History Forum / General / Ancient History / October 2003

It has long been accepted that the Kittim were the Romans, following
Yadin's observations concerning the weaponry and military tactics of
the Kittim, which were the same as distinctive practices of the Romans
(G. Jeremias, 1963). This is accepted by the most conservative of
scholars, including Vermes (1995).

Yigael Yadin, who by good fortune was both a military expert and a
distinguished archaeologist, identified the description of a military
tactic in 1QM 9:12-15 as referring to the Roman testudo ('tortoise'),
formed from shields and spears. Yadin writes:

"From the scroll it seems that the tower must be identified with the
famous Roman testudo which was used to indicate a formation of combat
units for defence as well as attack and assault on fortified
positions. Testudo was a closed formation whose 'faces' (mostly three)
were protected by the shields of the soldiers standing in the outer
ranks, sometimes combined to increase their length. The rest of the
soldiers could move behind this 'tortoise shell'. Since their front
was secured by the wall of shields, they could raise their own shields
above their heads and defend themselves from the sling-stones, darts
etc, which were hurled at them from the wall. This formation was used
as a defence from surprise attack, for an attack on a fortified enemy,
as well as for camouflaging the activities of units in no man's land."
(ref 1).

The DSS include the War Scroll (1QM), a composite document setting out
plans for the equipment and manoeuvres in a great final war waged by
the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. Multiple copies of it
were found. It was to be a real war. 1QM, and the fragments 4Q 491,
492, 494 and 495 are in a Herodian hand. 4Q 493 is in a late Hasmonean
hand, a style that could extend into the Herodian period. (DJD 7)

It mixes descriptions of military tactics with fantasy elements.
Yigael Yadin pointed out that 1QM 9:12-15 describes towers which "must
be identified with the famous Roman testudo which was used to indicate
a formation of combat units for defence as well as attack and assault
on fortified positions". (ref 1) Thus the writers had knowledge of
Roman tactics, and additionally relied on religious slogans on their
weapons and on the intervention of heaven.

After the intervention of heaven in the seventh round of the battle,
"the sons of Japheth (Greece and Rome) will fall, never to arise. The
Kittim shall be crushed without [remnant]" (1QM 18: 1-5). The motive
for the final form of the document had come, then, from the time when
the Romans were seen as oppressors, from AD 6.

Ref (1). Yadin Y., The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against
the Sons of Darkness (OUP, 1962). Pp. 188, 189, with an illustration.
Source: Dio Cassius 49, 30.