With the outbreak of the Great Revolt against the Romans in 66 CE, a huge Roman army reached the country (at its height, it numbered some 60,000 warriors), bent on cruelly crushing the revolt. In the following years the entire country was conquered by the Romans and in the Hebrew month of Nissan, 70 CE, the siege of Jerusalem began.
In the month of Av, the Romans under the command of Titus set fire to the Temple and a month later they destroyed Jerusalem’s upper city, which faced the Temple Mount. Thus the Second Temple period, which had lasted for almost 600 years, came to an end.