hadrian in Beththera, which was a strong citadel not very far from Jerusalem; the siege lasted a long time before the rebels were driven to final destruction by famine and thirst and the instigator of their madness paid the penalty he deserved." According to Kennedy and Riley, the size of the two largest camps discovered nearby (A and B) would indicate that there was enough for 6000 and 1800 soldiers during the siege of the city, respectively. It is not definite that Camps C, E, and F were actually temporary Roman camps, but if they are contemporaneous with the addition of more troops in Camps C, D, E, and F, the overall siege force may have been around 10–12,000 soldiers. A stone inscription bearing Latin characters and discovered near the city shows that the Fifth Macedonian Legion and the Eleventh Claudian Legion took part in the siege. Aftermath The destruction of Betar in 135 put an end to the Jewish–Roman wars against Rome, and effectively quashed any Jewish hopes for self-governance in that period. Following the Fall of Betar, the Romans went on a systematic campaign of wiping out the remaining Judean villages, and hunting down refugees and the remaining rebels, with the last pockets of resistance being eliminated by the spring of 136. Talmud narrative and Jewish tradition According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Betar remained a thriving town fifty-two years after the destruction of the Second Temple, until it came to its demise. Modern chroniclers push back the destruction of Betar some years later, making the time-frame brought down in the Jerusalem Talmud hard to reconcile, even if, according to Jewish tradition, the