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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 Cæsar 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 66 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.

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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 dispatch 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 over-filled those bodies that were before empty, and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skilful 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 befel 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

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"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 Cæsar under such a threatning, 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 poiluted 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 them 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 honour 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 annointing 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 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 an 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 ranaway 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 farther, 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 medimus, of wheat was sold for a talent, and that

*Josephus, both here and before. B iv. ch. viii. 4. esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of the lake Asphaltitis, or under its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus also took the same notion from him. Hist. v. vi 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 sen, but perhaps not the whole country.

when, a while afterward it was not possible to gather herbs, by reason the city was walled about, some persons were driven to that terrible distress as to search the common shores 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.

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