Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna, Austria/The Bridgeman Art Library
Terrified Jews run for their lives as their fellows are trampled by Roman horses and smoke pours out of the Temple in this 1638 painting The Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Titus by Nicolas Poussin. The violent and fiery destruction of the Temple in August 70 C.E. by Roman general Titus’s troops was graphically recounted by the first-century historian Flavius Josephus and is mourned by Jews every year on Tisha b’Av.