ance, by the suppression of the party of Eleazar, which put John in sole possession of the temple, and left him free to act with Simon against the Romans, and against Simon when the Romans intermitted their assaults. This was the principal contest throughout the siege. The two great parties concurred in defence of the city; but when the urgent occasion had passed, they turned their arms against each other. Thus there was two-fold war, and the lifeblood of Jerusalem was drained without respite. John defended the temple and the Castle of Antonia, and Simon the rest of the city. The space which their previous devastations had cleared within the city, served them for a field of battle against each other; from which, when occasion required, they unanimously hastened to act against the common enemy; after which, their mutual hostilities were resumed, as if they had studied how to make their ruin more easy to the Romans.

When Titus arrived before the city, he made an ostentatious display of his forces, in battle array, in three divisions : the first and principal encamped at Scopas, about seven stadia from the city northward; the second about three stadia behind; and the third eastward, on the Mount of Olives. The first week, being the week of the Passover, he spent in making such arrangements as the survey which he had made showed to be necessary, and in preparing the ground for future operations. The ground between Scopas and the city was levelled and cleared, by the demolition of trees, houses, hedges, and even rocks, which supplied materials to raise, against the wall, banks on which the military engines were planted; and the overtures of peace having been rejected with insult and scorn, he commenced active operations the day after the ending of the Paschal week, being Sunday, April 22. And here it may be observed, that Titus was instructed to avoid the error which had proved fatal to Cestius, who had made an attack on the

Sabbath, expecting that the Jews would not fight on that day; and learnt otherwise to his cost. Titus knew that their present principle was, that they might on that day resist assailing enemies, in self-defence, but that they might not attack them if otherwise employed. Hence, the Roman general adopted the policy of Pompey, who, without molestation, employed the Sabbaths in undermining the walls, raising mounts, and constructing military engines, preparatory to his attacks on the Sundays. This explains how it happened that the most important events of the war took place on the day following the Sabbath.

Three moveable towers having been erected on the banks, and the battering rams having been brought to bear on the wall in three different places, the assault began, and the cry of terror arose throughout the city at the noise and destruction occasioned by these machines.* Simon planted on the wall the military engines taken from Cestius, but want of skill in the men rendered them ineffective. The missiles from the towers soon cleared the wall, and left the rams to work unimpeded. Simon and John, however, concurred in some despe

*The skill of man, exerted for ages on the arts of compendious slaughter, has scarcely produced the equals of those horrible engines. They threw masses of inextinguishable fire, of boiling water, of burning oil, of red-hot flints, of molten metal, from distances that precluded defence, and with a force that nothing could resist. The catapult shot stones of a hundred weight from the distance of furlongs, with the straightness of an arrow, and with an impulse that ground everything in their way to powder. They battered down walls of solid stone; they tore up the strongest buttresses like weeds; they struck away whole ranks of men, and whirled their shattered remnants through the air. They levelled towers, and swept battlements away, with their defenders, at a blow. The fortitude that scorned the Roman spear, and exulted in the sight of the columns mounting the scaling-ladders, as mounting to sure destruction, quailed before the tremendous power of the catapult. The ominous cry of the watcher that gave notice of its discharge, "The son cometh," was a sound that prostrated every man upon his face, until the crash of the walls told that the dreaded blow was given.

rate sallies, in one of which they set the engines on fire. But many of the men were taken by the Romans and crucified before the walls; and these demonstrations, however brave, were in general ineffectual. The first breach was made in the outer wall on Sunday, May 6th; when the Romans, rushing in through the breach, opened the gates, and obtained possession of the new city, the Jews retiring behind the second wall. The Roman camp was then removed to the conquered ground, after the greater part of the outer wall had been demolished. The second wall was defended with desperate bravery; and frequent sallies were made on the besiegers. The Romans, however, gained possession of the walls in five days; but the Jews made so obstinate a resistance in the streets, that they drove back the enemy, and took possession of the breach, from which it took three days more to expel them.

Titus being thus master of the new and lower cities, turned his attention to the Tower of Antonia; and the stand here made by the besieged extorted the admiration of their enemies. John, who held the castle, dug a mine therefrom to the banks, by which they were destroyed; and two days after, Simon assaulted the remaining banks, and set fire to the engines that were planted on them. The flames spread to the banks, which were chiefly constructed of felled trees, and destroyed them, obliging the Romans to retreat to their camp, where they had an obstinate and bloody conflict, before they could drive back the Jews who had pursued them.

After this, and in order that famine might accomplish all its work in the town, by the besieged being shut up more closely, and precluded from all means of escape, Titus built a wall of circumvallation all round the city, fortified at duc intervals with thirteen towers, in which