According to the testimony of Theodosius, as quoted by Dion Cassius, Titus suffered considerably for want of water, which he was obliged to bring from a great distance; a circumstance which was to be expected in a country like that around Jerusalem. But this did not hinder his preparations for the siege. Under the protection of a strong guard, he cut down the trees, destroyed the garden walls and fences, and levelled the whole place from Scopus to the monuments of Herod, near the serpent's pool. During the progress of this work, Titus summoned the city to surrender, but without effect. The day after, the Jews by a stratagem made a sally on the Romans with considerable success. Four days after this, the work of levelling the ground was completed; and Titus then stationed a party of his bravest soldiers near the walls on the west side of the city, to prevent the assaults of the Jews; and under this protection, he removed his camp from Scopus to a position only two stadia from the city, and so arranged it, that one part of it was opposite to the octangular tower of Psephinus, seventy cubits high, on the northwest corner of the wall, and the other part opposite to the quadrangular tower of Hippicus, eighty cubits high, on the northeast corner. The camp on the mount of Olives was not removed. In this manner, the city was closely blockaded at the time of the passover, while a great multitude of Jews were within the walls to celebrate the feast.*

In the city, Simon had under his command about ten thousand men with fifty leaders, and five thousand Idumeans with ten leaders, and held possession of the upper and lower city, together with the walls as far as Cedron and Siloam; while John had six thousand men with twenty leaders, and twenty-five hundred zealots who had joined his party, and held the temple, the Ophla, the vale of Cedron, and the places adjoining the temple; which were the common battle-ground of both parties, where they still continued their bloody conflicts.†

CXLVI. CONQUEST OF THE OUTER WALL. After Titus had blockaded the city, he determined to make an assault upon it near the monument of the high priest John; where the outer wall was the lowest, and was not connected with the second, and whence a passage to the third wall would be easier than from any other quarter. Flavius Josephus now approached the wall with a few Romans, in order to persuade the Jews to surrender; but they answered only by a shower of arrows, and Nicanor, a Roman officer, was wounded in the shoulder. Titus then resolved to destroy the part of the city enclosed by the first wall, and gave orders for the raising of the necessary banks; which the soldiers soon completed, being protected from the Jews by their military engines. John dared not attack the Romans through fear of Simon. Simon brought upon the wall the military machines which had been taken from Cestius, and began to ply them vigorously; but owing to the unskilfulness of

Dion Cassius, lxvi Jewish War, v. 2. 2; 3. 7. Jewish War, v. 6. 1.

his men, they produced little effect. The sallies which he made were equally ineffectual. After the banks had been raised, three moveable towers were constructed upon them, and the battering rams were brought to bear on the walls in three different places. The noise and destruction occasioned by these machines, excited a cry of terror throughout the city. The two parties again united for their common defence. They exerted themselves to the utmost, and in a desperate sally, set the machines on fire; but many of them fell into the hands of the Romans, and were crucified before the city. Soon after, one of the moveable towers fell down; but this accident did not at all hinder the progress of the siege, for the shot from the other two towers was sufficient to drive the Jews from the wall. Consequently, the working of the battering rams could not be prevented, and the wall soon gave way before them. The Romans then rushed in through the breach, opened the gates, and took possession of the new city on the fourteenth day from the commencement of the siege, the seventh of the month of Artemisius or May. They demolished a great part of the outer wall; while the Jews retired behind the second wall into the inner city.*

CXLVII. CONQUEST OF THE LOWER CITY.

The camp was now removed into the new city, and the second wall was attacked; when the Jews again defended themselves with great bravery, and made several sallies on the besiegers. Notwithstanding this resistance, the Romans in five days made themselves masters of the wall, and rushed into the city. But as they intended to spare the city, they threw down none of the second wall, and their moderation had nearly proved fatal to them; for the Jews made a vigorous resistance, and an obstinate battle was fought in the city, till at last Titus found himself obliged to open a way for the Romans to retreat. The courage of the Jews was reanimated by this transient success; they took possession of the breach, and maintained their ground three days, before they could be again expelled. The Roand took possession of this part of the city.† mans now demolished a large part of the wall,

CXLVIII. CONDITION OF THE CITY.

Titus now suspended his operations four days, hoping that the Jews would be induced to surrender by the famine, from which they began to suffer. On the fifth day, he began to raise a bank against the tower of Antonia. The more obstinately the Jews resisted, the more warmly he pressed the siege, in order to compel them to surrender, that he might be able to preserve the city and temple from total destruction. He again sent Josephus to persua le them to submit ; but they answered him with insult and ridicule.‡

In the meantime several Jews found means to escape from the city. They sold their property to any one who would purchase it; and some

Jewish War, v. 6. 2-5; 7. 1, 2.

Jewish War, v. 7. 3; 8. 2. Compare Theodosius, as quoted by Dion Cassius, lxvi.

↑ Jewish War, v. 9. 1-4. Compare Theodosius, as quoted by Dion Cassius, lxvi.

ing their distress, and anxious to save the remainder of the people, again constructed banks against the tower of Antonia, though he was obliged to bring wood for the work from the distance of ninety stadia.*

In the meantime the tyranny of Simon remained unabated. He put to death the high priest Matthias, who had received him into the city, and also his three sons, the high priest Ananias, the son of Masambal, and fifteen other men of the first rank. On account of the cruelty of Simon, Judas, an officer who had the command of a tower, and ten of his confidential friends, determined to deliver the city into the hands of the Romans. They made known their intentions to the Romans; but while they delayed, distrusting the sincerity of the offer, Simon came and executed the officer and his accomplices.+

Titus, who still wished to preserve the city and the temple, directed Josephus to make another attempt to persuade the Jews to surrender; but as he was going round the walls, he was so severely wounded in the head with a stone, that he fell senseless; and the Romans were scarcely able to rescue him from the hands of the Jews. who rushed out to seize him and drag him into the city. It was supposed in the city that he was dead, till he again made his appearance, and urged them to submit; but without effect.‡

The distress of the city was now so great, that many, finding no other way of escape, leaped down from the walls; and others, under pretence of making an assault, went out and joined the Romans. The bodies of these deserters were swollen in consequence of their long-continued sufferings from hunger; and great numbers of them, soon after being supplied with food, destroyed their lives by eating too much. But when one of the Jews was seen gathering from his excrements the pieces of gold which he had swallowed, the Arabs and Syrians cut open the bodies of two thousand living deserters in one night, to search for money. Titus prohibited, under pain of death, this inhuman crime, which must necessarily have deterred the Jews from deserting to the Romans. But it was still secretly practised, though very little gold was found in the bodies of the wretched victims. On this occasion Josephus observes, that "It was God who condemned the whole nation, and turned every course that was taken for their preservation, to their destruction."S

As there was now no more booty to be found among the people, John seized the sacred utensils and consecrated gifts of the temple; alleging that they who fought for God had a right to the things which were dedicated to God. He also appropriated to himself and his adherents the wine and oil which were designed for the sacrifices.

Soon after, Manneus, the son of Lazarus, fled to the Romans, and he acknowledged to Titus that since the Romans had encamped in the city, from the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus or April, to the first day of the month Panemus

or July, one hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty dead bodies had been carried through one gate of the city, where he was stationed, besides those who were buried by their relatives. The number of dead bodies carried through the gates was afterwards stated by some deserters to be six hundred thousand; and the number of those which were disposed of in other ways could not be estimated; at last the dead bodies became so numerous, that they could no longer be carried out, and they were thrown together in heaps. After the building of the wall, the famine was so severe that many devoured the excrements of cattle. Even the Zealots and robbers were tormented with hunger; and the starving soldiers were obliged to make their way to the walls over mouldering corpses, which emitted an insupportable stench.*

CLI. CONQUEST OF THE TOWER OF ANTONIA.

length completed. John made a few attempts to The banks for the siege of the tower were at

set the works on fire, but his soldiers were too

much weakened by famine to accomplish any thing. The moveable towers were pressed forward to the walls; the battering rams were fixed, and put in vigorous operation. The Jews made a feeble resistance, and, the next night, that part of the wall from which John had dug the mine to the Roman banks, was thrown down. The rebels had constructed a second wall within; but it which had fallen. The Romans, however, were appeared easy of access over the ruins of that repulsed in an attempt which they made to scale the wall on the third day of Panemus or July. Two days after, the guards of the banks marched up to the tower in perfect silence in the ninth hour of the night, (three o'clock,) slew the Jewish sentinels, and immediately sounded their trumpets; when the Jewish guards, supposing that the whole Roman army was upon them, betook themselves to flight. Titus brought up his army as speedily as possible, and rushed on after the Jews into the temple. An obstinate battle was then fought, which continued from three o'clock at night till noon the next day; but the Romans were at last compelled to withdraw, and session of the tower of Antonia.† content themselves for the present with the pos

CLII. ASSAULT ON THE TEMPLE.

the tower of Antonia, in order to open for his Titus gave orders for the entire demolition of he heard that the daily sacrifices had ceased, he army a more easy passage to the temple. When directed Josephus to hold an interview with John, and inform him, that he might draw out all his men to battle if he chose, so as to preserve the city and temple from destruction, and that the sacred services of the temple might be continued by men of his own selection. But the warnings of Josephus were treated with contempt, and John replied that the city of God could never be destroyed. Many Jews after this fled to the Romans, and entreated their besieged countrymen

Jewish War, v. 13. 7; vi. 1. 1.
Jewish War, vi. 1. 1-8.

THE TEMPLE.

At three o'clock the next morning he ordered the temple to be attacked. The Jewish guards were at their post, and raised a cry by which they soon obtained assistance; but, in the darkness of the night they were unable to distinguish friend from foe, and cut down many of their own men, while the armed Romans were made known to each other by the watchword. The battle continued till noon, when neither party could claim the victory.†

In seven days the tower of Antonia was levelled with the ground, and a broad place was thus formed before the temple, on which four banks were constructed. This work proceeded very slowly, because all the country for ninety stadia about Jerusalem had been stripped of its trees, and the soldiers were obliged to procure timber from the distance of one hundred stadia, and were frequently attacked by the robbers while absent from the camp. The Jews made a desperate sally, at this time, on the mount of Olives, which was attended with considerable loss on both sides. As the Roman banks were now nearly completed, the Jews themselves set fire to the northern cloister of the temple, against which the banks were directed; and two days after, on the twenty-fourth of the month Panemus or July, the Romans burnt the adjoining cloister.‡

In the meantime the Jews not only resisted the Romans by force, but annoyed them as much as possible by stratagem. On one occasion a party of Jews, by a pretended flight, allured several of the enemy into a cloister of the temple, which they then suddenly set on fire, and the Romans perished in the flames.§

The famine in the temple and upper city became still more distressing, and multitudes daily died of hunger. The robbers ransacked houses and men, and even dead bodies, in search of food; and when none was to be found, they devoured anything that they could swallow, even their girdles and sandals, and the leather of their shields, and dried grass, of which a very small weight was sold for four drachms. A woman named Mary, of a distinguished family in Perea, who had frequently been deprived of all her treasures and of every morsel of food, at last murdered and roasted her own infant child: and when the soldiers, allured by the smell, rushed into the house and demanded food, she boldly confessed what she had done, and showed them half of the child which remained, for she had herself eaten the rest. This horrid transaction was soon made known in the city and in the Roman camp; and Titus again protested that he was not the author of these miseries, as he had frequently offered peace to the Jews.

On the eighth day of the month Lous or August, two banks were completed, and battering rams were plied for six days without effect. At the same time the Romans began to undermine the northern gate of the temple, but found the attempt impracticable. They then ascended the cloisters with their ladders; but the Jews made so obstinate a resistance, that they beat off their enemies, and seized one of their standards. Titus was anxious to put a speedy end to the war, and the Romans were all weary of this irksome siege; for, as Tacitus observes, "Romani ad oppugnandum versi; neque enim dignum videbatur famem hostium opperiri, poscebantque pericula, pars virtute, multi ferocia, et cupidine præmiorum. Ipsi Tito Roma, et opes voluptatesque ante oculos; ac, ni statim Hierosolyma conciderent, morari videbantur." As Titus now had almost relinquished the hope of saving the temple, he ordered his soldiers to set fire to the gates; when the silver work was melted, the flames were communicated to the wood, and spread into the cloisters. The fire continued to rage the whole day and night; for the Jews made no effort to extinguish it, and it was necessary to burn the cloisters separately.*

The next day, Titus ordered his soldiers to extinguish the fire, and open a way to assault the temple. He then held a council of war to determine whether the temple should be destroyed or preserved. Though many decided that it ought to be demolished, as otherwise, the Jews would always make it their rallying point, and there excite perpetual disturbances, Titus persisted in his determination of preserving it, as so magnificent a building would be a great ornament to the Roman empire. He accordingly issued orders that the sanctuary should not be injured. The next day the Jews made two sallies through the eastern gate, but they were driven back and compelled to seek refuge in the inner court.†

CLIV. BURNING OF THE TEMPLE.

Titus intended to storm the temple the next day with his whole army; but the Romans, who had extinguished the fire in the outer court, when they repelled the sally which the Jews had just made, on the fifth of Lous or August, rushed on after them into the inner court. A Roman soldier then seized a firebrand, and, with the help of one of his comrades, threw it through a small golden door or window (vpic) into a passage communicating with the apartments on the north side of the sanctuary. The flames immediately burst out, and the Jews, with a cry of despair, ran to extinguish them. On the first notice of this occurrence, Titus came with his officers to put a stop to the conflagration; but though he raised his voice and beckoned with his hand, the soldiers who were fighting with the Jews paid no attention to his commands; and even the legions who followed him disregarded

Jewish War, vi. 4. 1, 2. Jewish War, vi. 4. 3, 4.

his entreaties and threats, and, so far from complying with his wishes, made every effort and encouraged each other to increase the fire. Meanwhile, the whole space around the altar was covered with dead bodies, and streams of blood flowed down the stairs into the outer court.*

When Titus saw that the soldiers could not be induced to extinguish the flames, he went with his generals into the sanctuary and holy of holies, while the fire was consuming the adjacent apartments, and had not yet penetrated into the interior. After he returned, he made one more attempt to persuade the soldiers to put out the fire, but with no better success than before. On the contrary, they applied firebrands to the gates, and the flames burst out from the sanctuary with redoubled fury, when Titus, finding it impossible to save the temple, withdrew to his quarters.† During the conflagration the Romans plundered whatever they could lay their hands on, and cut down all whom they met; but the robbers and Zealots forced their way through them and fled to the upper city. The cloisters of the inner court were now burnt, and all the rest of the building, excepting the eastern and southern cloisters, which were afterwards destroyed. About six thousand people, principally women and children, were burnt in the outer court, in consequence of their confidence in a false prophet, who directed them to go into the temple, where God would work miracles for their deliverance. Respecting this occurrence, Josephus remarks: "There was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to deceive the people, and direct them to wait for deliverance from God." (Compare Matth. xxv. 23-34.) The omens which are said to have preceded the destruction of Jerusalem are unworthy of notice, though they are related by Josephus and Tacitus, according to the custom of the Greeks and Romans of those times, and are to be found, with some variations,

in the Talmud.‡

After the rebels had fled, the Romans carried their standards round the burning temple, and set them up before the eastern gate, where they offered sacrifices and saluted Titus as imperator, a title which the soldiers always had the right of conferring. They were highly elated, not only on account of the difficulties they had surmounted, but still more by the rich booty they had taken, which was so immense that gold fell in Syria to half its former value.§

CLV. BURNING OF THE LOWER CITY. The robbers and Zealots were now reduced to such extremities that they requested a parley with the Romans. Titus, who wished, if possible, to save the upper part of the city, readily granted their request; but when they demanded permission to depart from the city he broke off all negotiation with these rebels, who would only have excited new disturbances if they had been suffered to seek refuge in other places. He declared that he would receive no more deserters,

and, the next day, gave up the lower city to pillage and the flames. About this time, the sons and brothers of king Izates and some other persons of rank surrendered to him and entreated that their lives might be spared. He granted their request and received them favourably, though he put them under guard, and sent them as hostages to Rome.*

The rebels who had forced a way through their enemies now crowded into the royal castle, where many of them had deposited their treasures on account of the strength of the place; but the Romans drove them out, put about eight thousand four hundred to the sword, and seized their effects. The next day the robbers and Zealots were all compelled to retreat up into the upper city, when the Romans burnt the remaining part of the lower city as far as Siloam. Josephus made another attempt to induce them to surrender; but they reviled him, and boasted that they had robbed the city and destroyed the inhabitants, so that there was nothing left for the Romans to plunder. But they were now closely besieged, and could no longer engage with the Romans in battle nor yet effect their escape; for their leaders kept a watchful eye over them, to prevent their flight, and put to death all who attempted to desert. The chiefs of the rebels crept into the subterranean vaults, in which they hoped to lie concealed till the Romans should withdraw. They, therefore, with their own hands, pillaged and burnt different parts of the city, and even began to fight among themselves for a division of the spoil.†

CLVI. CONQUEST OF THE UPPER CITY.

On the eighteenth day of Lous or August, Titus began to raise banks against the upper city. against the royal tower, and the auxiliaries on He stationed the four legions on the west side, the east side, against the gymnasium, the bridge,

and the tower which Simon had built for himself.‡

But

taking, a deputation arrived from the Idumeans During the progress of this arduous underwho were in the city, offering to surrender, and Titus readily accepted their submission. their design was discovered, and Simon executed the remainder. Notwithstanding this, several their principal men, and kept a strict watch over effected their escape in secret. The Romans sold an immense number of the deserters for a trifling sum, and finally dismissed forty thousand captives of low rank, because they were unable to find purchasers.§

About this time, the priest Jesus, a son of Thebuthus, on condition of having his life spared, brought to Titus, from the sacred treasury, two candlesticks formed like the candlesticks of the temple, some tables, cups, and other vessels, all of solid gold, and very heavy; as also the sacred veils, the official robes of the high priest, ornamented with precious stones, and many of the sacred utensils. Phineas, the treasurer of the temple, was also taken prisoner at this time, and he delivered to Titus the robes and girdles of the