maus, was joined to Cæsar at night, he removed thence when it was day, and came to a place called Scopus, from whence the city began already to he seen, and a plain view might be taken of the great temple. Accordingly this place, on the north quarter of the city, and adjoining thereto, was a plain, and very properly named Scopus [the prospect], and was no more than seven furlongs distant from it. And here it was that Titus ordered a camp to be fortified, for two legions that were to be together; but ordered another camp to be fortified at three, furlongs farther distance behind them, for the fifth legion; for he thought that by marching in the night they might be tired, and might deserve to be covered from the enemy, and with less fear might fortify themselves; and, as these were now beginning to build, the tenth legion, which came through Jericho, was already come to the place, where a certain party of armed men had formerly lain, to guard that pass into the city, and had been taken before by Vespasian. These legions had orders to encamp at the distance of six furlongs from Jerusalem, at the mount called the Mount of Olives; which lies over against the city on the east side, and is parted from it by a deep valley interposed between them, which is named Cedron.

4. Now, when hitherto the several parties in the city had been dashing one against another perpetually, this foreign war, now suddenly come upon them after a violent manner, put the first stop to their contentions one against another; and, as the seditious now saw with astonishment the Romans pitching three several camps, they began to think of an awkward sort of concord, and said one to another, "What do we here, and what do we mean when we suffer three fortified walls to be built, to coop us in, that we shall not be able to breathe freely? while the enemy is securely building a kind of city in opposition to us, and while we sit still within our own walls, and become spectators only of what they are doing, with our hands idle, and our armour laid by, as if they were about somewhat that was for our good and advantage. We are, it seems (so did they cry out) only courageous against ourselves, while the Romans are likely to gain the city without bloodshed by our sedition." Thus did they encourage one another when they were gotten together, and took their armour immediately, and ran out upon the tenth legion, and fell upon the Romans with great eagerness, and with a pro

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.

VOL. IV.

K

digious shout, as they were fortifying their camp. These Romans were caught in different parties, and this in order to perform their several works, and on that account had in great measure laid aside their arms; for they thought the Jews would not have ventured to make a sally upon them; and, had they been disposed so to do, they supposed their sedition would have distracted them. So they were put into disorder unexpectedly; when some of them left their works they were about, and immediately marched off, while many ran to their arms, but were smitten and slain before they could turn back upon the enemy. The Jews became still more and more in number, as encouraged by the good success of those that first made the attack; and, while they had such good fortune, they seemed, both to themselves and to the enemy, to be many more than they really were. The disorderly way of their fighting at first put the Romans also to a stand, who had been constantly used to fight skilfully in good order, and with keeping their ranks, and obeying the orders that were given them; for which reason the Romans were caught unexpectedly, and were obliged to give way to the assaults that were made upon them. Now when these Romans were overtaken, and turned back upon the Jews, they put a stop to their career; yet, when they did not take care enough of themselves through the vehemency of their pursuit, were wounded by them; but, as still more and more Jews sallied out of the city, the Romans were at length brought into confusion, and put to flight, and ran away from their camp. Nay, things looked as though the entire legion would have been in danger, unless Titus had been informed of the case they were in, and had sent them succours immediately. So he reproached them for their cowardice, and brought those back that were running away, and fell himself upon the Jews on their flank, with those select troops that were with him, and slew a considerable number, and wounded more of them, and put them all to flight, and made them run away hastily down the valley. Now as these Jews suffered greatly in the declivity of the valley, so, when they were gotten over it, they turned about, and stood over against the Romans, having the valley between them, and there fought with them. Thus did they continue the fight till noon; but, when it was already a little after noon, Titus set those that came to the assistance of the Romans with him, and those that belonged to the cohorts, to prevent the Jews from making any more sallies, and then sent the rest of the legion to the upper part of the mountain to fortify their camp.

5. This march of the Romans seemed to the Jews to be a flight; and as the watchman who was placed upon the wall,

gave a signal by shaking his garment, there came out a fresh multitude of Jews, and that with such mighty violence, that one might compare it to the running of the most terrible wild beasts. To say the truth, none of those that opposed them could sustain the fury with which they made their attacks; but, as if they had been cast out of an engine, they brake the enemies' ranks to pieces, who were put to flight, and ran away to the mountain; none but Titus himself, and a few others with him, being left in the midst of the acclivity. Now these others, who were his friends, despised the danger they were in, and were ashamed to leave their general, earnestly exhorting him "to give way to these Jews that are fond of dying, and not to run into such dangers before those that ought to stay before him; to consider what his fortune was, and not, by supplying the place of a common soldier, to venture to turn back upon the enemy so suddenly; and this because he was general in the war, and lord of the habitable earth, on whose preservation the public affairs do all depend." These persuasions Titus seemed not so much as to hear, but opposed those that ran upon him, and smote them on the face; and, when he had forced them to go back, he slew them; he also fell upon great numbers as they marched down the hill, and thrust them forward; while those men were so amazed at his courage and his strength, that they could not fly directly to the city, but declined from him on both sides, and pressed after those that fled up the hill; yet did he still fall upon their flank, and put a stop to their fury. In the mean time a disorder and a terror fell again upon those that were fortifying their camp at the top of the hill, upon their seeing those beneath them running away; insomuch that the whole legion was dispersed, while they thought that the sallies of the Jews upon them were plainly insupportable, and that Titus was himself put to flight; because they took it for granted, that if he had staid, the rest would never have fled for it. Thus were they encompassed on every side by a kind of panic fear, and some dispersed themselves one way, and some another, till certain of them saw their general in the very midst of an action, and being under great concern for him, they loudly proclaimed the danger he was in to the entire legion; and now shame made them turn back, and they reproached one another, that they did worse than run away by deserting Cæsar. So they used their utmost force against the Jews, and declining from the strait declivity, they drove them on heaps into the bottom of the valley. Then did the Jews turn about and fight them; but as they were themselves retiring, and now because the Romans had the advantage of the ground, and were above the Jews, they drove them all into

the valley. Titus also pressed upon those that were near him, and sent the legion again to fortify their camp; while he and those that were with him before, opposed the enemy, and kept them from doing farther mischief; insomuch that, if I may be allowed neither to add any thing out of flattery, nor to diminish any thing out of envy, but to speak the plain truth, Cæsar did twice deliver that entire legion when it was in jeopardy, and gave them a quiet opportunity of fortifying their camp.

CHAP. III.

How the Sedition was again revived within Jerusalem, and yet the Jews contrived Snares for the Romans. How Titus also threatened his Soldiers for their ungovernable Rashness. § 1. As now the war abroad ceased for a while, the sedition within was revived; and on the feast of unleavened bread, which was now come, it being the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan] when it is believed the Jews were first freed from the Egyptians, Eleazar and his party opened the gates of this [inmost court of the] temple, and admitted such of the people* as were desirous to worship God into it. But John made use of this festival as a cloak for his treacherous designs, and armed the most inconsiderable of his own party, the greater part of which were not purified, with weapons concealed under their garments, and sent them with great zeal into the temple, in order to seize upon it; which armed men, when they were gotten in, threw their garments away, and presently appeared in their armour. Upon which there was a very great disorder and disturbance about the holy house; while the people who had no concern in the sedition, supposed that this assault was made against all without

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. ix. 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, was 600,000. This information must have been taken from the Romans, for Josephus never mentions the number 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 bistory of the last part of this siege is not now extant; so we cannot compare bis parallel numbers with those in Josephus.

distinction; as the zealots thought it was made against themselves only. So these left off guarding the gates any longer, and leaped down from their battlements before they came to an engagement, and fled away into the subterranean caverns of the temple, while the people that stood trembling at the altar, and about the holy house, were rolled on heaps together, and trampled upon, and were beaten both with wooden and with iron weapons without mercy. Such also, as had differences with others, slew many persons that were quiet, out of their own private enmity and hatred, as if they were opposite to the seditious; and all those that had formerly offended any of these plotters, were now known, and were now led away to the slaughter; and when they had done abundance of horrid mischief to the guiltless, they granted a truce to the guilty, and let those go off that came out of the caverns. These followers of John also did now seize upon this inner temple and upon all the warlike engines therein, and then ventured to oppose Simon. And thus that sedition, which had been divided into three factions, was now reduced to two.

2. But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city than Scopus, placed as many of his choice horsemen and footmen as he thought sufficient, opposite to the Jews, to prevent their sallying out upon them; while he gave orders for the whole army to level the distance, as far as the wall of the city. So they threw down all the hedges and walls which the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool called the Serpent's Pool.

3. Now at this very time the Jews contrived the following stratagem against the Romans. The bolder sort of the seditious went out at the towers called the Women's Towers, as if they had been ejected out of the city by those who were for peace, and rambled about as if they were afraid of being assaulted by the Romans, and were in fear of one another; while those that stood upon the wall, and seemed to be of the people's side, cried out aloud for peace, and entreated they might have security for their lives given them, and called for the Romans, promising to open the gates to them; and as they cried out after that manner, they threw stones at their own people, as though they would drive them away from the gates. These also pretended, that they were excluded by force, and that they petitioned those that were within to let