aged yourselves to act against us by our civil diffenfions, and abused that time, when both I and my father were gone away to Egypt to make preparations for this war. Nor were you afhamed to raise disturbances against us when we were made emperors, and this while you had experienced how mild we had been, when we were no more than generals of the army, But when the government was devolved upon us, and all other people did thereupon lie quiet, and even foreign nations fent embaffies, and congratulated our accefs to the government, then did you Jews fhew yourselves to be our enemies. You fent embaffies to thofe of your nation that are beyond Euphrates to affift you in your raifing disturbances: New walls were built by you round your city, fedition arose, and one tyrant contended against another, and a civil war broke out among you; fuch indeed as became none but fo wicked a people as you are. I then came to this city, as unwillingly fent by my father, and received melancholy injunctions from him. When I heard that the people was difpofed to peace, I rejoiced at it: I exhorted you to leave off these proceedings, before I began this war: I fpared you even when you had fought against me a great while I gave my right hand as fecurity to the deferters: I obferved what I had promised faithfully. When they fled to me, I had compaffion on many of those that I had taken captive: I tortured those that were eager for war, in order to reftrain them. It was unwillingly that I brought my engines of war against your walls I always prohibited my foldiers, when they were fet upon your flaughter, from their severity against you. After every victory I perfuaded you to peace, as though I had been my felf conquered. When I came near your temple, I again departed from the laws of war, and exhorted you to fpare your own fanctuary, and to preserve your holy houfe to yourselves. I allowed you a quiet exit out of it, and fecurity for your, prefervation Nay, if you had a mind, I gave you leave to fight in another place. Yet have you ftill defpifed every one of my propofals, and have fet fire to your holy houfe with your own hands. And now, vile wretches, do you defire to treat with me by word of mouth? To what purpofe is it that you would fave fuch an holy houfe as this was, which is now destroyed? What prefervation can you now defire alter the deftruction of your temple ? Yet do you ftand ftill at this very time in your armour; nor can you bring yourfelves fo much as to pretend to be fupplicants even in this your utmost extremity. O miferable creatures! what is it you depend on? Are not your people dead? is not your holy houfe gone? is not your city in my power? and are not your own very lives in my hands? And do you ftill deem t a part of valour to die? However, I will not imitate your madnefs. If you will throw down your arms, and deliver up your bodies to me, I grant you your lives; and I will act like a mild mafter of a

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family; what cannot be healed fhall be punished, and the rest I will preserve for my own ufe.":

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3. To that offer of Titus they made this reply, That" they could not accept of it, because they had fworn never to do so, but they defired they might have leave to go through the wall that had been made about them, with their wives and children; for that they would go into the desert, and leave the city to him." At this Titus had great indignation, that, when they were in the cafe of men already taken captives, they fhould pretend to make their own terms with him, as if they had been conquerors. So he ordered this proclamation to be made to them, That" they fhould no more come out to him as deferters, nor hope for any farther fecurity: For that he would henceforth Ipare nobody, but fight them with his whole army; and that they must fave themfelves as well as they' could; tor that he would from henceforth treat them according to the laws of war." So he gave orders to the foldiers both to burn and to plunder the city; who did nothing indeed that day; but on the next day they fet fire to the repofitory of the archives, to Acra to the council-houfe, and to the place called Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of Queen Helena, which was in the middle of Acra: The lanes alfo were burnt down, as were also those houies that were full of the dead bodies of fuch as were destroyed by famine.

4. On the fame day it was that the fons and brethren of I. zates the king, together with many others of the eminent men of the populace, got together there, and befought Cæfar to give them his right hand for their fecurity: Upon which, though he were very angry at all that were now remaining, yet did he not lay afide his old moderation, but received these men. At that time indeed he kept them all in cuftody, but still bound the king's fons and kinfmen, and led them with him to Rome, in order to make them hoftages for their country's fidelity to the Romans.

CHAP. VII.

What afterward Befel the Seditious, when they had done a great deal of Mifchief, and Suffered many Misfortunes; as alfo how Cafar became Mafler of the Upper City.

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$ 1. ND now the feditious rushed into the royal palace, into which many had put their effects, because it was fo ftrong, and drove the Romans away from it. They alfo flew all the people that had crowded into it, who were in number about eight thoufand four hundred, and plundered them of what they had. They alfo took two of the Romans alive; the one was a horfeman, and the other a footman. They then cut the throat of the footmen, and immediately had him drawn through the whole city, as revenging themfelves upon the whole body of the Romans by this one inftance. But the

horfeman faid he had fomewhat to fuggeft to them in order to their preservation; whereupon he was brought before Simon; but he having nothing to fay when he was there, he was delivered to Ardalas, one of his commanders, to be punished, who bound his hands behind him, and put a ribband over his eyes, and then brought him out over against the Romans, as intending to cut off his head. But the man prevented that execution, and ran away to the Romans, and this while the Jewith executioner was drawing out his fword. Now when he was gotten away from the enemy, Titus could not think of putting him to death; but because he deemed him unworthy of being a Roman foldier any longer, on account that he had been taken alive by the enemy, he took away his arms, and ejected him out of the legion whereto he had belonged; which to one that had a fenfe of fhame was a penalty feverer than death itself.

2. On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower city, and fet all on fire as far as Siloam. These foldiers were indeed glad to fee the city deftroyed. But they miffed the plunder, because the feditious had carried off all their effects, and were retired into the upper city; for they did not yet at all repent of the mifchiefs they had done, but were infolent, as if they had done well; for, as they faw the city on fire, they appeared cheerful, and put on joyful countenances, in expectation as they faid, of death to end their miferies. Accordingly, as the people were now flain, the holy houfe was burnt down, and the city was on fire, there was nothing farther left for the enemy to do. Yet did not Jofephus grow weary, even in this utmoft extremity, to beg of them to fpare what was left of the city; he fpake largely to them about their barbarity and impiety, and gave them his advice in order to their efcape; though he gained nothing thereby more than to be laughed at by them; and as they could not think of furrendering themselves up, becaule of the oath they had taken, nor were ftrong enough to fight with the Romans any longer upon the fquare, as being furrounded on all fides, and a kind of prifoners already, yet were they fo accuftomed to kill people, that they could not restrain their right hands from acting accordingly. So they difperfed themfelves before the city, and laid themfelves in ambush among its ruins, to catch thofe that attempted to defert to the Romans: Accordingly many fuch deferters were caught by them, and were all flain; for these were too weak by reafon of their want of food to fly away from them; fo their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs. Now every other fort of death was thought more tolerable than the famine, infomuch that, though the Jews defpaired now of mercy, yet would they fly to the Romans, and would themielves, even of their own accord, iall among the murderous rebels alfo. Nor was there any place in the city that had no dead bodies in it, but what was

entirely covered with those that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion; and all was full of the dead bodies offuch ashad perifhed either by that fedition or by that famine.

3. So now the laft hope which fupported the tyrants and that crew of robbers which were with them, was in the caves and caverns under ground; whither, if they would once fly, they did not expect to be fearched out, but endeavoured, that after the whole city fhould be deftroyed, and the Romans gone away, they might come out again, and escape from them. This was no better than a dream of theirs; for they were not able to lie hid either from God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these underground fubterfuges, and fet more places on fire than did the Romans themselves; and thofe that fled out of their houses thus fet on fire, into the ditches, they killed without mercy, and pillaged them alfo; and if they discovered food belonging to any one, they feized upon it and swallowed it down, together with their blood alfo nay, they were now come to fight one with another about their plunder; and I cannot but think, that, had not their deftruction prevented it, their barbarity would have made them taste of even the dead bodies themselves.

CHAP. VIII.

How Cafar raifed Banks round about the Upper City*, and when they were completed, gave Orders that the Machines Should be brought. He then poflefled himself of the whole City. § I. OW when Cæfar perceived that the upper city was NOW fo fteep, that it could not poffibly be taken without raifing banks againft it, he diftributed the feveral parts of that work among his army, and this on the twentieth day of the month Lous [Ab]. Now the carriage of the materials was a difficult task, fince all the trees, as I have already told you, that were about the city within the diftance of an hundred furlongs, had their branches cut off already, in order to make the former banks. The works that belonged to the four legions were erected on the weft fide of the city, over against the royal palace; but the whole body of the auxiliary troops, with the reft of the multitude that were with them, [erected their banks] at the Xyftus, whence they reached to the bridge, and that tower of Simon which he had built as a citadel for himfelf against John, when they were at war one with another. 2. It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans get together privately, and took counfel about furrendering up themselves to the Romans. Accordingly they fent five men to Titus, and entreated him to give them his right hand for their fecurity. So Titus thinking that the tyrants would yield, if the Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the was

i. c. Mount Sion.

depended, were once withdrawn from them, after fome reluctancy and delay, complied with them, and gave them fecurity for their lives, and fent the five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon perceived it, and immediately flew the five men that had gone to Titus, and took their commanders, and put them in prison, of whom the moft evident was Jacob the fon of Sofas; but as for the multitude of the Idumeans, who did not at all know what to do, now their commanders were taken from them, he had them watched, and fecured the walls by a more numerous garrilon. Yet could not that garrifon refift thofe that were deferting; for although a great number of them were flain, yet were the deferters many more in number. These were all received by the Romans, because Titus himfelf grew negligent as to his former orders for killing them, and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and because they hoped to get fome money by fparing them; for they left only the populace, and fold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, and every one of them at a very low price, and that because fuch as were fold were very many, and the buyers very few; and although Titus had made proclamation before hand, that no deferter fhould come alone by himself, that fo they might bring out their families with them, yet did he receive fuch as thefe alfo. However, he fet over them fuch as were to dif tinguish fome from others, in order to fee if any of them deferved to be punished. And indeed the number of those that were fold was immense; but of the populace above forty thousand were faved, whom Cæfar let go whither every one of them pleased.

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3. But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the fon of Thebuthus, whofe name was Jefus, upon his having fecurity given him by the oath of Caefar, that he fhould be preferved, upon condition that he fhould deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been repofited in the templet, came out of it, and delivered him from the wall of the holy houfe two candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy house, with tables, and cifterns, and vials, all made of folid gold, and very heavy. He alfo delivered to him the veils and the garments, with the precious ftones, and a great number of other

This innumerable multitude of Jews that were fold by the Romans were an eminent completion of God's ancient threatening by Mofes, that, if they apoftatifed from the obedience to his laws, they would be fold unto their enemies for bondmen and bond women;" Deut. xxviii 68. See more elpecially the note on ch. ix. s. But the thing is here particularly remarkable, that Mofes adds, Though they should be fold for flaves, yet no man fhould buy them; i. e. either they should have none to redeem them from this fale into flavery; or rather, that the flaves to be fold fhould be more than were the purchasers for them, and fo they should be fold for little or nothing; which is what Jofephus here affirms to have been the cafe at this time.

What became of thefe fpoils of the temple that escaped the fire, fee Jofephus himself her eafter, B. VII. ch. v. § 5. Reland de Spoliis Templi, p. 129-138