How The Romans Took The Second Wall Twic_The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem

For Taking The Third Wall.

1. Now Caesar took this wall there on the fifth day after he had taken

the first; and when the Jews had fled from him, he entered into it with

a thousand armed men, and those of his choice troops, and this at a

place where were the merchants of wool, the braziers, and the market

for cloth, and where the narrow streets led obliquely to the wall.

Wherefore, if Titus had either demolished a larger part of the wall

immediately, or had come in, and, according to the law of war, had laid

waste what was left, his victory would not, I suppose, have been mixed

with any loss to himself. But now, out of the hope he had that he should

make the Jews ashamed of their obstinacy, by not being willing, when he

was able, to afflict them more than he needed to do, he did not widen

the breach of the wall, in order to make a safer retreat upon occasion;

for he did not think they would lay snares for him that did them such a

kindness. When therefore he came in, he did not permit his soldiers to

kill any of those they caught, nor to set fire to their houses neither;

nay, he gave leave to the seditious, if they had a mind, to fight

without any harm to the people, and promised to restore the people's

effects to them; for he was very desirous to preserve the city for his

own sake, and the temple for the sake of the city. As to the people, he

had them of a long time ready to comply with his proposals; but as to

the fighting men, this humanity of his seemed a mark of his weakness,

and they imagined that he made these proposals because he was not able

to take the rest of the city. They also threatened death to the people,

if they should any one of them say a word about a surrender. They

moreover cut the throats of such as talked of a peace, and then attacked

those Romans that were come within the wall. Some of them they met in

the narrow streets, and some they fought against from their houses,

while they made a sudden sally out at the upper gates, and assaulted

such Romans as were beyond the wall, till those that guarded the wall

were so affrighted, that they leaped down from their towers, and retired

to their several camps: upon which a great noise was made by the Romans

that were within, because they were encompassed round on every side by

their enemies; as also by them that were without, because they were in

fear for those that were left in the city. Thus did the Jews grow more

numerous perpetually, and had great advantages over the Romans, by their

full knowledge of those narrow lanes; and they wounded a great many

of them, and fell upon them, and drove them out of the city. Now these

Romans were at present forced to make the best resistance they could;

for they were not able, in great numbers, to get out at the breach in

the wall, it was so narrow. It is also probable that all those that

were gotten within had been cut to pieces, if Titus had not sent them

succors; for he ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of these

narrow lanes, and he stood himself where was the greatest multitude of

his enemies, and with his darts he put a stop to them; as with him

did Domitius Sabinus also, a valiant man, and one that in this battle

appeared so to be. Thus did Caesar continue to shoot darts at the Jews

continually, and to hinder them from coming upon his men, and this until

all his soldiers had retreated out of the city.

2. And thus were the Romans driven out, after they had possessed

themselves of the second wall. Whereupon the fighting men that were

in the city were lifted up in their minds, and were elevated upon this

their good success, and began to think that the Romans would never

venture to come into the city any more; and that if they kept within it

themselves, they should not be any more conquered. For God had blinded

their minds for the transgressions they had been guilty of, nor could

they see how much greater forces the Romans had than those that were now

expelled, no more than they could discern how a famine was creeping upon

them; for hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries,

and drank the blood of the city. But now poverty had for a long time

seized upon the better part, and a great many had died already for want

of necessaries; although the seditious indeed supposed the destruction

of the people to be an easement to themselves; for they desired that

none others might be preserved but such as were against a peace with the

Romans, and were resolved to live in opposition to them, and they were

pleased when the multitude of those of a contrary opinion were consumed,

as being then freed from a heavy burden. And this was their disposition

of mind with regard to those that were within the city, while they

covered themselves with their armor, and prevented the Romans, when they

were trying to get into the city again, and made a wall of their own

bodies over against that part of the wall that was cast down. Thus did

they valiantly defend themselves for three days; but on the fourth day

they could not support themselves against the vehement assaults of Titus

but were compelled by force to fly whither they had fled before; so

he quietly possessed himself again of that wall, and demolished it

entirely. And when he had put a garrison into the towers that were on

the south parts of the city, he contrived how he might assault the third

wall.

CHAPTER 9.

Titus When The Jews Were Not At All Mollified By His Leaving

Off The Siege For A While, Set Himself Again To Prosecute

The Same; But Soon Sent Josephus To Discourse With His Own

Countrymen About Peace.

1. A Resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little

while, and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration, and to

see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them

a little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of

a famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be

sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to

compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when

he must distribute subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he

gave orders that the commanders should put the army into battle-array,

in the face of the enemy, and then give every one of the soldiers their

pay. So the soldiers, according to custom, opened the cases wherein

their arms before lay covered, and marched with their breastplates on,

as did the horsemen lead their horses in their fine trappings. Then did

the places that were before the city shine very splendidly for a great

way; nor was there any thing so grateful to Titus's own men, or so

terrible to the enemy, as that sight. For the whole old wall, and the

north side of the temple, were full of spectators, and one might see

the houses full of such as looked at them; nor was there any part of the

city which was not covered over with their multitudes; nay, a very great

consternation seized upon the hardiest of the Jews themselves, when they

saw all the army in the same place, together with the fineness of their

arms, and the good order of their men. And I cannot but think that

the seditious would have changed their minds at that sight, unless the

crimes they had committed against the people had been so horrid, that

they despaired of forgiveness from the Romans; but as they believed

death with torments must be their punishment, if they did not go on in

the defense of the city, they thought it much better to die in war. Fate

also prevailed so far over them, that the innocent were to perish with

the guilty, and the city was to be destroyed with the seditious that

were in it.

2. Thus did the Romans spend four days in bringing this

subsistence-money to the several legions. But on the fifth day, when

no signs of peace appeared to come from the Jews, Titus divided his

legions, and began to raise banks, both at the tower of Antonia and at

John's monument. Now his designs were to take the upper city at that

monument, and the temple at the tower of Antonia; for if the temple were

not taken, it would be dangerous to keep the city itself; so at each of

these parts he raised him banks, each legion raising one. As for those

that wrought at John's monument, the Idumeans, and those that were in

arms with Simon, made sallies upon them, and put some stop to them;

while John's party, and the multitude of zealots with them, did the like

to those that were before the tower of Antonia. These Jews were now too

hard for the Romans, not only in direct fighting, because they stood

upon the higher ground, but because they had now learned to use their

own engines; for their continual use of them one day after another did

by degrees improve their skill about them; for of one sort of engines

for darts they had three hundred, and forty for stones; by the means of

which they made it more tedious for the Romans to raise their banks. But

then Titus, knowing that the city would be either saved or destroyed for

himself, did not only proceed earnestly in the siege, but did not omit

to have the Jews exhorted to repentance; so he mixed good counsel

with his works for the siege. And being sensible that exhortations are

frequently more effectual than arms, he persuaded them to surrender the

city, now in a manner already taken, and thereby to save themselves, and

sent Josephus to speak to them in their own language; for he imagined

they might yield to the persuasion of a countryman of their own.

3. So Josephus went round about the wall, and tried to find a place that

was out of the reach of their darts, and yet within their hearing,

and besought them, in many words, to spare themselves, to spare their

country and their temple, and not to be more obdurate in these cases

than foreigners themselves; for that the Romans, who had no relation

to those things, had a reverence for their sacred rites and places,

although they belonged to their enemies, and had till now kept their

hands off from meddling with them; while such as were brought up under

them, and, if they be preserved, will be the only people that will reap

the benefit of them, hurry on to have them destroyed. That certainly

they have seen their strongest walls demolished, and that the wall still

remaining was weaker than those that were already taken. That they must

know the Roman power was invincible, and that they had been used to

serve them; for, that in case it be allowed a right thing to fight for

liberty, that ought to have been done at first; but for them that have

once fallen under the power of the Romans, and have now submitted

to them for so many long years, to pretend to shake off that yoke

afterward, was the work of such as had a mind to die miserably, not of

such as were lovers of liberty. Besides, men may well enough grudge at

the dishonor of owning ignoble masters over them, but ought not to do so

to those who have all things under their command; for what part of the

world is there that hath escaped the Romans, unless it be such as are

of no use for violent heat, or for violent cold? And evident it is that

fortune is on all hands gone over to them; and that God, when he had

gone round the nations with this dominion, is now settled in Italy.

That, moreover, it is a strong and fixed law, even among brute beasts,

as well as among men, to yield to those that are too strong for them;

and to suffer those to have the dominion who are too hard for the rest

in war; for which reason it was that their forefathers, who were far

superior to them, both in their souls and bodies, and other advantages,

did yet submit to the Romans, which they would not have suffered, had

they not known that God was with them. As for themselves, what can they

depend on in this their opposition, when the greatest part of their city

is already taken? and when those that are within it are under greater

miseries than if they were taken, although their walls be still

standing? For that the Romans are not unacquainted with that famine

which is in the city, whereby the people are already consumed, and the

fighting men will in a little time be so too; for although the Romans

should leave off the siege, and not fall upon the city with their swords

in their hands, yet was there an insuperable war that beset them within,

and was augmented every hour, unless they were able to wage war with

famine, and fight against it, or could alone conquer their natural

appetites. He added this further, how right a thing it was to change

their conduct before their calamities were become incurable, and to have

recourse to such advice as might preserve them, while opportunity was

offered them for so doing; for that the Romans would not be mindful

of their past actions to their disadvantage, unless they persevered in

their insolent behavior to the end; because they were naturally mild in

their conquests, and preferred what was profitable, before what their

passions dictated to them; which profit of theirs lay not in leaving the

city empty of inhabitants, nor the country a desert; on which account

Caesar did now offer them his right hand for their security. Whereas,

if he took the city by force, he would not save any of them, and

this especially, if they rejected his offers in these their utmost

distresses; for the walls that were already taken could not but assure

them that the third wall would quickly be taken also. And though their

fortifications should prove too strong for the Romans to break through

them, yet would the famine fight for the Romans against them.

4. While Josephus was making this exhortation to the Jews, many of them

jested upon him from the wall, and many reproached him; nay, some threw

their darts at him: but when he could not himself persuade them by such

open good advice, he betook himself to the histories belonging to their

own nation, and cried out aloud, "O miserable creatures! are you so

unmindful of those that used to assist you, that you will fight by your

weapons and by your hands against the Romans? When did we ever conquer

any other nation by such means? and when was it that God, who is the

Creator of the Jewish people, did not avenge them when they had been

injured? Will not you turn again, and look back, and consider whence it

is that you fight with such violence, and how great a Supporter you have

profanely abused? Will not you recall to mind the prodigious things done

for your forefathers and this holy place, and how great enemies of yours

were by him subdued under you? I even tremble myself in declaring the

works of God before your ears, that are unworthy to hear them; however,

hearken to me, that you may be informed how you fight not only against

the Romans, but against God himself. In old times there was one Necao,

king of Egypt, who was also called Pharaoh; he came with a prodigious

army of soldiers, and seized queen Sarah, the mother of our nation.

What did Abraham our progenitor then do? Did he defend himself from

this injurious person by war, although he had three hundred and eighteen

captains under him, and an immense army under each of them? Indeed he

deemed them to be no number at all without God's assistance, and only

spread out his hands towards this holy place, 16 which you have now

polluted, and reckoned upon him as upon his invincible supporter,

instead of his own army. Was not our queen sent back, without any

defilement, to her husband, the very next evening?--while the king of

Egypt fled away, adoring this place which you have defiled by shedding

thereon the blood of your own countrymen; and he also trembled at those

visions which he saw in the night season, and bestowed both silver and

gold on the Hebrews, as on a people beloved by God. Shall I say nothing,

or shall I mention the removal of our fathers into Egypt, who, when they

were used tyrannically, and were fallen under the power of foreign kings

for four hundred years together, and might have defended themselves by

war and by fighting, did yet do nothing but commit themselves to God!

Who is there that does not know that Egypt was overrun with all sorts of

wild beasts, and consumed by all sorts of distempers? how their land

did not bring forth its fruit? how the Nile failed of water? how the ten

plagues of Egypt followed one upon another? and how by those means our

fathers were sent away under a guard, without any bloodshed, and

without running any dangers, because God conducted them as his peculiar

servants? Moreover, did not Palestine groan 17 under the ravage the

Assyrians made, when they carried away our sacred ark? as did their idol

Dagon, and as also did that entire nation of those that carried it away,

how they were smitten with a loathsome distemper in the secret parts of

their bodies, when their very bowels came down together with what they

had eaten, till those hands that stole it away were obliged to bring it

back again, and that with the sound of cymbals and timbrels, and other

oblations, in order to appease the anger of God for their violation of

his holy ark. It was God who then became our General, and accomplished

these great things for our fathers, and this because they did not meddle

with war and fighting, but committed it to him to judge about their

affairs. When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, brought along with him all

Asia, and encompassed this city round with his army, did he fall by the

hands of men? were not those hands lifted up to God in prayers, without

meddling with their arms, when an angel of God destroyed that prodigious

army in one night? when the Assyrian king, as he rose the next day,

found a hundred fourscore and five thousand dead bodies, and when he,

with the remainder of his army, fled away from the Hebrews, though they

were unarmed, and did not pursue them. You are also acquainted with the

slavery we were under at Babylon, where the people were captives for

seventy years; yet were they not delivered into freedom again before

God made Cyrus his gracious instrument in bringing it about; accordingly

they were set free by him, and did again restore the worship of their

Deliverer at his temple. And, to speak in general, we can produce no

example wherein our fathers got any success by war, or failed of success

when without war they committed themselves to God. When they staid at

home, they conquered, as pleased their Judge; but when they went out

to fight, they were always disappointed: for example, when the king of

Babylon besieged this very city, and our king Zedekiah fought against

him, contrary to what predictions were made to him by Jeremiah the

prophet, he was at once taken prisoner, and saw the city and the temple

demolished. Yet how much greater was the moderation of that king, than

is that of your present governors, and that of the people then under

him, than is that of you at this time! for when Jeremiah cried out

aloud, how very angry God was at them, because of their transgressions,

and told them they should be taken prisoners, unless they would

surrender up their city, neither did the king nor the people put him to

death; but for you, [to pass over what you have done within the city,

which I am not able to describe as your wickedness deserves,] you abuse

me, and throw darts at me, who only exhort you to save yourselves, as

being provoked when you are put in mind of your sins, and cannot bear

the very mention of those crimes which you every day perpetrate. For

another example, when Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, lay before

this city, and had been guilty of many indignities against God, and our

forefathers met him in arms, they then were slain in the battle, this

city was plundered by our enemies, and our sanctuary made desolate for

three years and six months. And what need I bring any more examples?

Indeed what can it be that hath stirred up an army of the Romans against

our nation? Is it not the impiety of the inhabitants? Whence did our

servitude commence? Was it not derived from the seditions that were

among our forefathers, when the madness of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and

our mutual quarrels, brought Pompey upon this city, and when God reduced

those under subjection to the Romans who were unworthy of the liberty

they had enjoyed? After a siege, therefore, of three months, they were

forced to surrender themselves, although they had not been guilty of

such offenses, with regard to our sanctuary and our laws, as you have;

and this while they had much greater advantages to go to war than you

have. Do not we know what end Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, came

to, under whose reign God provided that this city should be taken again

upon account of the people's offenses? When Herod, the son of Antipater,

brought upon us Sosius, and Sosius brought upon us the Roman army, they

were then encompassed and besieged for six months, till, as a punishment

for their sins, they were taken, and the city was plundered by the

enemy. Thus it appears that arms were never given to our nation, but

that we are always given up to be fought against, and to be taken; for

I suppose that such as inhabit this holy place ought to commit the

disposal of all things to God, and then only to disregard the assistance

of men when they resign themselves up to their Arbitrator, who is above.

As for you, what have you done of those things that are recommended by

our legislator? and what have you not done of those things that he hath

condemned? How much more impious are you than those who were so quickly

taken! You have not avoided so much as those sins that are usually

done in secret; I mean thefts, and treacherous plots against men, and

adulteries. You are quarrelling about rapines and murders, and invent

strange ways of wickedness. Nay, the temple itself is become the

receptacle of all, and this Divine place is polluted by the hands of

those of our own country; which place hath yet been reverenced by the

Romans when it was at a distance from them, when they have suffered many

of their own customs to give place to our law. And, after all this, do

you expect Him whom you have so impiously abused to be your supporter?

To be sure then you have a right to be petitioners, and to call upon Him

to assist you, so pure are your hands! Did your king [Hezekiah] lift

up such hands in prayer to God against the king of Assyria, when he

destroyed that great army in one night? And do the Romans commit such

wickedness as did the king of Assyria, that you may have reason to hope

for the like vengeance upon them? Did not that king accept of money from

our king on this condition, that he should not destroy the city, and

yet, contrary to the oath he had taken, he came down to burn the temple?

while the Romans do demand no more than that accustomed tribute which

our fathers paid to their fathers; and if they may but once obtain that,

they neither aim to destroy this city, nor to touch this sanctuary; nay,

they will grant you besides, that your posterity shall be free, and your

possessions secured to you, and will preserve our holy laws inviolate

to you. And it is plain madness to expect that God should appear as well

disposed towards the wicked as towards the righteous, since he knows

when it is proper to punish men for their sins immediately; accordingly

he brake the power of the Assyrians the very first night that they

pitched their camp. Wherefore, had he judged that our nation was worthy

of freedom, or the Romans of punishment, he had immediately inflicted

punishment upon those Romans, as he did upon the Assyrians, when Pompey

began to meddle with our nation, or when after him Sosius came up

against us, or when Vespasian laid waste Galilee, or, lastly, when Titus

came first of all near to this city; although Magnus and Sosius did not

only suffer nothing, but took the city by force; as did Vespasian go

from the war he made against you to receive the empire; and as for

Titus, those springs that were formerly almost dried up when they were

under your power 18 since he is come, run more plentifully than they

did before; accordingly, you know that Siloam, as well as all the other

springs that were without the city, did so far fail, that water was sold

by distinct measures; whereas they now have such a great quantity of

water for your enemies, as is sufficient not only for drink both for

themselves and their cattle, but for watering their gardens also.

The same wonderful sign you had also experience of formerly, when the

forementioned king of Babylon made war against us, and when he took the

city, and burnt the temple; while yet I believe the Jews of that age

were not so impious as you are. Wherefore I cannot but suppose that God

is fled out of his sanctuary, and stands on the side of those against

whom you fight. Now even a man, if he be but a good man, will fly from

an impure house, and will hate those that are in it; and do you persuade

yourselves that God will abide with you in your iniquities, who sees all

secret things, and hears what is kept most private? Now what crime

is there, I pray you, that is so much as kept secret among you, or

is concealed by you? nay, what is there that is not open to your very

enemies? for you show your transgressions after a pompous manner, and

contend one with another which of you shall be more wicked than another;

and you make a public demonstration of your injustice, as if it were

virtue. However, there is a place left for your preservation, if you

be willing to accept of it; and God is easily reconciled to those that

confess their faults, and repent of them. O hard-hearted wretches as

you are! cast away all your arms, and take pity of your country already

going to ruin; return from your wicked ways, and have regard to the

excellency of that city which you are going to betray, to that excellent

temple with the donations of so many countries in it. Who could bear to

be the first that should set that temple on fire? who could be willing

that these things should be no more? and what is there that can better

deserve to be preserved? O insensible creatures, and more stupid than

are the stones themselves! And if you cannot look at these things with

discerning eyes, yet, however, have pity upon your families, and set

before every one of your eyes your children, and wives, and parents,

who will be gradually consumed either by famine or by war. I am sensible

that this danger will extend to my mother, and wife, and to that family

of mine who have been by no means ignoble, and indeed to one that hath

been very eminent in old time; and perhaps you may imagine that it is

on their account only that I give you this advice; if that be all, kill

them; nay, take my own blood as a reward, if it may but procure your

preservation; for I am ready to die, in case you will but return to a

sound mind after my death."

CHAPTER 10.

How A Great Many Of The People Earnestly Endeavored To

Desert To The Romans; As Also What Intolerable Things Those

That Staid Behind Suffered By Famine, And The Sad

Consequences Thereof.

1. As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious would

neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to

alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had a great inclination

to desert to the Romans; accordingly, some of them sold what they had,

and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by

them, for every small matter, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that

they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped

to the Romans, went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully

for themselves; for Titus let a great number of them go away into the

country, whither they pleased. And the main reasons why they were so

ready to desert were these: That now they should be freed from those

miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet should not be in

slavery to the Romans: however, John and Simon, with their factions, did

more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming

in of the Romans; and if any one did but afford the least shadow of

suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.

2. But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether they

staid in the city, or attempted to get out of it; for they were equally

destroyed in both cases; for every such person was put to death under

this pretense, that they were going to desert, but in reality that the

robbers might get what they had. The madness of the seditious did also

increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were

every day inflamed more and more; for there was no corn which any where

appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into, and searched

men's private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them,

because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they

tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully

concealed it. The indication they made use of whether they had any or

not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches; which, if

they were in good case, they supposed they were in no want at all of

food; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching

any further; nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, because

they saw they would very soon die of themselves for want of food. Many

there were indeed who sold what they had for one measure; it was of

wheat, if they were of the richer sort; but of barley, if they were

poorer. When these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost

rooms of their houses, and ate the corn they had gotten; some did it

without grinding it, by reason of the extremity of the want they were

in, and others baked bread of it, according as necessity and fear

dictated to them: a table was no where laid for a distinct meal, but

they snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked, and ate it very

hastily.

3. It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring

tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more

powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want

of it.] But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is

destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise

worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children

pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very

mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do

as to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing

under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last

drops that might preserve their lives: and while they ate after this

manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious every

where came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they

had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was

to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon

they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were

eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force: the old

men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what

they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was

there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but

they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels

they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. But still they were

more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their coming in, and

had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize upon, as if

they had been unjustly defrauded of their right. They also invented

terrible methods of torments to discover where any food was, and they

were these to stop up the passages of the privy parts of the miserable

wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their fundaments; and a man was

forced to bear what it is terrible even to hear, in order to make him

confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or that he might discover a

handful of barley-meal that was concealed; and this was done when these

tormentors were not themselves hungry; for the thing had been less

barbarous had necessity forced them to it; but this was done to keep

their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of provisions for

themselves for the following days. These men went also to meet those

that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman guards,

to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when those people

thought they had got clear of the enemy, they snatched from them what

they had brought with them, even while they had frequently entreated

them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God, to give them

back some part of what they had brought; though these would not give

them the least crumb, and they were to be well contented that they were

only spoiled, and not slain at the same time.

4. These were the afflictions which the lower sort of people suffered

from these tyrants' guards; but for the men that were in dignity, and

withal were rich, they were carried before the tyrants themselves; some

of whom were falsely accused of laying treacherous plots, and so were

destroyed; others of them were charged with designs of betraying the

city to the Romans; but the readiest way of all was this, to suborn

somebody to affirm that they were resolved to desert to the enemy. And

he who was utterly despoiled of what he had by Simon was sent back again

to John, as of those who had been already plundered by Jotre, Simon got

what remained; insomuch that they drank the blood of the populace to one

another, and divided the dead bodies of the poor creatures between them;

so that although, on account of their ambition after dominion, they

contended with each other, yet did they very well agree in their wicked

practices; for he that did not communicate what he got by the miseries

of others to the other tyrant seemed to be too little guilty, and in one

respect only; and he that did not partake of what was so communicated to

him grieved at this, as at the loss of what was a valuable thing, that

he had no share in such barbarity.

5. It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance

of these men's iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once

briefly:--That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries,

nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than

this was, from the beginning of the world. Finally, they brought

the Hebrew nation into contempt, that they might themselves appear

comparatively less impious with regard to strangers. They confessed

what was true, that they were the slaves, the scum, and the spurious

and abortive offspring of our nation, while they overthrew the city

themselves, and forced the Romans, whether they would or no, to gain a

melancholy reputation, by acting gloriously against them, and did almost

draw that fire upon the temple, which they seemed to think came too

slowly; and indeed when they saw that temple burning from the upper

city, they were neither troubled at it, nor did they shed any tears on

that account, while yet these passions were discovered among the Romans

themselves; which circumstances we shall speak of hereafter in their

proper place, when we come to treat of such matters.

CHAPTER 11.

How The Jews Were Crucified Before The Walls Of The City

Concerning Antiochus Epiphanes; And How The Jews Overthrew

The Banks That Had Been Raised By The Romans.

1. So now Titus's banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his

soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a

party of horsemen, and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that

went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed

fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine;

but the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from

deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations;

for they could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and

children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think

of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account;

nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so

nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers,

they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were going to be taken,

they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished;

as after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any

supplications for mercy; so they were first whipped, and then tormented

with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then crucified

before the wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly

to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some

days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let

those that were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so

many he saw would be to make such as great deal them useless to him. The

main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped

the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might

themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the

soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those

they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the

crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room

was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies. 19

2. But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight, that,

on the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise;

for they brought the relations of those that had deserted upon the

wall, with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon the

security offered them, and showed them what miseries those underwent

who fled to the Romans; and told them that those who were caught were

supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight

kept many of those within the city who were so eager to desert, till

the truth was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto

certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet

departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus commanded that the

hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off, that they

might not be thought deserters, and might be credited on account of the

calamity they were under, and sent them in to John and Simon, with this

exhortation, that they would now at length leave off [their madness],

and not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have those

advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would

preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and that

temple which was their peculiar. He then went round about the banks that

were cast up, and hastened them, in order to show that his words

should in no long time be followed by his deeds. In answer to which the

seditious cast reproaches upon Caesar himself, and upon his father also,

and cried out, with a loud voice, that they contemned death, and

did well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the

mischief to the Romans they could while they had breath in them; and

that for their own city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed,

they had no concern about it, and that the world itself was a better

temple to God than this. That yet this temple would be preserved by him

that inhabited therein, whom they still had for their assistant in this

war, and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings, which would come

to nothing, because the conclusion of the whole depended upon God only.

These words were mixed with reproaches, and with them they made a mighty

clamor.

3. In the mean time Antiochus Epiphanes came to the city, having with

him a considerable number of other armed men, and a band called the

Macedonian band about him, all of the same age, tall, and just past

their childhood, armed, and instructed after the Macedonian manner,

whence it was that they took that name. Yet were many of them unworthy

of so famous a nation; for it had so happened, that the king of

Commagene had flourished more than any other kings that were under the

power of the Romans, till a change happened in his condition; and when

he was become an old man, he declared plainly that we ought not to call

any man happy before he is dead. But this son of his, who was then

come thither before his father was decaying, said that he could not but

wonder what made the Romans so tardy in making their attacks upon the

wall. Now he was a warlike man, and naturally bold in exposing himself

to dangers; he was also so strong a man, that his boldness seldom failed

of having success. Upon this Titus smiled, and said he would share the

pains of an attack with him. However, Antiochus went as he then was, and

with his Macedonians made a sudden assault upon the wall; and, indeed,

for his own part, his strength and skill were so great, that he guarded

himself from the Jewish darts, and yet shot his darts at them, while yet

the young men with him were almost all sorely galled; for they had so

great a regard to the promises that had been made of their courage, that

they would needs persevere in their fighting, and at length many of them

retired, but not till they were wounded; and then they perceived that

true Macedonians, if they were to be conquerors, must have Alexander's

good fortune also.

4. Now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth day of

the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] so had they much ado to finish them by

the twenty-ninth day of the same month, after they had labored hard for

seventeen days continually. For there were now four great banks raised,

one of which was at the tower Antonia; this was raised by the fifth

legion, over against the middle of that pool which was called Struthius.

Another was cast up by the twelfth legion, at the distance of about

twenty cubits from the other. But the labors of the tenth legion, which

lay a great way off these, were on the north quarter, and at the pool

called Amygdalon; as was that of the fifteenth legion about thirty

cubits from it, and at the high priest's monument. And now, when the

engines were brought, John had from within undermined the space that was

over against the tower of Antonia, as far as the banks themselves,

and had supported the ground over the mine with beams laid across one

another, whereby the Roman works stood upon an uncertain foundation.

Then did he order such materials to be brought in as were daubed over

with pitch and bitumen, and set them on fire; and as the cross beams

that supported the banks were burning, the ditch yielded on the

sudden, and the banks were shaken down, and fell into the ditch with a

prodigious noise. Now at the first there arose a very thick smoke and

dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank; but as the

suffocated materials were now gradually consumed, a plain flame brake

out; on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon

the Romans, and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and

indeed this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they

had already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to

come. They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains

to extinguish the fire, since if it were extinguished, the banks were

swallowed up already [and become useless to them].

5. Two days after this, Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy

the other banks; for the Romans had brought their engines to bear there,

and began already to make the wall shake. And here one Tephtheus, of

Garsis, a city of Galilee, and Megassarus, one who was derived from some

of queen Mariamne's servants, and with them one from Adiabene, he was

the son of Nabateus, and called by the name of Chagiras, from the ill

fortune he had, the word signifying "a lame man," snatched some torches,

and ran suddenly upon the engines. Nor were there during this war any

men that ever sallied out of the city who were their superiors, either

in their boldness, or in the terror they struck into their enemies. For

they ran out upon the Romans, not as if they were enemies, but friends,

without fear or delay; nor did they leave their enemies till they had

rushed violently through the midst of them, and set their machines on

fire. And though they had darts thrown at them on every side, and were

on every side assaulted with their enemies' swords, yet did they not

withdraw themselves out of the dangers they were in, till the fire had

caught hold of the instruments; but when the flame went up, the Romans

came running from their camp to save their engines. Then did the

Jews hinder their succors from the wall, and fought with those that

endeavored to quench the fire, without any regard to the danger their

bodies were in. So the Romans pulled the engines out of the fire, while

the hurdles that covered them were on fire; but the Jews caught hold

of the battering rams through the flame itself, and held them fast,

although the iron upon them was become red hot; and now the fire spread

itself from the engines to the banks, and prevented those that came to

defend them; and all this while the Romans were encompassed round about

with the flame; and, despairing of saving their works from it, they

retired to their camp. Then did the Jews become still more and more

in number by the coming of those that were within the city to their

assistance; and as they were very bold upon the good success they

had had, their violent assaults were almost irresistible; nay, they

proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemies' camp, and fought

with their guards. Now there stood a body of soldiers in array before

that camp, which succeeded one another by turns in their armor; and as

to those, the law of the Romans was terrible, that he who left his post

there, let the occasion be whatsoever it might be, he was to die for

it; so that body of soldiers, preferring rather to die in fighting

courageously, than as a punishment for their cowardice, stood firm; and

at the necessity these men were in of standing to it, many of the others

that had run away, out of shame, turned back again; and when they had

set the engines against the wall, they put the multitude from coming

more of them out of the city, [which they could the more easily do]

because they had made no provision for preserving or guarding their

bodies at this time; for the Jews fought now hand to hand with all that

came in their way, and, without any caution, fell against the points of

their enemies' spears, and attacked them bodies against bodies; for they

were now too hard for the Romans, not so much by their other warlike

actions, as by these courageous assaults they made upon them; and the

Romans gave way more to their boldness than they did to the sense of the

harm they had received from them.

6. And now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia, whither he was

gone to look out for a place for raising other banks, and reproached the

soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to be in danger, when

they had taken the wails of their enemies, and sustained the fortune

of men besieged, while the Jews were allowed to sally out against them,

though they were already in a sort of prison. He then went round about

the enemy with some chosen troops, and fell upon their flank himself; so

the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to

Titus, and continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed one among

another, and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing

one another, and the noise that was made so far hindered them from

hearing one another, that neither side could discern an enemy from a

friend. However, the Jews did not flinch, though not so much from their

real strength, as from their despair of deliverance. The Romans also

would not yield, by reason of the regard they had to glory, and to

their reputation in war, and because Caesar himself went into the danger

before them; insomuch that I cannot but think the Romans would in the

conclusion have now taken even the whole multitude of the Jews, so

very angry were they at them, had these not prevented the upshot of

the battle, and retired into the city. However, seeing the banks of the

Romans were demolished, these Romans were very much cast down upon the

loss of what had cost them so long pains, and this in one hour's time.

And many indeed despaired of taking the city with their usual engines of

war only.

CHAPTER 12.

Titus Thought Fit To Encompass The City Round With A Wall;

After Which The Famine Consumed The People By Whole Houses

And Families Together.

1. And now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be done.

Those that were of the warmest tempers thought he should bring the whole

army against the city and storm the wall; for that hitherto no more

than a part of their army had fought with the Jews; but that in case the

entire army was to come at once, they would not be able to sustain their

attacks, but would be overwhelmed by their darts. But of those that were

for a more cautious management, some were for raising their banks again;

and others advised to let the banks alone, but to lie still before the

city, to guard against the coming out of the Jews, and against their

carrying provisions into the city, and so to leave the enemy to the

famine, and this without direct fighting with them; for that despair was

not to be conquered, especially as to those who are desirous to die by

the sword, while a more terrible misery than that is reserved for them.

However, Titus did not think it fit for so great an army to lie entirely

idle, and that yet it was in vain to fight with those that would be

destroyed one by another; he also showed them how impracticable it was

to cast up any more banks, for want of materials, and to guard against

the Jews coming out still more impracticable; as also, that to encompass

the whole city round with his army was not very easy, by reason of its

magnitude, and the difficulty of the situation, and on other accounts

dangerous, upon the sallies the Jews might make out of the city. For

although they might guard the known passages out of the place, yet would

they, when they found themselves under the greatest distress, contrive

secret passages out, as being well acquainted with all such places; and

if any provisions were carried in by stealth, the siege would thereby be

longer delayed. He also owned that he was afraid that the length of time

thus to be spent would diminish the glory of his success; for though

it be true that length of time will perfect every thing, yet that to

do what we do in a little time is still necessary to the gaining

reputation. That therefore his opinion was, that if they aimed at

quickness joined with security, they must build a wall round about the

whole city; which was, he thought, the only way to prevent the Jews from

coming out any way, and that then they would either entirely despair of

saving the city, and so would surrender it up to him, or be still the

more easily conquered when the famine had further weakened them; for

that besides this wall, he would not lie entirely at rest afterward, but

would take care then to have banks raised again, when those that would

oppose them were become weaker. But that if any one should think such a

work to be too great, and not to be finished without much difficulty, he

ought to consider that it is not fit for Romans to undertake any small

work, and that none but God himself could with ease accomplish any great

thing whatsoever.

2. These arguments prevailed with the commanders. So Titus gave orders

that the army should be distributed to their several shares of this

work; and indeed there now came upon the soldiers a certain divine fury,

so that they did not only part the whole wall that was to be built

among them, nor did only one legion strive with another, but the lesser

divisions of the army did the same; insomuch that each soldier was

ambitious to please his decurion, each decurion his centurion, each

centurion his tribune, and the ambition of the tribunes was to please

their superior commanders, while Caesar himself took notice of and

rewarded the like contention in those commanders; for he went round

about the works many times every day, and took a view of what was done.

Titus began the wall from the camp of the Assyrians, where his own camp

was pitched, and drew it down to the lower parts of Cenopolis; thence

it went along the valley of Cedron, to the Mount of Olives; it then

bent towards the south, and encompassed the mountain as far as the rock

called Peristereon, and that other hill which lies next it, and is over

the valley which reaches to Siloam; whence it bended again to the west,

and went down to the valley of the Fountain, beyond which it went up

again at the monument of Ananus the high priest, and encompassing that

mountain where Pompey had formerly pitched his camp, it returned back

to the north side of the city, and was carried on as far as a certain

village called "The House of the Erebinthi;" after which it encompassed

Herod's monument, and there, on the east, was joined to Titus's own

camp, where it began. Now the length of this wall was forty furlongs,

one only abated. Now at this wall without were erected thirteen places

to keep garrison in, whose circumferences, put together, amounted to

ten furlongs; the whole was completed in three days; so that what would

naturally have required some months was done in so short an interval as

is incredible. When Titus had therefore encompassed the city with this

wall, and put garrisons into proper places, he went round the wall, at

the first watch of the night, and observed how the guard was kept; the

second watch he allotted to Alexander; the commanders of legions took

the third watch. They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon

the watch in the night time, and who should go all night long round the

spaces that were interposed between the garrisons.

3. So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews, together with

their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its

progress, and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the

upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine,

and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the

children also and the young men wandered about the market-places like

shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever

their misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick

themselves were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well

were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies,

and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves;

for many died as they were burying others, and many went to their

coffins before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations

made under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints;

but the famine confounded all natural passions; for those who were just

going to die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with

dry eyes and open mouths. A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly

night, had seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more

terrible than these miseries were themselves; for they brake open those

houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered

them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings of their bodies,

went out laughing, and tried the points of their swords in their dead

bodies; and, in order to prove what metal they were made of they thrust

some of those through that still lay alive upon the ground; but for

those that entreated them to lend them their right hand and their sword

to despatch them, they were too proud to grant their requests, and left

them to be consumed by the famine. Now every one of these died with

their eyes fixed upon the temple, and left the seditious alive behind

them. Now the seditious at first gave orders that the dead should be

buried out of the public treasury, as not enduring the stench of their

dead bodies. But afterwards, when they could not do that, they had them

cast down from the walls into the valleys beneath.

4. However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, saw

them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them,

he gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to

witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of

the city itself. But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the

seditious could now make sallies out of the city, because they were

themselves disconsolate, and the famine already touched them also. These

Romans besides had great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of

Syria, and out of the neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand

near to the wall of the city, and show the people what great quantities

of provisions they had, and so make the enemy more sensible of their

famine, by the great plenty, even to satiety, which they had themselves.

However, when the seditious still showed no inclinations of yielding,

Titus, out of his commiseration of the people that remained, and out

of his earnest desire of rescuing what was still left out of these

miseries, began to raise his banks again, although materials for them

were hard to be come at; for all the trees that were about the city had

been already cut down for the making of the former banks. Yet did the

soldiers bring with them other materials from the distance of ninety

furlongs, and thereby raised banks in four parts, much greater than the

former, though this was done only at the tower of Antonia. So Caesar

went his rounds through the legions, and hastened on the works, and

showed the robbers that they were now in his hands. But these men, and

these only, were incapable of repenting of the wickednesses they had

been guilty of; and separating their souls from their bodies, they used

them both as if they belonged to other folks, and not to themselves. For

no gentle affection could touch their souls, nor could any pain affect

their bodies, since they could still tear the dead bodies of the people

as dogs do, and fill the prisons with those that were sick.

CHAPTER 13.

The Great Slaughters And Sacrilege That Were In Jerusalem.

1. Accordingly Simon would not suffer Matthias, by whose means he got

possession of the city, to go off without torment. This Matthias was the

son of Boethus, and was one of the high priests, one that had been very

faithful to the people, and in great esteem with them; he, when the

multitude were distressed by the zealots, among whom John was numbered,

persuaded the people to admit this Simon to come in to assist them,

while he had made no terms with him, nor expected any thing that was

evil from him. But when Simon was come in, and had gotten the city under

his power, he esteemed him that had advised them to admit him as his

enemy equally with the rest, as looking upon that advice as a piece

of his simplicity only; so he had him then brought before him, and

condemned to die for being on the side of the Romans, without giving him

leave to make his defense. He condemned also his three sons to die with

him; for as to the fourth, he prevented him by running away to Titus

before. And when he begged for this, that he might be slain before his

sons, and that as a favor, on account that he had procured the gates of

the city to be opened to him, he gave order that he should be slain the

last of them all; so he was not slain till he had seen his sons slain

before his eyes, and that by being produced over against the Romans; for

such a charge had Simon given to Artanus, the son of Bamadus, who was

the most barbarous of all his guards. He also jested upon him, and told

him that he might now see whether those to whom he intended to go over

would send him any succors or not; but still he forbade their dead

bodies should be buried. After the slaughter of these, a certain priest,

Ananias, the son of Masambalus, a person of eminency, as also Aristens,

the scribe of the sanhedrim, and born at Emmaus, and with them fifteen

men of figure among the people, were slain. They also kept Josephus's

father in prison, and made public proclamation, that no citizen

whosoever should either speak to him himself, or go into his company

among others, for fear he should betray them. They also slew such as

joined in lamenting these men, without any further examination.

2. Now when Judas, the son of Judas, who was one of Simon's under

officers, and a person intrusted by him to keep one of the towers, saw

this procedure of Simon, he called together ten of those under him, that

were most faithful to him, [perhaps this was done partly out of pity

to those that had so barbarously been put to death, but principally in

order to provide for his own safety,] and spoke thus to them: "How long

shall we bear these miseries? or what hopes have we of deliverance by

thus continuing faithful to such wicked wretches? Is not the famine

already come against us? Are not the Romans in a manner gotten within

the city? Is not Simon become unfaithful to his benefactors? and

is there not reason to fear he will very soon bring us to the like

punishment, while the security the Romans offer us is sure? Come on,

let us surrender up this wall, and save ourselves and the city. Nor

will Simon be very much hurt, if, now he despairs of deliverance, he

be brought to justice a little sooner than he thinks on." Now these ten

were prevailed upon by those arguments; so he sent the rest of those

that were under him, some one way, and some another, that no discovery

might be made of what they had resolved upon. Accordingly, he called to

the Romans from the tower about the third hour; but they, some of them

out of pride, despised what he said, and others of them did not believe

him to be in earnest, though the greatest number delayed the matter,

as believing they should get possession of the city in a little time,

without any hazard. But when Titus was just coming thither with his

armed men, Simon was acquainted with the matter before he came,

and presently took the tower into his own custody, before it was

surrendered, and seized upon these men, and put them to death in the

sight of the Romans themselves; and when he had mangled their dead

bodies, he threw them down before the wall of the city.

3. In the mean time, Josephus, as he was going round the city, had his

head wounded by a stone that was thrown at him; upon which he fell down

as giddy. Upon which fall of his the Jews made a sally, and he had been

hurried away into the city, if Caesar had not sent men to protect him

immediately; and as these men were fighting, Josephus was taken up,

though he heard little of what was done. So the seditious supposed they

had now slain that man whom they were the most desirous of killing, and

made thereupon a great noise, in way of rejoicing. This accident

was told in the city, and the multitude that remained became very

disconsolate at the news, as being persuaded that he was really dead, on

whose account alone they could venture to desert to the Romans. But when

Josephus's mother heard in prison that her son was dead, she said to

those that watched about her, That she had always been of opinion, since

the siege of Jotapata, [that he would be slain,] and she should never

enjoy him alive any more. She also made great lamentation privately to

the maid-servants that were about her, and said, That this was all the

advantage she had of bringing so extraordinary a person as this son into

the world; that she should not be able even to bury that son of hers,

by whom she expected to have been buried herself. However, this false

report did not put his mother to pain, nor afford merriment to the

robbers, long; for Josephus soon recovered of his wound, and came

out, and cried out aloud, That it would not be long ere they should

be punished for this wound they had given him. He also made a fresh

exhortation to the people to come out upon the security that would be

given them. This sight of Josephus encouraged the people greatly, and

brought a great consternation upon the seditious.

4. Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped down from

the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the city with

stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon they fled away to the

Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found

within the city; and they met with a quicker despatch from the too great

abundance they had among the Romans, than they could have done from the

famine among the Jews; for when they came first to the Romans, they were

puffed up by the famine, and swelled like men in a dropsy; after which

they all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty,

and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skillful enough to

restrain their appetites, and by degrees took in their food into bodies

unaccustomed thereto. Yet did another plague seize upon those that were

thus preserved; for there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain

person who was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements

of the Jews' bellies; for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of

gold, as we told you before, when they came out, and for these did the

seditious search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the

city, insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for

twelve Attic [drams], as was sold before for twenty-five. But when this

contrivance was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their

several camps, that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the

multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as

supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any

misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this, since in one

night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.

5. When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice, he had like

to have surrounded those that had been guilty of it with his horse, and

have shot them dead; and he had done it, had not their number been so

very great, and those that were liable to this punishment would have

been manifold more than those whom they had slain. However, he called

together the commanders of the auxiliary troops he had with him, as well

as the commanders of the Roman legions, [for some of his own soldiers

had been also guilty herein, as he had been informed,] and had great

indignation against both sorts of them, and said to them, "What! have

any of my own soldiers done such things as this out of the uncertain

hope of gain, without regarding their own weapons, which are made of

silver and gold? Moreover, do the Arabians and Syrians now first of

all begin to govern themselves as they please, and to indulge their

appetites in a foreign war, and then, out of their barbarity in

murdering men, and out of their hatred to the Jews, get it ascribed to

the Romans?" for this infamous practice was said to be spread among some

of his own soldiers also. Titus then threatened that he would put such

men to death, if any of them were discovered to be so insolent as to

do so again; moreover, he gave it in charge to the legions, that they

should make a search after such as were suspected, and should bring

them to him. But it appeared that the love of money was too hard for all

their dread of punishment, and a vehement desire of gain is natural to

men, and no passion is so venturesome as covetousness; otherwise such

passions have certain bounds, and are subordinate to fear. But in

reality it was God who condemned the whole nation, and turned every

course that was taken for their preservation to their destruction. This,

therefore, which was forbidden by Caesar under such a threatening, was

ventured upon privately against the deserters, and these barbarians

would go out still, and meet those that ran away before any saw them,

and looking about them to see that no Roman spied them, they dissected

them, and pulled this polluted money out of their bowels; which money

was still found in a few of them, while yet a great many were destroyed

by the bare hope there was of thus getting by them, which miserable

treatment made many that were deserting to return back again into the

city.

6. But as for John, when he could no longer plunder the people,

he betook himself to sacrilege, and melted down many of the sacred

utensils, which had been given to the temple; as also many of those

vessels which were necessary for such as ministered about holy things,

the caldrons, the dishes, and the tables; nay, he did not abstain from

those pouring vessels that were sent them by Augustus and his wife; for

the Roman emperors did ever both honor and adorn this temple; whereas

this man, who was a Jew, seized upon what were the donations of

foreigners, and said to those that were with him, that it was proper for

them to use Divine things, while they were fighting for the Divinity,

without fear, and that such whose warfare is for the temple should live

of the temple; on which account he emptied the vessels of that

sacred wine and oil, which the priests kept to be poured on the

burnt-offerings, and which lay in the inner court of the temple, and

distributed it among the multitude, who, in their anointing themselves

and drinking, used [each of them] above an hin of them. And here I

cannot but speak my mind, and what the concern I am under dictates to

me, and it is this: I suppose, that had the Romans made any longer delay

in coming against these villains, that the city would either have been

swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been overflowed by

water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom

20 perished by, for it had brought forth a generation of men much more

atheistical than were those that suffered such punishments; for by their

madness it was that all the people came to be destroyed.

7. And, indeed, why do I relate these particular calamities? while

Manneus, the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time,

and told him that there had been carried out through that one gate,

which was intrusted to his care, no fewer than a hundred and fifteen

thousand eight hundred and eighty dead bodies, in the interval between

the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] when the Romans

pitched their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus

[Tamuz]. This was itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was

not himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to pay

the public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was obliged of

necessity to number them, while the rest were buried by their relations;

though all their burial was but this, to bring them away, and cast them

out of the city. After this man there ran away to Titus many of the

eminent citizens, and told him the entire number of the poor that were

dead, and that no fewer than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the

gates, though still the number of the rest could not be discovered; and

they told him further, that when they were no longer able to carry out

the dead bodies of the poor, they laid their corpses on heaps in very

large houses, and shut them up therein; as also that a medimnus of wheat

was sold for a talent; and that when, a while afterward, it was not

possible to gather herbs, by reason the city was all walled about, some

persons were driven to that terrible distress as to search the common

sewers and old dunghills of cattle, and to eat the dung which they got

there; and what they of old could not endure so much as to see they now

used for food. When the Romans barely heard all this, they commiserated

their case; while the seditious, who saw it also, did not repent,

but suffered the same distress to come upon themselves; for they were

blinded by that fate which was already coming upon the city, and upon

themselves also.

WAR BOOK 5 FOOTNOTES

1 (return) [ This appears to be the first time that the zealots ventured

to pollute this most sacred court of the temple, which was the court of

the priests, wherein the temple itself and the altar stood. So that the

conjecture of those that would interpret that Zacharias, who was slain

"between the temple and the altar" several months before, B. IV. ch. 5.

sect. 4, as if he were slain there by these zealots, is groundless, as I

have noted on that place already.]

2 (return) [ The Levites.]

3 (return) [ This is an excellent reflection of Josephus, including his

hopes of the restoration of the Jews upon their repentance, See

Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 46, which is the grand "Hope of Israel," as

Manasseh-ben-Israel, the famous Jewish Rabbi, styles it, in his small

but remarkable treatise on that subject, of which the Jewish prophets

are every where full. See the principal of those prophecies collected

together at the end of the Essay on the Revelation, p. 822, etc.]

4 (return) [ This destruction of such a vast quantity of corn and other

provisions, as was sufficient for many years was the direct occasion

of that terrible famine, which consumed incredible numbers of Jews in

Jerusalem during its siege. Nor probably could the Romans have taken

this city, after all, had not these seditious Jews been so infatuated as

thus madly to destroy, what Josephus here justly styles, "The nerves of

their power."]

5 (return) [ This timber, we see, was designed for the rebuilding those

twenty additional cubits of the holy house above the hundred, which had

fallen down some years before. See the note on Antiq. B. XV. ch. 11.

sect. 3.]

6 (return) [ There being no gate on the west, and only on the west, side

of the court of the priests, and so no steps there, this was the only

side that the seditious, under this John of Gischala, could bring their

engines close to the cloisters of that court end-ways, though upon the

floor of the court of Israel. See the scheme of that temple, in the

description of the temples hereto belonging.]

7 (return) [ We may here note, that Titus is here called "a king," and

"Caesar," by Josephus, even while he was no more than the emperor's son,

and general of the Roman army, and his father Vespasian was still alive;

just as the New Testament says "Archelaus reigned," or "was king,"

Matthew 2:22, though he was properly no more than ethnarch, as Josephus

assures us, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 11. sect. 4; Of the War, B. II. ch. 6.

sect. 3. Thus also the Jews called the Roman emperors "kings," though

they never took that title to themselves: "We have no king but Caesar,"

John 19:15. "Submit to the king as supreme," 1 Peter 2:13, 17; which is

also the language of the Apostolical Constitutions, II. II, 31; IV.

13; V. 19; VI. 2, 25; VII. 16; VIII. 2, 13; and elsewhere in the New

Testament, Matthew 10:18; 17:25; 1 Timothy 2:2; and in Josephus also;

though I suspect Josephus particularly esteemed Titus as joint king with

his father ever since his divine dreams that declared them both such, B.

III. ch. 8. sect. 9.]

8 (return) [ This situation of the Mount of Olives, on the east of

Jerusalem, at about the distance of five or six furlongs, with the

valley of Cedron interposed between that mountain and the city, are

things well known both in the Old and New Testament, in Josephus

elsewhere, and in all the descriptions of Palestine.]

9 (return) [ Here we see the true occasion of those vast numbers of Jews

that were in Jerusalem during this siege by Titus, and perished therein;

that the siege began at the feast of the passover, when such prodigious

multitudes of Jews and proselytes of the gate were come from all parts

of Judea, and from other countries, in order to celebrate that great

festival. See the note B. VI. ch. 9. sect. 3. Tacitus himself informs

us, that the number of men, women, and children in Jerusalem, when it

was besieged by the Romans, as he had been informed. This information

must have been taken from the Romans: for Josephus never recounts the

numbers of those that were besieged, only he lets us know, that of the

vulgar, carried dead out of the gates, and buried at the public charges,

was the like number of 600,000, ch. viii. sect. 7. However, when

Cestius Gallus came first to the siege, that sum in Tacitus is no way

disagreeable to Josephus's history, though they were become much more

numerous when Titus encompassed the city at the passover. As to the

number that perished during this siege, Josephus assures us, as we

shall see hereafter, they were 1,100,000, besides 97,000 captives. But

Tacitus's history of the last part of this siege is not now extant; so

we cannot compare his parallel numbers with those of Josephus.]

10 (return) [ Perhaps, says Dr. Hudson, here was that gate, called the

"Gate of the Corner," in 2 Chronicles 26:9. See ch. 4. sect. 2]

11 (return) [ These dove-courts in Josephus, built by Herod the Great,

are, in the opinion of Reland, the very same that are mentioned by the

Talmudists, and named by them "Herod's dove courts." Nor is there any

reason to suppose otherwise, since in both accounts they were expressly

tame pigeons which were kept in them.]

12 (return) [ See the description of the temples hereto belonging, ch.

15. But note, that what Josephus here says of the original scantiness of

this Mount Moriah, that it was quite too little for the temple, and that

at first it held only one cloister or court of Solomon's building, and

that the foundations were forced to be added long afterwards by degrees,

to render it capable of the cloisters for the other courts, etc., is

without all foundation in the Scriptures, and not at all confirmed by

his exacter account in the Antiquities. All that is or can be true here

is this, that when the court of the Gentiles was long afterward to be

encompassed with cloisters, the southern foundation for these cloisters

was found not to be large or firm enough, and was raised, and that

additional foundation supported by great pillars and arches under

ground, which Josephus speaks of elsewhere, Antiq. B. XV. ch. 11. sect.

3, and which Mr. Maundrel saw, and describes, p. 100, as extant under

ground at this day.]

13 (return) [ What Josephus seems here to mean is this: that these

pillars, supporting the cloisters in the second court, had their

foundations or lowest parts as deep as the floor of the first or lowest

court; but that so far of those lowest parts as were equal to the

elevation of the upper floor above the lowest were, and must be, hidden

on the inside by the ground or rock itself, on which that upper

court was built; so that forty cubits visible below were reduced to

twenty-five visible above, and implies the difference of their heights

to be fifteen cubits. The main difficulty lies here, how fourteen or

fifteen steps should give an ascent of fifteen cubits, half a cubit

seeming sufficient for a single step. Possibly there were fourteen or

fifteen steps at the partition wall, and fourteen or fifteen more thence

into the court itself, which would bring the whole near to the just

proportion. See sect. 3, infra. But I determine nothing.]

14 (return) [ These three guards that lay in the tower of Antonia must

be those that guarded the city, the temple, and the tower of Antonia.]

15 (return) [ What should be the meaning of this signal or watchword,

when the watchmen saw a stone coming from the engine, "The Stone

Cometh," or what mistake there is in the reading, I cannot tell. The

MSS., both Greek and Latin, all agree in this reading; and I cannot

approve of any groundless conjectural alteration of the text from ro to

lop, that not the son or a stone, but that the arrow or dart cometh;

as hath been made by Dr. Hudson, and not corrected by Havercamp. Had

Josephus written even his first edition of these books of the war in

pure Hebrew, or had the Jews then used the pure Hebrew at Jerusalem, the

Hebrew word for a son is so like that for a stone, ben and eben, that

such a correction might have been more easily admitted. But Josephus

wrote his former edition for the use of the Jews beyond Euphrates, and

so in the Chaldee language, as he did this second edition in the Greek

language; and bar was the Chaldee word for son, instead of the Hebrew

ben, and was used not only in Chaldea, etc. but in Judea also, as the

New Testament informs us. Dio lets us know that the very Romans at Rome

pronounced the name of Simon the son of Giora, Bar Poras for Bar Gioras,

as we learn from Xiphiline, p. 217. Reland takes notice, "that many will

here look for a mystery, as though the meaning were, that the Son of God

came now to take vengeance on the sins of the Jewish nation;" which is

indeed the truth of the fact, but hardly what the Jews could now mean;

unless possibly by way of derision of Christ's threatening so often

made, that he would come at the head of the Roman army for their

destruction. But even this interpretation has but a very small degree of

probability. If I were to make an emendation by mere conjecture, I would

read instead of, though the likeness be not so great as in lo; because

that is the word used by Josephus just before, as has been already noted

on this very occasion, while, an arrow or dart, is only a poetical word,

and never used by Josephus elsewhere, and is indeed no way suitable

to the occasion, this engine not throwing arrows or darts, but great

stones, at this time.]

16 (return) [ Josephus supposes, in this his admirable speech to the

Jews, that not Abraham only, but Pharaoh king of Egypt, prayed towards

a temple at Jerusalem, or towards Jerusalem itself, in which were Mount

Sion and Mount Moriah, on which the tabernacle and temple did afterwards

stand; and this long before either the Jewish tabernacle or temple were

built. Nor is the famous command given by God to Abraham, to go two

or three days' journey, on purpose to offer up his son Isaac there,

unfavorable to such a notion.]

17 (return) [ Note here, that Josephus, in this his same admirable

speech, calls the Syrians, nay, even the Philistines, on the most south

part of Syria, Assyrians; which Reland observes as what was common among

the ancient writers. Note also, that Josephus might well put the Jews

in mind, as he does here more than once, of their wonderful and truly

miraculous deliverance from Sennacherib, king of Assyria, while the

Roman army, and himself with them, were now encamped upon and beyond

that very spot of ground where the Assyrian army lay seven hundred and

eighty years before, and which retained the very name of the Camp of the

Assyrians to that very day. See chap. 7. sect. 3, and chap. 12. sect.

2.]

18 (return) [ This drying up of the Jerusalem fountain of Siloam when

the Jews wanted it, and its flowing abundantly when the enemies of the

Jews wanted it, and these both in the days of Zedekiah and of Titus,

[and this last as a certain event well known by the Jews at that time,

as Josephus here tells them openly to their faces,] are very remarkable

instances of a Divine Providence for the punishment of the Jewish

nation, when they were grown very wicked, at both those times of the

destruction of Jerusalem.]

19 (return) [ Reland very properly takes notice here, how justly this

judgment came upon the Jews, when they were crucified in such multitudes

together, that the Romans wanted room for the crosses, and crosses

for the bodies of these Jews, since they had brought this judgment on

themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.]

20 (return) [ Josephus, both here and before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4,

esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of the lake Asphaltites, or under

its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus also took the same notion from

him, Hist. V. ch. 6. 7, which the great Reland takes to be the very

truth, both in his note on this place, and in his Palestina, tom. I. p.

254-258; though I rather suppose part of that region of Pentapolis to be

now under the waters of the south part of that sea, but perhaps not the

whole country.]

BOOK VI.

Containing The Interval Of About One Month.

From The Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were Reduced To

The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus.

CHAPTER 1.

That The Miseries Still Grew Worse; And How The Romans Made

An Assault Upon The Tower Of Antonia.

1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day,

and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities they were

under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves, after it had preyed

upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in

heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential

stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies out of

the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array,

who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon

those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they terrified,

nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they deem this

affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves; but

as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their

own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners,

they seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were

too slow in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if

they had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner

in that despair of deliverance they were already in. And now the

Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting together their

materials, raised their banks in one and twenty days, after they had cut

down all the trees that were in the country that adjoined to the city,

and that for ninety furlongs round about, as I have already related. And

truly the very view itself of the country was a melancholy thing; for

those places which were before adorned with trees and pleasant gardens

were now become a desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut

down: nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most

beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament

and mourn sadly at so great a change: for the war had laid all the signs

of beauty quite waste: nor if any one that had known the place before,

had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again; but

though he were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it

notwithstanding.

2. And now the banks were finished, they afforded a foundation for fear

both to the Romans and to the Jews; for the Jews expected that the city

would be taken, unless they could burn those banks, as did the Romans

expect that, if these were once burnt down, they should never be able to

take it; for there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies

of the soldiers began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls

faint with so many instances of ill success; nay, the very calamities

themselves that were in the city proved a greater discouragement to the

Romans than those within the city; for they found the fighting men of

the Jews to be not at all mollified among such their sore afflictions,

while they had themselves perpetually less and less hopes of success,

and their banks were forced to yield to the stratagems of the enemy,

their engines to the firmness of their wall, and their closest fights

to the boldness of their attack; and, what was their greatest

discouragement of all, they found the Jews' courageous souls to be

superior to the multitude of the miseries they were under, by their

sedition, their famine, and the war itself; insomuch that they were

ready to imagine that the violence of their attacks was invincible,

and that the alacrity they showed would not be discouraged by their

calamities; for what would not those be able to bear if they should be

fortunate, who turned their very misfortunes to the improvement of their

valor! These considerations made the Romans to keep a stronger guard

about their banks than they formerly had done.

3. But now John and his party took care for securing themselves

afterward, even in case this wall should be thrown down, and fell to

their work before the battering rams were brought against them. Yet did

they not compass what they endeavored to do, but as they were gone out

with their torches, they came back under great discouragement before

they came near to the banks; and the reasons were these: that, in the

first place, their conduct did not seem to be unanimous, but they went

out in distinct parties, and at distinct intervals, and after a slow

manner, and timorously, and, to say all in a word, without a Jewish

courage; for they were now defective in what is peculiar to our nation,

that is, in boldness, in violence of assault, and in running upon the

enemy all together, and in persevering in what they go about, though

they do not at first succeed in it; but they now went out in a more

languid manner than usual, and at the same time found the Romans set in

array, and more courageous than ordinary, and that they guarded their

banks both with their bodies and their entire armor, and this to such

a degree on all sides, that they left no room for the fire to get among

them, and that every one of their souls was in such good courage, that

they would sooner die than desert their ranks; for besides their notion

that all their hopes were cut off, in case these their works were once

burnt, the soldiers were greatly ashamed that subtlety should quite be

too hard for courage, madness for armor, multitude for skill, and Jews

for Romans. The Romans had now also another advantage, in that their

engines for sieges co-operated with them in throwing darts and stones as

far as the Jews, when they were coming out of the city; whereby the man

that fell became an impediment to him that was next to him, as did the

danger of going farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and

for those that had run under the darts, some of them were terrified by

the good order and closeness of the enemies' ranks before they came to a

close fight, and others were pricked with their spears, and turned back

again; at length they reproached one another for their cowardice, and

retired without doing any thing. This attack was made upon the first

day of the month Panemus [Tamuz.] So when the Jews were retreated, the

Romans brought their engines, although they had all the while stones

thrown at them from the tower of Antonia, and were assaulted by fire and

sword, and by all sorts of darts, which necessity afforded the Jews to

make use of; for although these had great dependence on their own wall,

and a contempt of the Roman engines, yet did they endeavor to hinder

the Romans from bringing them. Now these Romans struggled hard, on the

contrary, to bring them, as deeming that this zeal of the Jews was

in order to avoid any impression to be made on the tower of Antonia,

because its wall was but weak, and its foundations rotten. However, that

tower did not yield to the blows given it from the engines; yet did

the Romans bear the impressions made by the enemies' darts which were

perpetually cast at them, and did not give way to any of those dangers

that came upon them from above, and so they brought their engines to

bear. But then, as they were beneath the other, and were sadly wounded

by the stones thrown down upon them, some of them threw their shields

over their bodies, and partly with their hands, and partly with their

bodies, and partly with crows, they undermined its foundations, and with

great pains they removed four of its stones. Then night came upon both

sides, and put an end to this struggle for the present; however, that

night the wall was so shaken by the battering rams in that place where

John had used his stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that

the ground then gave way, and the wall fell down suddenly.

4. When this accident had unexpectedly happened, the minds of both

parties were variously affected; for though one would expect that

the Jews would be discouraged, because this fall of their wall was

unexpected by them, and they had made no provision in that case, yet

did they pull up their courage, because the tower of Antonia itself was

still standing; as was the unexpected joy of the Romans at this fall of

the wall soon quenched by the sight they had of another wall, which John

and his party had built within it. However, the attack of this second

wall appeared to be easier than that of the former, because it seemed

a thing of greater facility to get up to it through the parts of the

former wall that were now thrown down. This new wall appeared also to

be much weaker than the tower of Antonia, and accordingly the Romans

imagined that it had been erected so much on the sudden, that they

should soon overthrow it: yet did not any body venture now to go up to

this wall; for that such as first ventured so to do must certainly be

killed.

5. And now Titus, upon consideration that the alacrity of soldiers in

war is chiefly excited by hopes and by good words, and that exhortations

and promises do frequently make men to forget the hazards they run, nay,

sometimes to despise death itself, got together the most courageous part

of his army, and tried what he could do with his men by these methods.

"O fellow soldiers," said he, "to make an exhortation to men to do what

hath no peril in it, is on that very account inglorious to such to whom

that exhortation is made; and indeed so it is in him that makes the

exhortation, an argument of his own cowardice also. I therefore think

that such exhortations ought then only to be made use of when affairs

are in a dangerous condition, and yet are worthy of being attempted by

every one themselves; accordingly, I am fully of the same opinion with

you, that it is a difficult task to go up this wall; but that it is

proper for those that desire reputation for their valor to struggle with

difficulties in such cases as will then appear, when I have particularly

shown that it is a brave thing to die with glory, and that the courage

here necessary shall not go unrewarded in those that first begin the

attempt. And let my first argument to move you to it be taken from

what probably some would think reasonable to dissuade you, I mean the

constancy and patience of these Jews, even under their ill successes;

for it is unbecoming you, who are Romans and my soldiers, who have

in peace been taught how to make wars, and who have also been used to

conquer in those wars, to be inferior to Jews, either in action of the

hand, or in courage of the soul, and this especially when you are at the

conclusion of your victory, and are assisted by God himself; for as to

our misfortunes, they have been owing to the madness of the Jews, while

their sufferings have been owing to your valor, and to the assistance

God hath afforded you; for as to the seditions they have been in, and

the famine they are under, and the siege they now endure, and the

fall of their walls without our engines, what can they all be but

demonstrations of God's anger against them, and of his assistance

afforded us? It will not therefore be proper for you, either to show

yourselves inferior to those to whom you are really superior, or to

betray that Divine assistance which is afforded you. And, indeed, how

can it be esteemed otherwise than a base and unworthy thing, that while

the Jews, who need not be much ashamed if they be deserted, because they

have long learned to be slaves to others, do yet despise death, that

they may be so no longer; and do make sallies into the very midst of

us frequently, not in hopes of conquering us, but merely for a

demonstration of their courage; we, who have gotten possession of almost

all the world that belongs to either land or sea, to whom it will be a

great shame if we do not conquer them, do not once undertake any attempt

against our enemies wherein there is much danger, but sit still idle,

with such brave arms as we have, and only wait till the famine and

fortune do our business themselves, and this when we have it in our

power, with some small hazard, to gain all that we desire! For if we go

up to this tower of Antonia, we gain the city; for if there should be

any more occasion for fighting against those within the city, which I do

not suppose there will, since we shall then be upon the top of the

hill 1 and be upon our enemies before they can have taken breath, these

advantages promise us no less than a certain and sudden victory. As for

myself, I shall at present wave any commendation of those who die in

war, 2 and omit to speak of the immortality of those men who are slain

in the midst of their martial bravery; yet cannot I forbear to imprecate

upon those who are of a contrary disposition, that they may die in time

of peace, by some distemper or other, since their souls are condemned to

the grave, together with their bodies. For what man of virtue is there

who does not know, that those souls which are severed from their fleshly

bodies in battles by the sword are received by the ether, that purest of

elements, and joined to that company which are placed among the stars;

that they become good demons, and propitious heroes, and show themselves

as such to their posterity afterwards? while upon those souls that wear

away in and with their distempered bodies comes a subterranean night

to dissolve them to nothing, and a deep oblivion to take away all the

remembrance of them, and this notwithstanding they be clean from all

spots and defilements of this world; so that, in this ease, the soul at

the same time comes to the utmost bounds of its life, and of its body,

and of its memorial also. But since he hath determined that death is to

come of necessity upon all men, a sword is a better instrument for that

purpose than any disease whatsoever. Why is it not then a very mean

thing for us not to yield up that to the public benefit which we must

yield up to fate? And this discourse have I made, upon the supposition

that those who at first attempt to go upon this wall must needs be

killed in the attempt, though still men of true courage have a chance to

escape even in the most hazardous undertakings. For, in the first

place, that part of the former wall that is thrown down is easily to be

ascended; and for the new-built wall, it is easily destroyed. Do you,

therefore, many of you, pull up your courage, and set about this work,

and do you mutually encourage and assist one another; and this your

bravery will soon break the hearts of your enemies; and perhaps such a

glorious undertaking as yours is may be accomplished without bloodshed.

For although it be justly to be supposed that the Jews will try to

hinder you at your first beginning to go up to them; yet when you have

once concealed yourselves from them, and driven them away by force, they

will not be able to sustain your efforts against them any longer, though

but a few of you prevent them, and get over the wall. As for that person

who first mounts the wall, I should blush for shame if I did not make

him to be envied of others, by those rewards I would bestow upon him.

If such a one escape with his life, he shall have the command of others

that are now but his equals; although it be true also that the greatest

rewards will accrue to such as die in the attempt." 3

6. Upon this speech of Titus, the rest of the multitude were afrighted

at so great a danger. But there was one, whose name was Sabinus, a

soldier that served among the cohorts, and a Syrian by birth, who

appeared to be of very great fortitude, both in the actions he had done,

and the courage of his soul he had shown; although any body would

have thought, before he came to his work, that he was of such a weak

constitution of body, that he was not fit to be a soldier; for his color

was black, his flesh was lean and thin, and lay close together; but

there was a certain heroic soul that dwelt in this small body, which

body was indeed much too narrow for that peculiar courage which was in

him. Accordingly he was the first that rose up, when he thus spake: "I

readily surrender up myself to thee, O Caesar; I first ascend the

wall, and I heartily wish that my fortune may follow my courage and

my resolution And if some ill fortune grudge me the success of my

undertaking, take notice that my ill success will not be unexpected, but

that I choose death voluntarily for thy sake." When he had said this,

and had spread out his shield over his head with his left hand, and had,

with his right hand, drawn his sword, he marched up to the wall, just

about the sixth hour of the day. There followed him eleven others, and

no more, that resolved to imitate his bravery; but still this was the

principal person of them all, and went first, as excited by a divine

fury. Now those that guarded the wall shot at them from thence, and cast

innumerable darts upon them from every side; they also rolled very large

stones upon them, which overthrew some of those eleven that were with

him. But as for Sabinus himself, he met the darts that were cast at him

and though he was overwhelmed with them, yet did he not leave off the

violence of his attack before he had gotten up on the top of the wall,

and had put the enemy to flight. For as the Jews were astonished at

his great strength, and the bravery of his soul, and as, withal, they

imagined more of them had got upon the wall than really had, they were

put to flight. And now one cannot but complain here of fortune, as still

envious at virtue, and always hindering the performance of glorious

achievements: this was the case of the man before us, when he had just

obtained his purpose; for he then stumbled at a certain large stone, and

fell down upon it headlong, with a very great noise. Upon which the Jews

turned back, and when they saw him to be alone, and fallen down also,

they threw darts at him from every side. However, he got upon his knee,

and covered himself with his shield, and at the first defended himself

against them, and wounded many of those that came near him; but he was

soon forced to relax his right hand, by the multitude of the wounds that

had been given him, till at length he was quite covered over with darts

before he gave up the ghost. He was one who deserved a better fate, by

reason of his bravery; but, as might be expected, he fell under so vast

an attempt. As for the rest of his partners, the Jews dashed three of

them to pieces with stones, and slew them as they were gotten up to the

top of the wall; the other eight being wounded, were pulled down, and

carried back to the camp. These things were done upon the third day of

the month Panemus [Tamuz].

7. Now two days afterward twelve of those men that were on the

forefront, and kept watch upon the banks, got together, and called to

them the standard-bearer of the fifth legion, and two others of a troop

of horsemen, and one trumpeter; these went without noise, about the

ninth hour of the night, through the ruins, to the tower of Antonia; and

when they had cut the throats of the first guards of the place, as they

were asleep, they got possession of the wall, and ordered the trumpeter

to sound his trumpet. Upon which the rest of the guard got up on the

sudden, and ran away, before any body could see how many they were that

were gotten up; for, partly from the fear they were in, and partly from

the sound of the trumpet which they heard, they imagined a great number

of the enemy were gotten up. But as soon as Caesar heard the signal,

he ordered the army to put on their armor immediately, and came thither

with his commanders, and first of all ascended, as did the chosen men

that were with him. And as the Jews were flying away to the temple, they

fell into that mine which John had dug under the Roman banks. Then

did the seditious of both the bodies of the Jewish army, as well that

belonging to John as that belonging to Simon, drive them away; and

indeed were no way wanting as to the highest degree of force and

alacrity; for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if once the

Romans got into the temple, as did the Romans look upon the same thing

as the beginning of their entire conquest. So a terrible battle was

fought at the entrance of the temple, while the Romans were forcing

their way, in order to get possession of that temple, and the Jews were

driving them back to the tower of Antonia; in which battle the darts

were on both sides useless, as well as the spears, and both sides drew

their swords, and fought it out hand to hand. Now during this struggle

the positions of the men were undistinguished on both sides, and

they fought at random, the men being intermixed one with another, and

confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place; while the noise

that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct manner, because it

was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on both sides, and the

combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of those that were dead,

and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to which side soever the battle

inclined, those that had the advantage exhorted one another to go on, as

did those that were beaten make great lamentation. But still there was

no room for flight, nor for pursuit, but disorderly revolutions and

retreats, while the armies were intermixed one with another; but those

that were in the first ranks were under the necessity of killing or

being killed, without any way for escaping; for those on both sides that

came behind forced those before them to go on, without leaving any space

between the armies. At length the Jews' violent zeal was too hard for

the Romans' skill, and the battle already inclined entirely that way;

for the fight had lasted from the ninth hour of the night till the

seventh hour of the day, While the Jews came on in crowds, and had the

danger the temple was in for their motive; the Romans having no more

here than a part of their army; for those legions, on which the soldiers

on that side depended, were not come up to them. So it was at present

thought sufficient by the Romans to take possession of the tower of

Antonia.

8. But there was one Julian, a centurion, that came from Bithynia, a man

he was of great reputation, whom I had formerly seen in that war, and

one of the highest fame, both for his skill in war, his strength of

body, and the courage of his soul. This man, seeing the Romans giving

ground, and in a sad condition, [for he stood by Titus at the tower of

Antonia,] leaped out, and of himself alone put the Jews to flight, when

they were already conquerors, and made them retire as far as the corner

of the inner court of the temple; from him the multitude fled away in

crowds, as supposing that neither his strength nor his violent attacks

could be those of a mere man. Accordingly, he rushed through the midst

of the Jews, as they were dispersed all abroad, and killed those that he

caught. Nor, indeed, was there any sight that appeared more wonderful in

the eyes of Caesar, or more terrible to others, than this. However, he

was himself pursued by fate, which it was not possible that he, who was

but a mortal man, should escape; for as he had shoes all full of thick

and sharp nails 4 as had every one of the other soldiers, so when he ran

on the pavement of the temple, he slipped, and fell down upon his back

with a very great noise, which was made by his armor. This made those

that were running away to turn back; whereupon those Romans that were in

the tower of Antonia set up a great shout, as they were in fear for the

man. But the Jews got about him in crowds, and struck at him with their

spears and with their swords on all sides. Now he received a great

many of the strokes of these iron weapons upon his shield, and often

attempted to get up again, but was thrown down by those that struck at

him; yet did he, as he lay along, stab many of them with his sword. Nor

was he soon killed, as being covered with his helmet and his breastplate

in all those parts of his body where he might be mortally wounded; he

also pulled his neck close to his body, till all his other limbs were

shattered, and nobody durst come to defend him, and then he yielded to

his fate. Now Caesar was deeply affected on account of this man of so

great fortitude, and especially as he was killed in the sight of so many

people; he was desirous himself to come to his assistance, but the place

would not give him leave, while such as could have done it were too much

terrified to attempt it. Thus when Julian had struggled with death a

great while, and had let but few of those that had given him his mortal

wound go off unhurt, he had at last his throat cut, though not without

some difficulty, and left behind him a very great fame, not only among

the Romans, and with Caesar himself, but among his enemies also; then

did the Jews catch up his dead body, and put the Romans to flight again,

and shut them up in the tower of Antonia. Now those that most signalized

themselves, and fought most zealously in this battle of the Jewish side,

were one Alexas and Gyphtheus, of John's party, and of Simon's party

were Malachias, and Judas the son of Merto, and James the son of Sosas,

the commander of the Idumeans; and of the zealots, two brethren, Simon

and Judas, the sons of Jairus.

CHAPTER 2.

How Titus Gave Orders To Demolish The Tower Of Antonia And

Then Persuaded Josephus To Exhort The Jews Again [To A

Surrender].

1. And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him to dig

up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a ready passage

for his army to come up; while he himself had Josephus brought to

him, [for he had been informed that on that very day, which was the

seventeenth day 5of Panemus, [Tamuz,] the sacrifice called "the Daily

Sacrifice" had failed, and had not been offered to God, for want of men

to offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled at it,] and

commanded him to say the same things to John that he had said before,

that if he had any malicious inclination for fighting, he might come out

with as many of his men as he pleased, in order to fight, without the

danger of destroying either his city or temple; but that he desired he

would not defile the temple, nor thereby offend against God. That he

might, if he pleased, offer the sacrifices which were now discontinued

by any of the Jews whom he should pitch upon. Upon this Josephus stood

in such a place where he might be heard, not by John only, but by many

more, and then declared to them what Caesar had given him in charge,

and this in the Hebrew language. 6 So he earnestly prayed them to spare

their own city, and to prevent that fire which was just ready to seize

upon the temple, and to offer their usual sacrifices to God therein. At

these words of his a great sadness and silence were observed among the

people. But the tyrant himself cast many reproaches upon Josephus, with

imprecations besides; and at last added this withal, that he did never

fear the taking of the city, because it was God's own city. In answer to

which Josephus said thus with a loud voice: "To be sure thou hast kept

this city wonderfully pure for God's sake; the temple also continues

entirely unpolluted! Nor hast thou been guilty of any impiety against

him for whose assistance thou hopest! He still receives his accustomed

sacrifices! Vile wretch that thou art! if any one should deprive thee of

thy daily food, thou wouldst esteem him to be an enemy to thee; but thou

hopest to have that God for thy supporter in this war whom thou hast

deprived of his everlasting worship; and thou imputest those sins to the

Romans, who to this very time take care to have our laws observed, and

almost compel these sacrifices to be still offered to God, which have

by thy means been intermitted! Who is there that can avoid groans and

lamentations at the amazing change that is made in this city? since

very foreigners and enemies do now correct that impiety which thou hast

occasioned; while thou, who art a Jew, and wast educated in our laws,

art become a greater enemy to them than the others. But still, John, it

is never dishonorable to repent, and amend what hath been done amiss,

even at the last extremity. Thou hast an instance before thee in

Jechoniah, 7 the king of the Jews, if thou hast a mind to save the

city, who, when the king of Babylon made war against him, did of his

own accord go out of this city before it was taken, and did undergo a

voluntary captivity with his family, that the sanctuary might not be

delivered up to the enemy, and that he might not see the house of God

set on fire; on which account he is celebrated among all the Jews, in

their sacred memorials, and his memory is become immortal, and will be

conveyed fresh down to our posterity through all ages. This, John, is

an excellent example in such a time of danger, and I dare venture to

promise that the Romans shall still forgive thee. And take notice that

I, who make this exhortation to thee, am one of thine own nation; I,

who am a Jew, do make this promise to thee. And it will become thee to

consider who I am that give thee this counsel, and whence I am derived;

for while I am alive I shall never be in such slavery, as to forego

my own kindred, or forget the laws of our forefathers. Thou hast

indignation at me again, and makest a clamor at me, and reproachest me;

indeed I cannot deny but I am worthy of worse treatment than all this

amounts to, because, in opposition to fate, I make this kind invitation

to thee, and endeavor to force deliverance upon those whom God hath

condemned. And who is there that does not know what the writings of the

ancient prophets contain in them,--and particularly that oracle which

is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they

foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin

the slaughter of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and the

entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God,

therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that

city and temple by means of the Romans, 8 and is going to pluck up this

city, which is full of your pollutions."

The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem · 第 39 / 41 章

How The Romans Took The Second Wall Twice, And Got All Ready