CLOSING IN
The long blockade had failed to bring about the surrender of the city;
and Titus was beginning to grow weary of the delay; in fancy he could
hear the patricians of Rome laughing at the plebeian-born general, and
declaring that a city taken by famine was not a very brilliant way of
inaugurating the new dynasty of Flavian emperors.
So it came to pass that on the day following Vashti’s departure for
Pella, the mighty Roman host at a word from Titus roused itself to toil
again like a giant refreshed by a long sleep.
As the fortress Antonia was the key to the temple, Titus began by
raising opposite this fortress four huge aggeres.
The construction of the former banks had cleared all the timber from
the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem, so that the Romans were compelled
to go farther afield, and at the end of twenty-one days--the time taken
in raising these new aggeres--there was not a tree left within ten
miles of the city!
Meanwhile, long teams of oxen, bellowing under the lash, were toiling
up the rugged pass of Beth-horon, drawing endless files of wagons roped
to each other, upon which were mounted the new military machines, huge
and terrible, constructed by the Greek engineers of Cæsarea.
On the twenty-second day, the artillery (this word is long anterior to
the use of firearms) was placed in position, and the legions, massing
all their strength, directed a fierce attack upon the northern wall of
Antonia, the stronghold of John of Giscala.
Now this wall happened to stand upon that part which had been
undermined by John at the time when the Romans made their former
attack; and the hollow ground, weakened by the shaking caused by the
battering-rams, gave way during the first night, hurling down a portion
of the wall with all the sentinels upon it.
The Romans, startled from their sleep by the appalling crash and by
the thrilling shrieks of the doomed victims, knew not at first what
had happened, but when the morning light revealed the nature of the
disaster, they grasped their weapons, clambered over the ruins, and
poured through the breach.
But Antonia was not yet taken. John, exercising a military foresight
that moved his enemies to surprise, if not to admiration, had
previously raised a second wall within.
As it was impossible to advance the engines through the breach, the
Romans, in order to overcome this new barrier, were compelled to resort
to other means.
Having failed to surmount it by boldly climbing up in the very face of
the enemy, they lay down at last at the foot of the wall, and, forming
a testudo, or roof of shields, they sought to loosen with iron crows
the lower courses of the masonry, a process attended with little hurt
to the wall, but with considerable loss of life to the Romans.
Now Crispus, having taken due note that a certain part of this wall
declined backwards, and that the stones at this said part projected in
such a manner as to afford some slight foothold, resolved to attempt
a nocturnal surprise on his own account. At the dead of night he
assembled fifteen of his bravest troops, including a trumpeter and an
eagle-bearer.
Creeping forward with soundless tread, the little band, favored by
the gloom, gained the foot of the wall unseen by the Jewish sentinels
above. Then Crispus silently and cautiously began the ascent; his men
followed like a file of grim specters. One javelin hurled from above
would have sufficed to send the whole party thundering down. No such
disaster occurred, however. Whether the sentinels were sleeping, or
whether they were keeping careless watch, is a matter that will never
be known: certain it is that the heroic sixteen safely gained the top
of the wall.
A whispered word from Crispus, and then on the still night air the
trumpet rang out the call to arms; long, shrill, and piercing, the
summons startled the Romans from sleep; it startled still more
the Jewish sentinels close at hand. Even now it would have been a
comparatively easy matter to repel the attack; but, as Crispus and his
party, their lifted blades glinting through the gloom, dashed forward
with a mighty shout, the Zealot sentinels, without waiting to ascertain
the number of their assailants, turned tail and fled, fully convinced
that the whole of the Roman army was pouring over the battlements.
Their shouts awoke their fellows. Roused thus in the dead of night the
entire garrison became the victims of one of those panics which have
been known to fall sometimes upon even the hardiest veterans. From
above, from below, from every hall and chamber, there came running
wild-eyed Zealots, whose only object was to save their lives; in mad
confusion they made for the south side of the fortress, where lay
the only available exit--a narrow causeway over the deep ravine that
separated Antonia from the temple.
Meantime, Titus and the rest of the Romans in the camp, guided by the
continuous pealing of the trumpet, hurried forward, scaled the wall,
and found to their surprise and delight that the enemy had vacated the
fortress without striking a blow.
Now the surrender of Antonia had opened the way to the temple, and
Crispus, thinking in one night and by the same stroke, to capture both
places was pursuing the retreating Zealots across the connecting
causeway.
But now the Zealots, cursing themselves for their cowardly folly,
turned and made a stand upon this same causeway.
Then began a battle, perhaps the fiercest and bloodiest in the whole
course of the siege. Spears and javelins being useless, both sides drew
their swords and fought it out hand to hand. In the gloom of night the
troops of both parties were so intermingled that no man knew where he
was; more often than not Roman slew Roman, and Jew slew Jew. Crispus,
stunned by a blow on the head, was dragged forth from the fray by a
faithful legionary.
With the dawn Simon came to the aid of his Zealot rival; and then
indeed the fighting, and the shouting, and the clangor, grew fiercer
and louder than ever. On that narrow viaduct there was no room either
to advance or retreat; scores of the combatants were forced over the
parapet, and shrieking, fell, to be dashed to pieces in the rocky
ravine below. The passage became so crowded with dead that the living
to get at each other were obliged to mount upon piles of bodies and of
armor.
At last, when it became clear that the Romans could make no headway,
Titus, after ten hours of this fighting, gave the signal for recall.
Thanks to Crispus, however, the great fortress of Antonia was now
in Roman hands, and as Simon beheld the standard inscribed S.P.Q.R.
floating proudly again from its lofty battlements, he wept tears
of grief and rage, and cursed John to his face saying--somewhat
unjustly--that none but a fool or a coward or a traitor could have lost
such a stronghold.
Later that same day Rufus and Crispus stood on the battlements of
Antonia; and of all the Romans, who more pleased than Rufus at finding
himself once more in his old familiar fortress?
The two, looking down from their lofty position, watched the
preparations that were being made for the defense of the temple. The
marble courts and gilded pinnacles were assuming the appearance of a
warlike citadel. Thousands of Zealots, under the direction of Simon
and John, were hauling their huge military engines over the tesselated
pavement, till the northern porticoes facing Antonia fairly bristled
with balistæ and catapults. The clang of arms and the creaking of the
machines, the shouting of men and the ceaseless hurrying hither and
thither, made a scene difficult to reconcile with the belief that the
place was the house of God.
“What is the day of the month?” asked Rufus, suddenly.
“The seventeenth of July,” replied Crispus.
“I venture to prophesy that in the years to come the Jews--if there
be any of them left after this war--will keep this day as a day of
mourning.”
“Why so?”
“The answer is to be found _there!_” remarked Rufus, pointing to the
court of the priests. “It is the hour of the evening sacrifice,” he
continued, glancing at a sun-dial near by, “but where is the smoke
ascending from the altar? ’Twas absent, too, this morning, so I am
told. _The daily sacrifice hath ceased_ for lack of victims. If I
rightly foresee the fate of the temple, they made their last sacrifice
yester even.”
To the mind of the pagan Rufus the matter was one of little moment,
but to Crispus, with his Christian way of thinking, this cessation of
a sacrifice that had taken place twice a day for a space of thirteen
hundred years was full of a profound significance; he knew that to the
pious Hebrew, if not to the fighting Zealot, it must appear an event as
grave almost as a stoppage in the progress of the universe, for had not
the scribes said, “The world was made for the sake of the temple,” and
what was the temple without its sacrifices?
Titus, made aware of the event, sought to conciliate the religious
sentiment of the foe by a very remarkable offer.
Josephus, covered by the shield of a legionary, walked along the
causeway; and, halting in the middle, lifted up his voice, and
addressed the Jewish people in the Hebrew tongue.
“Simon Bar-gioras and John of Giscala, hear now the words of Titus
Cæsar. He hath a reverence for your temple, and would fain save it from
the destruction which ye, by converting it into a citadel, are bringing
upon it. If ye will remove your men of war, he will meet you in battle
at Mount Zion or in whatever place you choose; he, too, will withdraw
his arms from the temple, leaving it sacred and inviolate. And as a
token of his good will towards you, he offers you this day a gift of
threescore rams that ye may continue the daily sacrifice as heretofore.”
“Ha! mark you that?” said Rufus to Crispus. “There speaks not Titus but
Berenice.”
There were among the Jewish people thousands that would gladly have
seen the war removed from the temple and its precincts, but they were
overawed by the Zealots, who, by the mouth of Simon, thus made answer:
“Titus, knowing that he cannot take the temple by force of arms,
whereof the fight of this morning is a witness, speaks thus, hoping
to lure us from our stronghold, that he may the more easily enter it.
But in vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. His threescore
rams we will not take, for never shall it be said that the sacrifices
to the Eternal One have become dependent upon the polluted offerings
of an uncircumcized heathen. And to him and to the whole Roman empire
do we offer an everlasting defiance. Now, renegade, carry back in thy
detestable Greek or Latin the answer of Simon Bar-gioras.”
This haughty reply, and especially its boastful note as to the fight on
the causeway, so provoked Titus that he determined to make a second
attempt that very night. As the whole army were unable to join in the
assault owing to the narrowness of the approach, there were picked out
from each century the thirty bravest and strongest men; tribunes were
appointed over each thousand, and one Cerealis, an officer of rare
valor, was chosen to command the whole. In the great hall of Antonia
the storming party consecrated themselves, as it were, to the work by
offering, under the presidency of Theomantes, a solemn sacrifice to
Mars.
An hour before dawn Cerealis at the head of his men, advanced over the
causeway with swift silent tread, but failed to effect a surprise.
Simon, if not John, was on the alert. Then began a battle similar in
all respects to that of the preceding night. After eight hours of
desperate fighting the Romans had not gained a foot of ground, and the
battle ceased, as it were, by mutual consent.
Now no more could the Romans boast that, man for man, they were
superior to the Jews, when the picked soldiers of their army, the very
flower of the legions, had suffered repulse at the hands of the Zealots.
The iron warriors, who had carried their eagles triumphantly over
all nations from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, leaned moodily upon
their spears, and stared up with dark and sullen faces at the laughing
Zealots, who, clustering upon the roof of the northern cloisters,
pointed with their swords at the causeway and mockingly asked the foe
why they did not come into the temple.
“Give counsel what we shall do,” said Titus to Tiberius Alexander.
“Raze Antonia to the ground, and with the materials fill up this
intervening glen so as to make a broad level way, over which we may
haul our engines to batter the northern cloisters.”
Titus without delay adopted this suggestion.
The Roman soldiers, burning to retrieve their tarnished honor, had
no sooner received the new command than they flew with ardor to
its execution. All along the sky-line, on every tower, turret and
battlement, were seen groups of men furnished with lever and crow, by
whose means blocks of masonry were lifted up to be sent whirling and
crashing into the valley below; far into the night the soldiers toiled
by the ruddy glare of a thousand torches, and as the mighty fortress
sank lower and lower so did the débris accumulated in the valley rise
higher and higher.
The Zealots no longer mocked, but looked on in silent wonder at this
display of almost superhuman energy. There was something sublime in
this demolition of a magnificent citadel merely for the purpose of
filling up a trench.
At last a broad and level way was successfully carried across the
ravine right up to the very foot of the northern cloisters.
On the evening of the day that saw its completion Crispus, walking
meditatively upon the crest of Olivet, came suddenly upon a figure
standing solitary, silent, motionless. It was the woman who was
steadfastly refusing to acknowledge herself as his wife, the Princess
Berenice. Not far off, in the background, stood two attendants with a
chariot. Evidently she had come to take a look, perhaps her last look,
at her native city.
Crispus had leisure to observe her, for she was so wrapped in
contemplation that she did not hear his tread.
Her face was pale, and anguish looked from her eyes as she surveyed the
ruin wrought by man against his fellow-man.
The country, swept of all its timber to supply materials for the Roman
banks and for camp fires, had lost all its sylvan charm and beauty.
To this denudation must be added the ravages of the Arabian and Syrian
allies, who, haters of the Jews, had diffused their devastating
frenzy so far around that, from the summit of Olivet, neither village
nor house, neither tower nor wall, could be seen to break the dreary
monotony of the landscape. So mournful a change had passed over the
country that in the striking language of Josephus, “_Anyone that had
previously known the place, coming on a sudden to it now, would have
failed to recognize it!_”
It was a scene of utter desolation, a howling wilderness, made more
awful by the light of the setting sun, which, half sunk below the
horizon, shot a sinister red glare athwart the melancholy waste.
In all the wide extent of landscape there was no vestige of life or
movement, save at one spot only, where the grim and ever-narrowing
circle of fire and steel was slowly extinguishing the life of a once
great nation.
Berenice set her eyes upon the city, or rather upon what was left of
it. Was this the place that the Psalmist had called, “The joy of the
whole earth”?
Gone was the suburb of Bezetha! Gone was the suburb of Acra! Gone
was the citadel of Antonia! Zion and Ophel remained, but woefully
wrecked and dilapidated; and the temple--shorn, alas! of its divine
sacrifies--still rose as fair as ever, its marble porticoes and golden
pinnacles dyed in the blood-red hues of sunset. But how long would
it stand? Ah! there was her fear, and she pressed her hand to her
throbbing heart.
Turning suddenly she caught sight of Crispus, and started. There was
a proud trembling of her lip as if she were trying to subdue some
emotion--anger probably--that was rising to the surface.
“So it was _you_,” said she, taking no notice of his greeting, “who
prevented my weekly gift of rams from reaching the temple?”
“Nay, it was Tiberius Alexander, though I freely admit that his deed
has my approval.”
“Why so?”
“The Law, princess, was but a shadow of things to come. There is
now no need for typical sacrifices when the True Sacrifice has been
offered, once and for all. And since the Jew refuses to acknowledge the
temporal character of the Law, there is but one way of teaching him the
lesson--a stern and terrible way!”
It is doubtful whether Berenice, not being versed in Pauline theology,
quite comprehended the import of these words; at any rate, she did not
reply to them.
“They tell me you are great at slaughter,” she said, with a sort of
sneer, “and that, as being the first to mount the battlements of
Antonia, you have gained a Mural Crown. And now, grown more bold, you
seek to take God himself captive.”
“Princess, you talk as do the heathen. The Most High dwelleth not in
temples made with hands.”
“Yet your master Paul was wont to worship in yon edifice.”
“I doubt whether he would do so to-day, were he living, seeing that
there is now no holiness in yon temple. The spirit of true religion
has fled from the place. The high priest Phannias is a village rustic,
unlawfully chosen by lot, so ignorant that he knows not how to perform
the duties of his office. The temple has become a slaughter-house,
reeking with innocent blood shed by the wicked Zealots, who have held
therein mock trials of the rich, condemning them to death that they
may seize upon their wealth. The place is no longer a temple but a
citadel. The holy vessels have been melted down to form instruments
of war. Assassins pile their arms around the altar, and revelers make
themselves drunk in the Sanctuary. It were a shame to speak of the
things that have been done there. John’s men, tricked out in feminine
garb, have imitated the infamies of the guilty Cities of the Plain. And
you would bid us deal tenderly with this place, forsooth! Nay, verily,
its stones cry out for the avenging, purifying fire of heaven.”
“Or the flaming torch of Crispus,” sneered Berenice. “You think to see
the temple destroyed, but it shall not be so. Titus has pledged me his
solemn word to preserve it.”
“Titus may promise what he will; he cannot overturn the counsels of the
Most High.”
“Whose instrument you deem yourself to be,” returned Berenice,
disdainfully. “I know the secret thought of your heart. A vision sent,
not as you vainly think by God, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils, is luring you on to a wicked deed. You have desired to take
part in the siege for this end only, that when the attack on the temple
shall begin you may be able in the confusion to apply an incendiary
torch. Do so, and the act shall bring death upon her whom you hold most
dear.”
“And who is that?” asked Crispus quickly.
“Vashti, who, instead of being safe at Pella, as you intended her to
be, is a captive at my mercy--my slave to do with as I list. Your act
in bringing her forth from Jerusalem has had this result only--to
deliver her into my hands the sooner.”
Though Crispus tried to receive this startling news with outward
calmness, something of the fear felt by him looked from his eyes, and
drew a triumphant smile from Berenice.
Mistress of Vashti, she was mistress of his action, so she thought, and
his action must be the sparing of the temple.
“It was by accident I discovered that your Vashti was at Pella. Armed
with the written authority granted me by Titus I immediately arrested
my slave, and conveyed her to--to----”--No! she would keep the name
of the place a secret--“to where you will not find her. Now, mark my
words, Crispus Cestius Gallus. If by your hand yon temple burns, so too
shall Vashti burn; she shall die, shrieking in a flaming vesture of
pitch, even as the Christians died in the gardens of Nero.”
“Princess, if yours be the heart of a woman, I am glad to possess the
heart of a man.”
Berenice laughed, a cold, hard laugh.
“I care not how vile I be in your sight so long as I can but save the
temple. Retire this night from the army--Titus will permit it--have no
more to do with the siege, and I will set Vashti at liberty. What is
your answer?”
“This. Your threat supplies an additional argument for the destruction
of the temple, since it is clear that its dead ritual and external
formalities have no power to purify the heart or quicken the
conscience. As to your menace against Vashti, forget not that it is
written, ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’”
Berenice laughed scornfully.
“Who will venture to punish a princess and the friend of Titus merely
for putting her own slave to death?”
“The Christians.”
“The Christians!” repeated Berenice, disdainfully.
“I have said it, princess. If Vashti dies, you die also. Trust not to
the power of Titus to save you. There are in yon army Christians who,
in the execution of what they deem to be right, fear neither kings nor
Cæsars. You shall be secretly seized and carried off to a conclave of
Christians there to be judged of the deed by your own Law, which has
said: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning’; Berenice’s
death for Vashti’s death. If you are found guilty, be sure of this,
princess, _they’ll not lack an executioner_!”
As Berenice beheld the set, stern look on his face, she had no need to
ask who that executioner would be.
Without another word he turned and left her.
She had sought to frighten him, but it was _she_ who was the
frightened one. She stood in fear and trembling, knowing that her
threat instead of acting as a deterrent had but made him the more
resolved to carry out his purpose.
Next day the toiling legions pushing forward their military engines
directed a fierce attack along the line of cloisters--more than a
thousand feet in length--that formed the northern side of the great
temple-platform.
Now that the battle had reached the very seat of their religion the
Jews fought with a fury they had never before shown; the priests
themselves were under arms, rivaling the Zealots in deeds of valor;
Simon, with bare arm and flashing scimitar, was seen at every point
along the line, urging on to fresh exertions men who required but
little urging.
Let Jewish valor do what it would, however, it could not prevail; each
day marked an advance on the part of the Romans, who at last became
masters of the whole northern gallery, which they proceeded at once to
destroy by fire, ax, and crow, in order to facilitate the advance of
the battering-train.
The victors had now gained the summit of the lofty temple-platform, a
vast square open to the sky save at the sides which were adorned with
cloisters. In the midst of this square towered the Sanctuary or temple
proper, a structure 360 feet in length and 270 in breadth. Its exterior
wall, formed of gigantic blocks of marble, and nearly 40 feet in
height, was pierced by nine gateways, there being three upon each side
save the western, that side being without gates.
It was within this fortress--for such it was--that the defeated Jews
had taken refuge, and here they prepared to make their final, and, as
they believed, triumphal stand.
Strange and incredible fact!
In spite of their numerous defeats, hope was stronger than ever in the
breast of the Jews, who still dreamed of seeing the scepter of empire
transferred from the Capitol to Zion. They were fully convinced that
the temple which God Himself had ordered to be built could never be
trodden by the foot of pagan conqueror. The deity would be certain to
work a miracle in their favor; at the least, something would happen to
astonish and disperse the enemy. And they talked of Sennacherib and the
burning simoon, but forgot Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans.
And now the sacred precincts of the temple echoed with the clang of
horse-hoofs. Roman cavalry clattered on the marble pavement of the
Court of the Gentiles, and with leveled spears swept round and round
the Sanctuary, driving in every sortie made from the gates, and acting
as a cover to the Roman infantry, who, with tremendous toil and
difficulty, were hauling along a train of battering-rams.
The Sanctuary was surrounded by a low balustrade, bearing tablets--one
has survived to the present time--inscribed in Greek and Latin letters
with notices prohibiting the Gentiles on pain of death from entering
the edifice--notices that evoked the mocking laughter of the Roman
soldiery as they set their engines in array against the building.
The “middle wall of partition,” which the Law had set up betwixt Jew
and Gentile, was now breaking down in no figurative sense!
The temple-platform had a circuit so ample as to contain within it
a synagogue, and it was from the roof of this structure, as from
a throne, that Titus directed the military operations against the
Sanctuary.
It was not without an expectant thrill that the Jews awaited Titus’
signal for the assault, there being a half belief among them that fire
from heaven would descend upon the impious band that first ventured
to swing a beam against the sacred wall of God’s house; and therefore
something like a sigh of disappointment went up when nothing marvelous
followed upon the first stroke of the ram.
Relying upon the strength of the masonry the Jews did little fighting,
content to watch amid laughter and gibes the futile labors of the enemy.
For six days the battering-rams swung, and thundered, and pounded
against the walls of the Sanctuary; yet not a stone was pushed from its
place, so marvelously compacted was the masonry.
“Bring scaling-ladders and storm the walls!” cried Titus on the seventh
day.
The legionaries, relinquishing the battering-rams, flew to execute this
new order.
The Jews made no resistance to the Romans while mounting, but as soon
as each man had reached the top, they either hurled him down headlong
or slew him before he had time to cover himself with his shield.
Now here, and now there, a ladder crowded with ascending legionaries,
would be toppled backwards and the men dashed to pieces upon the marble
pavement.
The fierce shouts of the active combatants intermingled with the cries
and groans of the wounded and the dying.
After two hours of this deadly game there came a lull. Despairing of
taking the place by escalade the Romans withdrew to a distance, and
stared up in moody silence at the Zealots, who, brandishing their
weapons, shouted, “Ye cannot take this place; it is the abode of God.”
The superstitious legionaries were beginning to think the same. They
no longer laughed at the words, “Let no Gentile enter here on pain
of death.” The dead and dying strewn around on the pavement were a
significant commentary on that interdict.
Vainly did the trumpets peal out a call to renew the charge. Not a man
would move.
Titus sought to stimulate their courage by a new expedient. Pointing to
that part of the wall where stood the Zealot chief, he shouted:
“Ten thousand gold pieces to the man who brings me Simon’s head.”
No one seemed willing to earn this rich reward.
Simon laughed.
“Titus knows my value. Now to him who brings me the head of Titus I
shall give ten shekels only, it not being worth more.”
Suddenly a standard-bearer, darting forward, mounted a ladder, and when
three-fourths of the way up, he deliberately flung the eagle into the
midst of the foe, crying as he waved his sword, “Romans, will you see
your standard taken by the enemy? Follow me.”
Lose an eagle? Never!
Amid a wild, shrill clangor of trumpets, the legionaries, with the
flame of battle in their blood, swept forward, wave upon wave,
determined this time to carry the fortress. But, alas! for them, this
attack fared no better than the others. The bold standard-bearer was
struck down; those following him were either slain or repulsed; and the
eagle remained in the hands of the foe.
Simon viewed the idolatrous image with loathing.
“An abomination brought into the place where it ought not to be,” said
he. “Bring ax and hammer.”
And with his own strong arm he hewed the golden eagle to pieces, and
cast them down at the feet of the Romans contemptuously, crying:
“Behold your god!”
If a yell could have brought down the walls of the Sanctuary they
would most assuredly have fallen at that moment before the terrific
yell of concentrated hatred and fury that burst from the Romans, when
they beheld the destruction of what was to them not merely a patriotic
emblem but a darling object of worship, a worship far more real and
fervent than they ever paid to Jove or Mars!
Simon’s studied affront goaded Titus to a course from which he had
hitherto refrained.
“_Fire the gates!_” he cried.
To this command the legionaries responded with a huge roar of delight.
Vast quantities of timber were quickly brought and piled high against
the metal-plated doors of the nine gateways.
Of these, the most splendid was the one facing the east, and known as
the Corinthian Gate, for, whereas, the other doors were crusted all
over with gold and silver, the eastern door was a marvel of richly
chased Corinthian bronze.
It was Alexander, the wealthy Alabarch of Alexandria, who had adorned
the gate in this fashion; and, by a singular turn of destiny, it
was his apostate son Tiberius who wrought its destruction--a deed
surprising to the Romans themselves, who could not but regard it as
an act of filial impiety. With buckler held over his head to protect
himself from the arrows that came whizzing obliquely from above, the
ex-procurator of Judæa ascended the stately flight of fifteen stairs,
and, with his own hand, applied a lighted torch to the pile of timber.
Nine huge fires were now smoking, and crackling, and flaming, and
roaring, at the nine gates of the temple. As the metallic platings
became red-hot the fire, carried to the woodwork behind, began to
consume the entire gate.
The sight produced a strange and stupefying effect upon the Jews, who
had never thought such an event to be possible; at one stroke their
courage seemed to vanish; they made no attempt to quench the flames,
but stood mute spectators of the scene.
It was Titus himself, who, not wishing the conflagration to extend too
far, gave orders to fling water upon the burning gates; and when this
had been done, the besieged realized that their defense was all but at
an end; the charred timber of the doors would yield at the first stroke
of the battering-ram, and the enemy would enter by nine different ways.
“The day is far spent and the soldiers are faint,” said Titus. “We will
defer our final attack till the morrow.”
With a view of cutting off the retreat of Simon and John, who might
seek during the night to make their escape to Mount Zion, Titus caused
a great part of his army to camp round about in the cloisters of the
Court of the Gentiles.
Leaving Crispus and Rufus in charge of these forces Titus retired
to Antonia, or rather to a corner of it that had been spared in the
general demolition in order to furnish a lodging for himself and his
chief officers.
And here, that same night, there sat that memorable council, assembled
to decide the great question (as if it were in _their_ power to
decide!) whether the Jewish temple should be preserved or destroyed.
Tiberius Alexander was the first to speak; more pagan than the pagans
themselves he brought forward several reasons, all tending to show that
the existence of the temple was a menace to the safety of the empire.
He ended with a religious argument:
“If you spare this edifice, O Cæsar, the Jews will boast that their God
has put His fear in your heart and that you dare not destroy it. They
will see in your leniency both a proof of the divine origin of their
temple and an augury of its eternal existence; its preservation will
more than ever convince them that they are the favorites of heaven, and
are therefore under no obligation to obey an earthly power.
“It must be ours to show that Jupiter of the Capitol is supreme over
Jehovah of Jerusalem.
“Two superstitions, equally fatal to the empire, depend for their
existence upon yon temple, that of the Jews and that of the
Christians![32] These two superstitions, although contrary to each
other, have the same origin: the Christians come from the Jews; destroy
the root, and the shoot will quickly perish. Wherefore,” concluded he,
with reminiscences of the psalms, “my counsel is, ‘Down with it; down
with it, even to the ground!’”
But Titus, secretly moved by his infatuation for Berenice, was, of
course, disposed to take a milder view.
“We ought not,” said he, “from hatred of our enemies to take revenge
upon inanimate things. To burn so vast and splendid a fabric is to do
hurt to ourselves, seeing that it is an ornament to our empire.”[33]
And, perceiving on which side of the question the mind of their general
lay a certain minority, who had been disposed to favor the views of
Alexander, dropped their opposition.
“This, then, is our decree,” said Titus solemnly, “and let the whole
army know it--the temple shall be preserved.”
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in
derision!
For scarcely had Titus made an end of speaking when from without
there came a cry, distant and faint; it was repeated in a louder key;
caught up by a thousand tongues, alike by the startled Romans in the
camp and by the terrified Jews in the city, the wild tidings came
rolling louder, and ever louder, upon the night air, to the mockery and
confusion of the military council:
=“THE TEMPLE IS ON FIRE!”=