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The Jewish War – Book 5

BOOK V

Containing the Interval of Nearly Six Months

From Titus's Arrival to Besiege Jerusalem to the Great Suffering That Reduced the Jews to the Last Extremity

CHAPTER 1

The Seditions at Jerusalem and the Terrible Miseries They Brought Upon the City

After Titus had crossed the desert between Egypt and Syria, as I have already described, he came to Caesarea. He had decided to organize his army there before beginning the war. While he was still helping his father at Alexandria to establish the government that God had recently placed in their hands, the rebellion at Jerusalem broke out again. This time, the people divided into three factions, and each faction fought against the others. In such disasters, this division could almost be called a blessing, or the result of divine justice.

I have already explained how the Zealots attacked the people, how the city's destruction began with that attack, where the rebellion came from, and how far it grew. As for the present conflict, it would not be wrong to call it a rebellion born from another rebellion. It was like a wild animal that had gone mad and, finding no food outside itself, began to devour its own flesh.

Eleazar, the son of Simon, had originally separated the Zealots from the people and led them into the Temple. He was furious at the daily insults and attacks John made against the people. John never stopped killing, but the real reason for Eleazar's anger was that he could not bear to submit to a tyrant who had risen after him.

Eleazar wanted complete power for himself. So he rebelled against John and brought Judas the son of Chelcias, Simon the son of Ezron, and Hezekiah the son of Chobar to his side. These men were among the most powerful leaders in the city. Many Zealots followed them.

They seized the inner court of the Temple and placed their weapons beside the sacred gates and along the front of the court. They had plenty of food, much of it set apart for holy use, and they did not hesitate to consume it. This gave them courage. Still, they were afraid because they were so few. After storing their weapons there, they stayed in the place they had taken.

John had more men than Eleazar, but his position was worse because his enemies were above him. He was afraid to attack them, yet his anger would not allow them to remain unchallenged. Eleazar and his followers caused him more harm than he could cause them, but he still refused to stop fighting. The two sides made constant attacks against each other, and the Temple was stained with murder everywhere.

Simon, the son of Gioras, was the city's other tyrant. The people had invited him into Jerusalem because they hoped he would help them in their great distress. He controlled the upper city and much of the lower city, so he began attacking John and his followers with greater force. John was already being attacked from above, and Simon now attacked him from below.

John was caught between both enemies. He suffered great losses, but he also inflicted great damage. Eleazar's position above him gave Eleazar an advantage over John, while John's higher position gave him an advantage over Simon. He could easily drive back Simon's attacks with the weapons thrown by hand. Against the men attacking him from the Temple above, however, he had to use engines of war.

John possessed machines that threw darts, spears, and stones in great numbers. They protected him from his enemies, but they also killed many priests while the priests were carrying out their sacred duties. The men in the Temple were guilty of every kind of wickedness, yet they still allowed people to enter who wished to offer sacrifices. Before letting their own countrymen pass, they searched them carefully and watched them with suspicion. They were less concerned about foreigners. Even foreigners who had received permission to enter the court were often killed by the fighting.

The missiles from John's engines flew with such force that they passed over the buildings and reached the altar and the Temple itself. They struck the priests and the people serving in the sacred worship. Many visitors had traveled from the farthest parts of the earth with great devotion to offer sacrifices at that famous place, which all mankind considered holy. They fell beside the sacrifices they had brought and covered the altar, honored by Greeks and barbarians alike, with their own blood.

Before long, the bodies of foreigners lay mixed with the bodies of the people of Jerusalem. The corpses of ordinary men lay among those of the priests, and the blood of every kind of dead person gathered in pools throughout the holy courts.

O most miserable city, what suffering did you endure from the Romans when they came to cleanse you from the hatred within your own walls? You were no longer fit to be God's dwelling place. You could not continue to exist after becoming a graveyard for your own people and turning the holy house into a burial place during your civil war. You may still become better, if you ever calm the anger of the God who brought about your destruction.

But I must restrain these feelings, as history requires. This is not the time for private mourning. It is the time to tell what happened next in the rebellion.

The city now held three treacherous factions, each separated from the others. Eleazar and his followers, who controlled the sacred firstfruits, attacked John while they were drunk. John's men plundered the people and then marched out against Simon. Simon received supplies from the city while fighting against the other rebels.

Because John was attacked from both sides, he ordered his men to turn and fire their darts at the citizens coming against him from the colonnades under his control. At the same time, he used his engines of war against the men attacking him from the Temple. Whenever the attacks from above weakened, which happened often because those men became drunk and exhausted, John led a large force against Simon and his followers.

John attacked every part of the city he could reach. He burned houses filled with grain and other supplies. Simon did the same whenever John withdrew, attacking the city and setting fire to its stores. It was as if both men had decided to help the Romans by destroying everything the city had gathered for the siege and cutting away the strength they needed to defend themselves.

In this way, all the places around the Temple were burned. The area became an empty stretch of ground where both sides could fight. Nearly all the grain was destroyed, even though it would have been enough to feed the city through a siege lasting many years. The people were eventually conquered by famine, a fate that could never have overtaken them if they had not prepared the way for it by their own actions.

The city was now surrounded by the violence of these wicked and treacherous men. Its people were like a great body torn apart. The old men and the women suffered so much from the disaster within the city that they wished for the Romans to come. They hoped an outside war would free them from the misery caused by their own countrymen.

Everyone in the city was terrified. No one had the chance to make plans or change course. There was no hope of reaching an agreement with the enemy, and no one could escape because guards stood at every gate and passage. The leaders of the factions fought each other in every other matter, but they agreed on one thing: anyone who favored peace with the Romans, or who seemed ready to abandon the rebellion, was their common enemy. They agreed on nothing except the murder of innocent people.

The sound of battle never stopped, whether day or night. Yet the cries of those in mourning were louder still. Their troubles followed one after another, giving them no chance to stop grieving. Fear held them back from public lamentation, so they hid their sorrow. Their hearts suffered, but they did not dare express it with even a groan.

No one cared for the living, and no one made arrangements to bury the dead. The reason was that every person had lost hope for his own life. Those who were not part of the factions expected to be killed soon and no longer desired anything. The rebels fought each other while walking over piles of corpses. The sight of the dead beneath their feet stirred their rage and made them even more violent.

They kept inventing new ways to harm one another. Once they decided on an act of cruelty, they carried it out without mercy and left no form of torture unused.

John even abused the sacred building materials for his engines of war. The people and the priests had once planned to raise the Temple twenty cubits higher. King Agrippa had spent a great deal of money and effort bringing the necessary timber to Jerusalem. The beams were large, straight, and worth seeing.

When the war stopped the building project, John ordered the timber to be cut and made into towers. The beams were long enough to help him fight the men attacking him from the Temple above. He had the towers brought to the inner court and erected them opposite the western end of the colonnades. That was the only side where he could build them, because the other sides of the court had so many steps that the towers could not be brought close enough to the colonnades.

John hoped these engines, built through his contempt for holy things, would give him victory over his enemies. But God showed that all his work would be useless. The Romans arrived before he had raised any of the towers.

Titus gathered part of his army around him and ordered the rest to meet him at Jerusalem. Then he marched out from Caesarea. With him were the three legions that had accompanied his father when Judea was devastated, along with the Twelfth Legion, which Cestius had once defeated. That legion was already known for its courage, and now it marched with even greater eagerness because its soldiers remembered what the Jews had done to them and wanted revenge.

Titus ordered the Fifth Legion to meet him by way of Emmaus and the Tenth to approach through Jericho. He marched with the remaining troops. Auxiliary forces from the surrounding kings also joined him, and they were more numerous than before. A large number of soldiers came from Syria as well.

The soldiers chosen from the four legions and sent with Mucianus to Italy were replaced by men brought from Egypt with Titus. Two thousand of these had been selected from the armies stationed at Alexandria. Three thousand more came from the troops guarding the Euphrates River.

Tiberius Alexander also joined Titus. He was a trusted friend, valued for his loyalty and his judgment. He had once governed Alexandria, but he was now considered worthy to command the army under Titus. He had been the first to encourage Vespasian to accept his new rule. He had also joined Vespasian with complete loyalty when the situation was uncertain and fortune had not yet chosen his side.

Tiberius Alexander followed Titus as an adviser. His age and experience made him especially useful in the war.

CHAPTER 2

How Titus Marched Toward Jerusalem, How He Was Put in Danger While Surveying the City, and Where He Set Up His Camp

As Titus marched into the enemy's country, the allied troops sent by the kings went first. The rest of the auxiliary forces followed them. After these came the men who prepared the roads and measured out the camp. Then came the commander's baggage, followed by the fully armed soldiers who protected it.

Titus came next, accompanied by another chosen body of troops. After him marched the pikemen, followed by the cavalry belonging to the legion. The military engines came after them. Behind the engines marched the tribunes and the commanders of the cohorts, each with their own picked soldiers.

Next came the standards, with the eagle. The trumpeters marched in front of the standards. After them came the main body of the army, arranged in ranks six men deep. The servants belonging to each legion followed the soldiers, with the baggage in front of them. The mercenaries came last, and the men assigned to protect them brought up the rear.

Following Roman custom, Titus marched at the head of the army in an orderly way. He passed through Samaria and came to Gophna, a city his father had already taken and which was then held by Roman soldiers. After staying there for one night, he continued his march the next morning.

After traveling for a day's journey, he set up his camp in a valley the Jews called, in their own language, "the Valley of Thorns." The camp was near a village called Gabaothsath, a name meaning "the Hill of Saul." The place was about thirty furlongs from Jerusalem.

There Titus chose six hundred of his best horsemen and rode out to inspect the city. He wanted to see its strength and find out how brave the Jews were. He wished to learn whether they would become frightened and surrender when they saw him, before the armies met in open battle.

Titus had been told something that was true. The people who had fallen under the control of the rebels and robbers wanted peace very badly. But they were too weak to rise against the others, so they remained quiet.

As Titus rode along the straight road leading toward the city wall, no one came out of the gates. But when he left the road, turned toward the tower called Psephinus, and led his horsemen across the country at an angle, a huge number of Jews suddenly rushed out through the gate opposite the monuments of Queen Helena. This gate stood near the towers called the "Women's Towers."

The Jews cut off Titus's horsemen. They also stood across the road and prevented the soldiers who had continued along it from joining those who had turned away from it. Titus himself was separated from the rest of his men, along with only a few companions.

He couldn't move forward because the land between the city wall and the surrounding gardens was cut through with trenches. The area was also filled with gardens, hedges, and narrow passages that ran in different directions. Returning to his own troops seemed just as impossible because a large number of enemies stood between him and them.

Many of the Jews didn't even know that their king was in danger. They thought Titus was still surrounded by his men. Titus saw that his survival depended entirely on his own courage. He turned his horse around, called loudly to those with him to follow, and charged straight into the enemy so he could force a path back to his soldiers.

From this we can see that the outcome of war, and the dangers that threaten kings, are under the care of God. A great number of darts were thrown at Titus, yet he wasn't wearing his helmet or breastplate. As I said, he hadn't gone out to fight, but only to examine the city. Still, none of the darts struck his body. They all passed by him without causing harm, as though they had been sent only to make a noise around him.

Titus fought off everyone who attacked from his sides. He knocked down many of those who came straight at him, and his horse trampled those who had fallen. The enemy shouted when they saw the courage of Caesar and urged one another to attack him.

Yet the men Titus charged fled from him in great numbers. His own companions stayed close, even though some had been wounded in the back and others in the side. Each man knew that his only hope of escape was to help Titus clear a path, so the enemy wouldn't surround them before they could get away.

Two of his companions had become separated from him. The enemy surrounded one of them and killed him with their darts, along with his horse. They killed the other as he jumped from his horse, then carried the animal away. Titus escaped with the rest of his men and reached the camp safely.

The success of this first attack lifted the spirits of the Jews and gave them a false hope. This brief turn of fortune made them much bolder afterward.

That night, the legion that had been stationed at Emmaus joined Caesar. At daybreak, Titus moved his army from the place where it had camped and came to a location called Scopus. From there, the city could already be seen, along with a clear view of the great temple.

This place lay to the north of Jerusalem and joined the city. It was a level area, and its name, Scopus, meant "the prospect." It stood only seven furlongs from the city.

Titus ordered two legions to build a fortified camp there. He commanded another camp to be built three furlongs farther back for the fifth legion. He believed the soldiers might be tired because they had marched through the night, so he wanted them to have protection while they fortified their position.

As the soldiers began the work, the tenth legion arrived from Jericho. It came to the place where armed men had once been stationed to guard the road into the city. Vespasian had captured that position earlier.

Titus ordered this legion to camp six furlongs from Jerusalem, on the mountain called the Mount of Olives. The mountain stood east of the city. A deep valley called Cedron lay between the mountain and Jerusalem.

Until this time, the different groups inside Jerusalem had been constantly fighting one another. But the sudden arrival of the foreign army brought their internal quarrels to a stop.

When the rebels saw the Romans building three separate camps, they were shocked. They began to think about joining together, even if only for a short time. They said to one another:

"What are we doing? What do we mean by allowing the enemy to build three fortified camps around us? Soon they will shut us in so tightly that we won't be able to breathe. While they safely build what is almost another city against us, we sit inside our own walls and watch them work. Our hands are idle, and our weapons are set aside, as though the Romans were doing something for our benefit.

"It seems that we're brave only when we fight each other. Because of our rebellion, the Romans may take the city without having to shed blood."

After encouraging one another in this way, they gathered their weapons and rushed out against the tenth legion. They attacked the Romans with great energy and a tremendous shout while the soldiers were busy fortifying their camp.

The Romans were spread out in separate groups because they had been assigned different tasks. They had laid aside most of their weapons, since they didn't expect the Jews to make a sudden attack. Even if the Jews had been willing to come out, the Romans thought their internal fighting would keep them divided.

Because of this, the Romans were caught completely off guard. Some abandoned the work they were doing and immediately ran away. Others rushed for their weapons, but the Jews struck and killed many of them before they could turn and fight.

The Jews kept growing in number as those who had made the first attack were encouraged by their success. While they were winning, they seemed greater in number to themselves and to the Romans than they really were.

Their disorganized style of fighting also confused the Romans. Roman soldiers were used to fighting in good order, keeping their ranks, and obeying commands. They had not expected this attack, so they were forced to give way before the Jews.

When the Romans turned back against them, they stopped the Jews' advance. But because the soldiers pursued them too eagerly and failed to protect themselves, the Jews wounded several of them.

More and more Jews continued to pour out of the city. At last, the Romans were thrown into complete confusion and driven from their camp. It seemed that the whole legion might be destroyed unless Titus learned what was happening and sent help at once.

Titus rebuked the Romans for their cowardice. He brought back those who were fleeing, then attacked the Jews from the side with the chosen troops who were with him. He killed many, wounded even more, and drove the rest into a hurried retreat down the valley.

The Jews suffered heavily as they went down the slope. But after crossing the valley, they turned around and faced the Romans again, with the valley between them. The battle continued until noon.

A little after midday, Titus stationed the men who had come to help the Romans, along with the soldiers from the cohorts, to prevent the Jews from making another attack. He then sent the rest of the legion to the upper part of the mountain to fortify the camp.

The Jews took the Romans' movement as a sign that they were fleeing. When the watchman on the city wall saw this, he waved his garment as a signal. A fresh crowd of Jews rushed out with such force that they looked like wild animals charging their prey.

None of the soldiers who stood against them could withstand the violence of their attack. The Jews broke through the Roman ranks and drove the soldiers up the mountain. Titus and only a few of his companions were left in the middle of the slope.

The men with Titus despised the danger they faced, but they were ashamed to leave their commander. They urged him to give way before the Jews, whom they called men eager to die. They told him not to place himself in such danger while his soldiers were supposed to protect him.

They reminded him of his position. He was the commander of the army and lord of the inhabited world. The safety of the Roman state depended on his survival. They begged him not to act like an ordinary soldier by turning back alone against the enemy.

Titus seemed not to hear them. He charged the Jews who were running toward him and struck them in the face. When he forced them back, he killed them. He also attacked large numbers of Jews as they moved down the hill, driving them before him.

The Jews were so shocked by his courage and strength that they couldn't flee straight toward the city. They turned aside in both directions and followed the soldiers who were escaping up the hill. Titus continued attacking their flank and stopped the force of their advance.

At the same time, terror and confusion broke out among the Romans who were fortifying the camp at the top of the mountain. When they saw the soldiers below running away, they thought the Jewish attacks were impossible to withstand. They also assumed that Titus had been forced to flee, since they believed the soldiers would never have run if he had remained with them.

Panic spread through the entire legion. Some soldiers ran one way and some another. Then several of them saw their commander fighting in the middle of the battle. Concerned for his safety, they shouted throughout the legion and announced the danger Titus was in.

Shame made the soldiers turn back. They reproached one another for doing more than fleeing, since they had abandoned Caesar. Then they attacked the Jews with all their strength. Moving down the slope, they drove the Jews in large groups into the bottom of the valley.

The Jews turned and fought them again. But as they withdrew, the Romans gained the higher ground and forced them farther into the valley. Titus attacked the Jews who were near him and sent the legion back to fortify the camp.

He and the soldiers who had first accompanied him continued to hold off the enemy and prevented them from causing more damage. If I neither add anything out of flattery nor take anything away out of envy, but tell the truth plainly, Caesar rescued that entire legion from danger twice and gave the soldiers enough time to fortify their camp.

CHAPTER 3

How the Sedition Was Revived in Jerusalem, How the Jews Set a Trap for the Romans, and How Titus Rebuked His Soldiers for Their Reckless Disobedience

For a short time, the war outside the city came to a halt, but the fighting within Jerusalem began again. The Feast of Unleavened Bread had arrived. It was the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, called Nisan by the Jews, the day on which they believed their ancestors had first been freed from Egypt.

Eleazar and his followers opened the gates of the inner court of the temple and allowed anyone who wished to worship God to enter. John used the festival to carry out a treacherous plan. He armed the lowest and least trusted members of his faction, most of whom hadn't purified themselves, and hid their weapons beneath their clothes. Then he sent them into the temple as if they were eager to worship.

Once inside, these men threw off their clothing and revealed their armor. Confusion and disorder immediately spread through the holy house. The people who had no part in the rebellion thought the attack had been directed against everyone, while the Zealots believed it was aimed only at them.

The Zealots stopped guarding the gates. Before the fighting even began, they jumped down from the battlements and fled into the underground passages beneath the temple. The people who had gathered around the altar and the holy house were left in terror. They were pushed into heaps, trampled, and beaten without mercy with both wooden and iron weapons.

Some men used the confusion to settle private grudges. They killed people who had taken no part in the rebellion, pretending that their victims supported the enemy. Anyone who had offended one of the plotters in the past was recognized and dragged away to be killed.

After causing great harm to the innocent, the rebels allowed the guilty to escape. They gave those hiding in the underground passages a truce and let them come out safely. John's followers then took control of the inner temple and seized all the weapons and military equipment stored there. They now dared to oppose Simon directly.

The rebellion, which had once been divided among three factions, was reduced to two.

Titus planned to move his camp closer to the city than Scopus. He placed a strong force of selected cavalry and infantry opposite the Jews to stop them from making sudden attacks. At the same time, he ordered the rest of the army to clear and level the ground all the way to the city wall.

The soldiers tore down the hedges and walls that the inhabitants had built around their gardens and tree groves. They cut down every fruit tree between the Roman camp and the city. They filled the hollows and gaps in the ground, and they broke apart the rocky cliffs with iron tools.

In four days, the Romans had leveled the entire area from Scopus to the monuments of Herod, which stood beside the pool called the Serpent's Pool.

At that same time, the Jews prepared a trap for the Romans.

The boldest rebels came out through the towers called the Women's Towers. They acted as if the people who wanted peace had driven them out of Jerusalem. They wandered around in fear, pretending that they were afraid of both the Romans and their own people.

Meanwhile, the men standing on the city wall pretended to support the people. They cried out for peace and begged for guarantees that their lives would be spared. They called to the Romans and promised to open the gates.

While shouting these promises, they threw stones at their own men, as if they were trying to drive the exiles away from the gates. The men outside acted as if they had been forced out and pleaded with those inside to let them return. They repeatedly rushed toward the Romans, then turned back in apparent confusion.

The Roman soldiers believed the trick was genuine. They thought they had one group under their control and that the other group would soon open the gates. They moved forward to carry out their plans.

Titus suspected that something was wrong. Only the day before, he had invited the Jews to make peace through Josephus, but they hadn't given him a respectful answer. For that reason, he ordered the soldiers to remain where they were.

Some soldiers in the front lines ignored the order. They grabbed their weapons and ran toward the gates. The men who had pretended to be driven out immediately withdrew. Once the Roman soldiers had passed between the towers on either side of the gate, the Jews rushed out, surrounded them, and attacked them from behind.

The crowd on the wall also joined the attack. They threw stones and every kind of weapon down at the Romans. Many soldiers were killed, and many more were wounded. Escape was difficult because the men behind them kept pushing them forward.

The soldiers were also ashamed that they had been deceived and afraid of what their commanders would do. These fears drove them to continue the fight, even after they understood their mistake. They battled with their spears for a long time, taking many blows from the Jews and returning as many in return.

At last, they forced their way through the men surrounding them. The Jews chased them as they retreated, following them and throwing darts as far as the monuments of Queen Helena.

The Jews became proud of their success. They showed no restraint as they mocked the Romans for falling into their trap. They beat their shields, leaped for joy, and shouted in celebration.

The Roman officers met their soldiers with threats, while Caesar himself received them with anger. Titus spoke to them in this way:

"These Jews are guided only by madness, yet they plan their attacks carefully. They prepare tricks, set ambushes, and succeed because they obey one another and remain loyal to their own side.

"Fortune usually favors the Romans because of our discipline and our ready obedience to our commanders. But now our own disorder has brought us failure. You couldn't keep your hands from acting, and so you were caught. What makes this worse is that you continued without your commanders, and you did it in Caesar's presence.

"Surely the laws of war must cry out over this disgrace. My father will also be greatly troubled when he hears of the wound you have given us. He has grown old in warfare and has never made such a serious mistake.

"Our military laws impose the death penalty on anyone who breaks discipline, even in a small matter. Yet today an entire army has fallen into disorder. Those who have acted so boldly without orders will soon learn that even Roman soldiers who win a battle without permission are still punished for their disobedience."

After Titus had spoken at length to the officers, it became clear that he intended to enforce the law against everyone involved. The soldiers lost hope. They expected to be executed, and they knew the punishment would be swift and deserved.

The other legions gathered around Titus and pleaded for the soldiers. They asked him to forgive the recklessness of a few because the rest of the army had remained obedient. They promised that these men would make up for their present failure through better conduct in the future.

Caesar agreed to their request, and his decision also seemed wise to him. He believed that individual offenders should be punished with execution, but that the punishment of a large number of soldiers should go no further than a severe rebuke.

He reconciled himself to the troops, but ordered them to act with greater wisdom from that point forward. He also considered how he could repay the Jews for their deception.

Once the ground between the Roman army and the city wall had been leveled, Titus prepared to move the army's baggage and the large crowd that followed it safely into camp. He placed the strongest part of his army opposite the northern wall and the western side of the city.

The army was arranged seven men deep. The infantry stood in front, the cavalry behind them in three ranks, and the archers in the middle, arranged in seven ranks.

Because this great force prevented the Jews from making attacks, the animals carrying the baggage for the three legions moved forward without fear. The rest of the people traveling with the army also advanced safely.

Titus himself was about two furlongs from the city wall, near the corner where the northern wall turned toward the west. He stood opposite the tower called Psephinus. Another part of the army fortified itself near the tower called Hippicus, also about two furlongs from the city.

The Tenth Legion remained in its former position on the Mount of Olives.

CHAPTER 4

The Description of Jerusalem

Jerusalem was protected by three walls wherever the surrounding valleys did not make additional defenses unnecessary. In places bordered by valleys that could not be crossed, the city had only one wall.

The city stood on two hills facing each other, with a valley between them. The rows of houses on both hills came to an end at this valley. The hill holding the upper city was much higher and more level in length. King David called it the "Citadel." David was the father of Solomon, who first built the temple. In our time, this hill is called the "Upper Market-place."

The other hill, called "Acra," held the lower city. Its shape resembled a crescent moon. Across from it stood a third hill, lower than Acra, which had once been separated from the other hill by a wide valley. During the rule of the Hasmoneans, the people filled in that valley with earth because they wanted to join the city to the temple. They also lowered part of Acra, reducing its height so the temple would stand above it.

The Valley of the Cheesemongers, as it was called, was the valley that separated the upper city from the lower city. It reached as far as Siloam, the name of a spring that supplied sweet water in great abundance. Deep valleys surrounded these hills on their outer sides. Their steep cliffs made the city impossible to approach from those directions.

Of the three walls, the oldest was the hardest to capture. The valleys around it protected it, and the hill on which it stood rose high above them. The wall was also built with great strength because David, Solomon, and the kings who followed them had given much attention to its construction.

The old wall began in the north at the tower called "Hippicus." From there, it reached the place called the "Xistus," then joined the council house and ended at the western cloister of the temple. On the western side, the wall began at the same tower and passed through a place called "Bethso" to the gate of the Essenes. From there, it turned south and ran above the Fountain of Siloam. It then bent eastward at Solomon's Pool and continued to a place called "Ophlas," where it joined the eastern cloister of the temple.

The second wall began at the gate called "Gennath," which belonged to the first wall. It surrounded only the northern part of the city and reached as far as the Tower of Antonia.

The third wall also began at the Tower of Hippicus. From there, it reached the northern part of the city and the Tower of Psephinus. It then continued until it stood opposite the monuments of Helena, queen of Adiabene and daughter of Izates. After that, the wall extended a great distance past the burial caves of the kings. It turned again at the corner tower, near the monument called the "Monument of the Fuller," and joined the old wall at the valley called the "Valley of Cedron."

Agrippa built this third wall around the parts that had been added to the old city. Those areas had previously been left without protection. As the population grew, the city gradually spread beyond its former boundaries. The land north of the temple joined that hill to the city and made Jerusalem much larger. Because of this growth, a fourth hill, called "Bezetha," also became inhabited.

Bezetha stood opposite the Tower of Antonia, but a deep ditch separated the two. The ditch had been dug on purpose to keep the foundations of the Tower of Antonia from joining the hill. If the foundations had met, attackers could have reached the tower more easily, and its higher position would have offered less protection. The ditch also made the tower appear even higher than it was.

In our language, this newly settled part of the city was called "Bezetha." In Greek, the name can be understood to mean "the New City."

The people living there needed protection, so Agrippa, the father of the present king and his namesake, began building the wall I have described. He stopped after laying only the foundations because he feared that Claudius Caesar would suspect him of preparing a rebellion. If the wall had been completed according to the original plan, the city would have been almost impossible to capture.

The foundation stones were twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide. No ordinary iron tools could have easily broken through them, and no siege engines could have shaken them. The wall itself was ten cubits thick. It probably would have been built even higher if fear had not stopped the man who began it.

Later, the Jews continued the work with great energy. They raised the wall to a height of twenty cubits. Above it stood battlements two cubits high and towers three cubits high, making the entire height twenty-five cubits.

The towers along the third wall were each twenty cubits wide and twenty cubits high. Like the wall itself, they were square and solid. Their carefully fitted joints and the beauty of their stones were equal to those of the temple.

Above the solid twenty-cubit base of each tower were magnificent rooms, upper chambers, and cisterns for collecting rainwater. There were many such towers, and each had broad steps leading upward.

The third wall had ninety towers, with two hundred cubits between each one. The middle wall had forty towers, and the old wall had sixty. The entire circuit of the city measured thirty-three furlongs.

The third wall was impressive throughout, but the Tower of Psephinus rose above it at the northwestern corner. Titus placed his own tent there. The tower stood seventy cubits high, which allowed a person standing on it to see Arabia at sunrise and the farthest limits of the Jewish territory toward the western sea.

Psephinus was an eight-sided tower. Opposite it stood Hippicus, and near Hippicus were two other towers built by King Herod within the old wall. In size, beauty, and strength, those towers surpassed every other tower in the inhabited world.

Herod built them with the great wealth and ambition he showed in his other works for the city. He also built them to honor three people he had loved most. He named the towers after his brother, his friend, and his wife. He had killed his wife because of his love and jealousy, as I have already explained. His brother and his friend died in battle while fighting bravely.

The tower named Hippicus after his friend was square. Its length and width were each twenty-five cubits, and it was thirty cubits high. The tower was solid, with no empty space inside it. Above this stone foundation stood a reservoir twenty cubits deep. Above the reservoir was a two-story building twenty-five cubits high, divided into several rooms. Two-cubit battlements stood above it, with three-cubit turrets all around. The tower's total height was eighty cubits.

The second tower was named Phasaelus after Herod's brother. Its width and height were each forty cubits. Above its solid forty-cubit base was a surrounding cloister ten cubits high, protected by breastworks and defensive barriers.

Another tower rose above the cloister. It contained splendid rooms and a bathing area, so it lacked nothing needed to make it resemble a royal palace. Its battlements and turrets were larger and more numerous than those of the first tower. The entire structure stood about ninety cubits high.

In appearance, it resembled the Tower of Pharos, which displayed a fire for sailors approaching Alexandria, though Herod's tower was much larger around. By that time, Simon had turned it into a residence from which he exercised his tyrannical power.

The third tower was called Mariamne, after Herod's queen. Its solid base was twenty cubits high, and its length and width were each twenty cubits. The rooms above it were more splendid and varied than those in the other towers.

Herod thought it proper to decorate the tower named after his wife more richly than those named after men, even though the towers named after the men were built stronger than hers. The full height of the Tower of Mariamne was fifty cubits.

These towers were already very tall, but the ground beneath them made them appear even higher. The ancient wall stood on a high hill, which itself rose another thirty cubits. The towers were built above that elevation, so they seemed higher still.

The size of the stones was also astonishing. They were not ordinary small stones, or even large stones that men could carry by hand. They were white marble cut directly from the rock. Each stone measured twenty cubits long, ten cubits wide, and five cubits deep.

The stones were fitted together so closely that each tower appeared to be one solid rock. They seemed to have grown naturally in that form and only later to have been shaped by craftsmen into towers, corners, and walls. The joints between them could scarcely be seen.

On the northern side of the wall, near these towers, Herod had built a palace within the city. Its greatness is beyond my ability to describe. No expense or skill had been spared in its construction. The palace was surrounded by walls thirty cubits high, with towers placed at equal distances.

It contained large bedrooms, each able to hold beds for one hundred guests. The variety of the stones used throughout the palace cannot easily be described because Herod had gathered many rare and costly kinds.

The roofs were remarkable for the length of their beams and the brilliance of their decoration. There were many rooms, each filled with an astonishing variety of designs. Their furnishings were complete, and most of the vessels kept inside them were made of silver or gold.

Several covered walkways stood one after another around the palace, and each had finely made columns. The open courtyards were filled with greenery. There were also groves of trees, long paths running through them, deep channels, and cisterns. Some of the cisterns held bronze statues with water flowing through them.

Many dovecotes filled with tame pigeons stood near the channels. It isn't possible to give a complete account of these palaces. Remembering them is painful because it recalls the great buildings destroyed by the fire set by the rebels.

The Romans did not burn these buildings. The internal conspirators set them on fire at the beginning of the revolt, as I have already related. The fire began at the Tower of Antonia, spread to the palaces, and destroyed the upper parts of the three towers.

CHAPTER 5

A Description of the Temple

As I have already said, the temple was built on a strong hill. At first, the level ground at the top was barely large enough for the sanctuary and the altar. The land around it was rough and steep, almost like a precipice. King Solomon, who built the temple, first constructed a wall along the eastern side. This created a cloister on a raised bank, while the rest of the holy house stood exposed.

In later generations, the people built up more banks around the hill and made the level ground larger. They then pulled down the wall on the north side and added as much land as was needed for the entire temple. After that, they built walls around three sides of the temple, beginning at the bottom of the hill. This was a greater work than anyone could have expected to complete.

The work took many generations. It also used up the sacred treasures of the people, though those treasures were continually restored by the offerings sent to God from every part of the inhabited world. After the walls were finished, they surrounded the upper courts with cloisters, and later did the same around the lowest court of the temple.

The lowest part of the structure rose three hundred cubits high in some places, and even higher in others. Yet the full depth of the foundations could not be seen. The builders brought in earth and filled the valleys so that the temple grounds would stand level with the narrow streets of the city. They used stones forty cubits in size for this work.

The great amount of money available at that time, together with the generosity of the people, allowed them to carry out this enormous plan. What seemed impossible at first was completed through patience and many years of labor.

The work above these foundations was worthy of such foundations. All the cloisters had two rows, and the pillars that supported them were twenty-five cubits high. Each pillar was made from one solid stone of white marble. The roofs were covered with cedar that had been carefully carved.

The natural grandeur of the cloisters, the smooth finish of the stone, and the precise joining of every part made the sight extraordinary. No paintings or carvings were needed on the outside to add to their beauty. The cloisters around the outer court were thirty cubits wide, and the whole court measured six furlongs around, including the Tower of Antonia. The open courts were paved with stones of many kinds.

When a person passed through the first cloisters toward the second court of the temple, a stone partition surrounded the court. It was three cubits high and had been built with great care. At equal distances along it stood pillars bearing an inscription about the law of purity. Some inscriptions were written in Greek and others in Roman letters. They declared, "No foreigner may enter this sanctuary."

The second court was called the Sanctuary. A person reached it by climbing fourteen steps from the first court. The court was square and had its own wall. On the outside, the buildings rose forty cubits high, but the steps hid part of their height. On the inside, they rose only twenty-five cubits. Since the court stood against the higher side of the hill, the hill itself hid the lower part from view.

After the thirteen steps leading upward, there was a level space ten cubits wide. Beyond it were more steps, each five cubits high, leading to the gates. There were eight gates on the north and south sides, four on each side, and two on the east.

The eastern side needed two gates because a separate court had been built there for women as the proper place for their worship. The second gate was cut into the wall opposite the first one. On the north and south sides, there was also one gate through which people could enter the women's court.

The women could not use the other gates. After entering through their own gate, they could not pass beyond the wall that marked their court. This area was open to women from our own country and from other countries, as long as they belonged to the same nation.

The western side of the court had no gate. Its wall was complete from end to end. Between the gates, cloisters extended inward from the wall and stood in front of the chambers. Large and finely made pillars supported them. These cloisters had only one row of pillars, but except for their size, they were no less impressive than those in the lower court.

Nine of the gates were covered with gold and silver, including the doorposts and lintels. One gate, located outside the inner court of the holy house, was made of Corinthian bronze. It was far more valuable than the gates covered with gold and silver.

Each gate had two doors. The doors were thirty cubits high and fifteen cubits wide. Inside each gate was a large space, thirty cubits across. Rooms stood on both sides, built like towers, and each room was more than forty cubits high. Two pillars supported every room, and each pillar measured twelve cubits around.

The other gates were all the same size. The gate above the Corinthian gate, which opened toward the east and faced the entrance to the holy house, was much larger. It was fifty cubits high, and its doors were forty cubits high. It was decorated with great expense, since its plates of gold and silver were thicker and more plentiful than those on the other gates.

Alexander, the father of Tiberius, gave the gold and silver that covered the nine gates. Fifteen steps led from the wall of the women's court to this greater gate. The steps leading to the other gates were five steps shorter.

The holy house stood in the center of the innermost court, in the most sacred part of the temple. Twelve steps led up to it. Its height and width at the front were equal, each measuring one hundred cubits. Toward the back, it became forty cubits narrower. At the front, it had shoulders on both sides that extended twenty cubits farther.

The first entrance was seventy cubits high and twenty-five cubits wide. It had no doors, because it showed that heaven is open to all and cannot be shut out from any place. The entire front was covered with gold. Through this entrance, people could see the first part of the house, which was very large. The parts near the inner entrance also shone brightly when people looked inside.

The house was divided into two sections, but only the first section could be seen. It was ninety cubits high, fifty cubits long, and twenty cubits wide. The entrance at the far end of this first section was covered with gold, as were all the walls around it. Above the entrance were golden vines, from which clusters of grapes hung as tall as a man.

The inner section of the house was lower than the outer section. Its golden doors were fifty-five cubits high and sixteen cubits wide. A curtain of the same size hung before them. This was a Babylonian curtain embroidered with blue, fine linen, scarlet, and purple. Its workmanship was extraordinary.

The colors also carried a hidden meaning. The scarlet suggested fire, the fine linen suggested the earth, the blue suggested the air, and the purple suggested the sea. Two of these colors came from the things they signified: the earth produced the fine linen, and the sea produced the purple dye.

The curtain also had images embroidered upon it that showed the mysteries of the heavens, except for the twelve signs that take the form of living creatures.

When people entered the temple, they first stepped onto its floor. This section of the temple was sixty cubits high and sixty cubits long, while its width was twenty cubits. The sixty cubits of length were divided again. The first forty cubits contained three objects that were famous among all people: the candlestick, the table of the bread of the Presence, and the altar of incense.

The seven lamps of the candlestick signified the seven planets, since seven lamps rose from it. The twelve loaves on the table signified the circle of the zodiac and the twelve months of the year.

The altar of incense held thirteen kinds of sweet-smelling spices brought by the sea. It showed that God possesses everything in both the inhabited and uninhabited parts of the earth, and that all things are to be set apart for his use.

The innermost section of the temple measured twenty cubits. A curtain separated it from the outer section. Nothing stood inside it. No one could enter it, and no one could look inside. It was called the Holy of Holies.

Around the lower part of the temple were small rooms connected by passages. There were many of them, and they were arranged in three stories. Each side had entrances leading into them from the temple gate.

The upper part of the temple had no such rooms. The structure was narrower there, forty cubits higher, and smaller than the lower sections. When the sixty cubits from the floor are added to the upper part, the entire height of the temple came to one hundred cubits.

The front of the temple lacked nothing that could amaze the eyes or the mind. It was covered with large plates of gold. When the sun rose, the gold reflected such a bright, fiery light that anyone who tried to look at it had to turn away, just as people turn from the rays of the sun itself.

To strangers approaching from a distance, the temple looked like a mountain covered with snow. The parts that were not covered with gold were extremely white. Sharp spikes stood along the roof to keep birds from landing there and defiling the building.

Some of the stones were forty-five cubits long, five cubits high, and six cubits wide. In front of the temple stood the altar. It was fifteen cubits high, and its length and width were each fifty cubits. It was square, with corners shaped like horns. A gently rising slope led up to it.

The altar was built without an iron tool, and no iron tool ever touched it. A stone partition about one cubit high surrounded the holy house and the altar. It was made from fine stones and was pleasing to look at. It kept the people in the outer court away from the priests.

Those who suffered from gonorrhea or leprosy were kept outside the city altogether. Women were excluded from the temple while they were menstruating. Even after they became clean, they could not pass beyond the boundary already mentioned.

Men who were not fully clean were forbidden to enter the inner court of the temple. Priests who were not clean were also forbidden to enter it.

Those descended from the priestly families who could not serve because of some physical defect were allowed to enter the partition with the priests who had no such defect. They received their share because of their family line, but they wore only their own private clothing. No one wore the sacred garments except the priest who was performing the service.

The priests without physical blemishes went up to the altar dressed in fine linen. They stayed away from wine because they feared that drinking might cause them to break one of the rules of their service.

The high priest went up with them, but not every day. He served on the seventh days, at the new moons, and during the yearly festivals celebrated by our nation.

When the high priest served, he wore linen breeches that reached from his waist to his thighs. Over them he wore an inner garment of linen and a round blue robe without a seam. The robe reached to his feet and had a fringe around its lower edge. Golden bells hung from the fringe, with pomegranates placed between them.

The bells signified thunder, and the pomegranates signified lightning.

A belt tied the robe across his chest. It was embroidered in five rows with gold, purple, scarlet, fine linen, and blue. These were the same colors used in the temple curtains.

The ephod had similar embroidery, though it contained more gold. It was shaped like a breastplate. Two golden pieces, shaped like small shields, fastened the ephod to the robe. Each piece held a large and beautiful sardonyx stone engraved with the names of the tribes of the nation.

Twelve other stones hung on the breastplate, arranged in four rows of three. They were a sardius, a topaz, and an emerald; a carbuncle, a jasper, and a sapphire; an agate, an amethyst, and a ligure; an onyx, a beryl, and a chrysolite. Each stone also had the name of one of the tribes engraved upon it.

A linen turban covered the high priest's head. A blue ribbon held it in place, and a golden crown rested above it. The sacred name of God was engraved on the crown. The name consisted of four vowels.

The high priest did not wear these garments at other times. He wore a simpler garment then. He put on the sacred clothing only when he entered the most holy part of the temple, and he entered there only once each year, on the day when our custom requires everyone to fast before God.

This is enough concerning the city and the temple. I will discuss the customs and laws connected with them more carefully at another time, since many matters related to them have not yet been covered.

The Tower of Antonia stood at the corner where two cloisters of the temple court met, one on the west and the other on the north. It was built on a rock fifty cubits high, above a steep drop. King Herod built it and showed his great ambition through its design.

First, the rock itself was covered from the foundation upward with smooth stones. This was done for decoration, but it also kept anyone from finding a foothold while trying to climb up or down.

Before reaching the tower itself, a wall three cubits high surrounded the rock. Within that wall, the entire area of the Tower of Antonia rose forty cubits high.

Inside, the tower was laid out like a palace. It had many rooms and every kind of convenience, including courtyards, bathing areas, and broad spaces where troops could camp. It had so many facilities that it seemed to contain several cities, yet its beauty made it look like a palace.

The whole structure had the shape of a tower and included four separate towers at its four corners. Three of them were fifty cubits high. The tower at the southeast corner was seventy cubits high, so that the entire temple could be seen from its top.

At the corner where the fortress joined the two temple cloisters, passages led down into both of them. The Roman soldiers stationed in the tower used these passages to move through the cloisters with their weapons. A Roman legion was always kept there during the Jewish festivals so the soldiers could watch the people and prevent any attempt to make trouble.

The temple was a fortress guarding the city, and the Tower of Antonia guarded the temple. The tower held the soldiers assigned to this duty.

The upper city had its own fortress, which was Herod's palace. The hill called Bezetha was separated from the Tower of Antonia, as I have already explained. The hill on which the tower stood was the highest of the three hills. It bordered the new city and was the only place that blocked the view of the temple from the north.

This is enough for now concerning the city and the walls around it. I have planned to give a more complete description of the city elsewhere.

CHAPTER 6

Concerning the Tyrants Simon and John, and How Nicanor Was Wounded by a Dart as Titus Went Around the Wall of Jerusalem, Which Moved Titus to Press the Siege

The fighting men inside the city who followed Simon numbered ten thousand, not counting the Idumeans. These ten thousand had fifty commanders, and Simon was supreme over them all. The Idumeans who obeyed him numbered five thousand and had eight commanders. The best known among them were Jacob, the son of Sosas, and Simon, the son of Cathlas.

John, who had taken control of the Temple, had six thousand armed men under twenty commanders. The Zealots who had joined him after giving up their opposition numbered two thousand four hundred. They were still led by their former commander, Eleazar, along with Simon the son of Arinus.

While these groups fought among themselves, the people suffered at the hands of both sides, as I have already said. Anyone who refused to join in their crimes was robbed by one faction or the other.

Simon held the upper city, the great wall as far as Cedron, and part of the old wall that ran from Siloam toward the east and descended to the palace of Monobazus, king of Adiabene beyond the Euphrates. He also held the fountain, the Acra, which was the lower city, and all the ground extending as far as the palace of Queen Helena, the mother of Monobazus.

John held the Temple and the surrounding areas for a considerable distance. He also controlled Ophla and the valley called the Valley of Cedron. The ground between their territories had been burned by both sides, leaving an open space where they could fight each other. Their civil war continued even while the Romans were camped beside the city walls.

At first, the Romans' attack had frightened them and made them act with greater sense. That change lasted only a short time. They soon returned to their former madness, separated from one another, and resumed their fighting. They did everything the Romans could have wished for. The people of Jerusalem never suffered anything worse from the Romans than they had already suffered from one another.

No misery came upon the city after the actions of these men that could truly be called new. Jerusalem was most miserable before it was captured. The Romans, who destroyed it, did the city a greater kindness than those who held it. I dare say that the civil war destroyed the city, while the Romans destroyed the civil war. Ending that internal conflict was harder than tearing down the walls.

For this reason, we should blame our own people for the disaster that came upon us, and the Romans for the punishment they carried out against them. Let everyone judge this matter by looking at what each side did.

While the city was in this condition, Titus rode around the outside of it with a group of chosen horsemen. He searched for a place where he could attack the walls.

He wasn't sure where an assault could succeed. The valleys could not be reached, and the first wall looked too strong for the Roman engines to break. At last, he decided to attack near the monument of John the high priest. There the first wall was lower, and the second wall did not meet it. The builders had not strengthened the place because the new city was only lightly inhabited.

That position also offered an easy route to the third wall. From there, Titus hoped to take the upper city and then reach the Temple through the tower of Antonia.

As Titus was riding around the city, one of his friends, Nicanor, came too close to the wall with Josephus. Nicanor was known to the people on the wall, and he tried to speak with them about peace and the terms of their surrender. But as he approached, an archer shot him in the left shoulder with a dart.

When Caesar learned that the defenders were so determined that they wouldn't listen even to someone who came to urge them to save their own lives, he was angered and decided to push the siege forward.

He gave his soldiers permission to burn the suburbs. He also ordered them to gather timber and build banks against the city. After dividing the army into three sections for this work, he placed the soldiers who used darts and bows among the men raising the banks.

In front of them, he positioned the engines that threw spears, arrows, and stones. These were meant to stop the defenders from making attacks outside the walls and to prevent those on the walls from interfering with the work.

The trees were cut down at once, and the suburbs were left bare. While the timber was being carried in and the whole army worked hard on the banks, the Jews did not remain idle.

The people of Jerusalem had spent much of the war being robbed and murdered. Now they took courage. They believed that they might finally get some relief while the tyrants were busy fighting the Romans outside the city. If the Romans won, the people hoped they would be able to take revenge on those who had caused their suffering.

John remained inside because he was afraid of Simon, even while his own men were preparing to attack the Romans outside the walls.

Simon did not sit idle. He stayed near the place where the siege works were being built. He brought out the engines of war and set them at proper distances along the wall. Some had been taken from Cestius in an earlier battle, while others had been captured when the Jews seized the Roman garrison in the tower of Antonia.

The Jews had these engines, but they knew little about using them, so most of them were nearly useless. A few men had learned how to operate them from deserters. They used the engines, but not very skillfully.

They threw stones and arrows at the soldiers who were building the banks. They also made attacks in groups and fought the Romans directly. The workers covered themselves with wicker shields spread across the banks, while the Roman engines protected them when the Jews came out against them.

All the legions had well-made engines, but the machines belonging to the Tenth Legion were the strongest. Its engines that threw stones and darts were larger and more powerful than the others. They not only drove back the Jewish attacks but also forced the men on the walls to retreat.

The stones thrown by these machines weighed about a talent. They traveled two furlongs or more. No one standing in their path could withstand the blow, and those behind the first man were also in danger for a great distance.

At first, the Jews watched carefully for the stones. The stones were white, so they could be seen before they arrived. The watchmen on the towers gave warning whenever a Roman engine was released. They shouted in their own language, "The Stone Is Coming!"

When the people heard the warning, those in the stone's path moved aside and threw themselves onto the ground. In this way, the stone usually fell without hurting anyone.

The Romans then found a way to remove this warning. They painted the stones black. The Jews could no longer see them coming, and the Romans began killing many men with a single shot.

Even under this pressure, the Jews didn't allow the Romans to build their banks without resistance. They fought with skill and courage, attacking the workers both day and night.

When the Roman banks were finished, the workmen needed to measure the distance from the banks to the wall. They used a lead weight and a line, throwing it from the banks toward the wall. They couldn't go forward to measure the distance themselves because the Jews would have shot at them.

Once they learned that the engines could reach the wall, they brought the engines forward. Titus placed them close enough to the wall that the Jews could not easily drive them back, and he ordered the soldiers to begin firing.

The sudden noise from three different places echoed around the city. The citizens inside Jerusalem cried out, and even the factions that had been fighting each other became afraid. Both groups saw the danger they faced and began preparing a common defense.

Each side called out to the other that they were acting like allies of the Romans. They said that, even if God would not grant them lasting peace, they should at least set aside their hatred for the moment and unite against the Romans.

Simon then announced that the men from the Temple could come up onto the wall. John, who suspected that Simon was not sincere, gave the same permission to his own men.

For a short time, the two factions put aside their hatred and formed one force. They ran along the walls carrying many torches. They threw the torches at the Roman machines and kept shooting arrows at the soldiers who operated them.

The boldest men rushed out in groups onto the wicker shields that covered the engines. They tore the shields apart, attacked the soldiers beneath them, and beat them back. They won less through skill than through the courage of their assault.

Titus sent help wherever the Roman soldiers were under the greatest pressure. He stationed horsemen and archers around the engines. They drove away the men who carried fire toward the machines and forced back those who shot stones and darts from the walls.

The Romans then resumed their attack with full force. Still, the wall did not give way. The battering ram of the Fifteenth Legion moved the corner of a tower, but the wall itself remained standing.

The tower extended high above the wall, so its fall did not immediately threaten the wall below it. Nor could the collapse of that part of the tower easily pull down the wall along with it.

The Jews stopped making attacks for a short time. But when they saw the Romans spread out among the siege works and in their separate camps, they thought the Romans believed them to have withdrawn from exhaustion and fear.

The Jews suddenly rushed out through a hidden gate near the tower of Hippicus. At the same time, they carried fire toward the Roman works. They attacked the Roman soldiers and pressed all the way to the fortifications.

The Jews shouted as they charged. Those who were nearby quickly came to help, and those farther away ran toward the battle. The Jews' courage overcame the Romans' order and discipline. They struck the first soldiers they reached and then pressed on against those who had gathered to resist them.

The fight around the engines became fierce. The Jews tried to burn the machines, while the Romans fought to protect them. Both sides shouted in confusion, and many of the men at the front were killed.

For a time, the Jews were too strong for the Romans. Their attacks were as violent as those of madmen. Fire caught the siege works, and both the works and the engines were close to being destroyed.

At that moment, a group of specially chosen soldiers from Alexandria came forward to stop the fire. They fought with greater courage than they had believed they possessed. In this battle, they surpassed men who had previously held a greater reputation.

This continued until Caesar gathered his best horsemen and attacked the Jews himself. He personally killed twelve men who were at the front of their lines. When the rest of the Jews saw them fall, they lost heart and retreated.

Titus pursued them and drove them back into the city. In this way, he saved the Roman works from the fire.

During the battle, the Romans captured a Jewish soldier alive. By Titus' order, the man was crucified in front of the wall. Titus wanted to see whether the sight would frighten the others and make them give up their stubborn resistance.

After the Jews had withdrawn, John, who commanded the Idumeans, stood before the wall speaking with one of his fellow soldiers. An Arabian soldier shot him with a dart. John was struck and died at once.

His death brought great sorrow to the Jews and grief to the rebels. He had been a man of great reputation, both for his actions and for the way he commanded.

CHAPTER 7

How One of the Towers Built by the Romans Fell on Its Own, How the Romans Took the First Wall After a Great Slaughter, and How Titus Attacked the Second Wall, Along with the Story of Longinus the Roman and Castor the Jew

The next night brought a sudden disturbance upon the Roman army. Titus had ordered three towers to be built, each fifty cubits high. He planned to place soldiers on them at the banks so they could drive the defenders from the wall. But around midnight, one of the towers suddenly collapsed.

The crash was so loud that fear spread through the entire army. The Romans thought the Jews had attacked them, so they ran for their weapons. Confusion and disorder broke out among the legions. Since no one knew what had happened, the soldiers moved about in distress. When they saw no enemy, they began to fear one another. Each man demanded the watchword from his neighbor as seriously as if the Jews had already entered the camp.

They remained in a panic until Titus learned what had happened and ordered the truth to be announced. Even then, it took some time before the army recovered from the confusion.

The towers caused the Jews great trouble, even though they were defending themselves against the Romans with great courage. Roman soldiers on the towers fired light weapons at them. Others shot arrows, threw darts, and hurled stones. Because the towers were so high, the Jews couldn't reach the men stationed above them. They also couldn't capture or overturn the towers, since they were so heavy. Setting them on fire was difficult as well, because the towers were covered with iron plates.

The Jews therefore moved out of range of the Roman missiles. They no longer tried to stop the battering rams, which struck the wall again and again. Little by little, the wall began to give way before the great engine called Nico. The Jews themselves had given it that name because it conquered everything in its path.

By this time, the defenders had grown tired of fighting and standing guard. At night, they withdrew to places farther from the wall. They also thought there was little reason to guard it, since two more fortifications still stood behind it. Their leaders had made poor plans from the beginning, and many of the soldiers had grown lazy and gone away.

Then the Romans climbed through the breach made by Nico. The Jews abandoned the first wall and fell back to the second. The Romans who had crossed the breach opened the gates and allowed the rest of the army to enter.

In this way, the Romans took the first wall on the fifteenth day of the siege, which was the seventh day of the month Artemisius, called Jyar by the Jews. They tore down a large part of the wall, along with much of the northern section of the city. That part had already been damaged by Cestius.

Titus now set up his camp inside the city at a place called the Camp of the Assyrians. He took control of everything as far as Cedron, while keeping the camp out of range of the Jewish missiles.

He then began attacking the second wall. The Jews divided themselves into several groups and defended it with great courage. John and his faction fought from the Tower of Antonia and from the northern cloister of the temple. They also fought the Romans near the monuments of King Alexander.

Sireoh's army took the ground near John's monument. They fortified it as far as the gate through which water was carried to the Tower of Hippicus.

The Jews often rushed out through the gates in large groups and attacked the Romans in the open. When the Romans chased them back toward the wall, the Jews were usually defeated because they didn't have the Romans' military training. But when the Jews fought from the wall, they were more than a match for them.

The Romans drew courage from their strength and skill. The Jews drew courage from their boldness, their fear of what would happen if they lost, and the hardiness our people often show in times of disaster. They still hoped they might be delivered, while the Romans believed they would soon conquer the city.

Neither side became tired of fighting. Every kind of battle took place there. The Romans attacked the wall, the Jews fought from it, and groups of Jewish soldiers made constant attacks outside the gates. The fighting continued throughout the day.

Even night had trouble separating them. When morning came, both sides had spent the night without sleep. The night was harder for them than the day. The Romans feared that the Jews might rush into their camps, while the Jews feared that the Romans would take the wall. Both sides slept in their armor and were ready to fight as soon as daylight appeared.

Among the Jews, each man wanted to face danger first and win the approval of his commanders. They especially honored and feared Simon. Those who served under him were so devoted to him that, if he commanded it, they were ready to kill themselves with their own hands.

The Romans were encouraged by their long habit of victory, their lack of experience with defeat, their many wars, and their constant military training. They were also encouraged by the greatness of their empire. But their greatest source of courage was Titus himself, who was always present among them.

The soldiers thought it shameful to grow tired while Caesar was with them. He fought bravely beside them, saw which men acted with courage, and had the power to reward them. Any soldier whose bravery became known to Caesar was considered fortunate. Because of this, many Romans showed more eagerness than their strength could support.

At this time, the Jews were gathered in a strong line before the wall. Both sides were throwing missiles at each other when Longinus, a Roman of the equestrian order, leaped out from the Roman army and landed in the middle of the Jewish forces.

The Jews scattered when he attacked. Longinus killed two of their bravest men. He struck the first man in the mouth as he came against him. He killed the second with the same spear he had pulled from the first man's body, driving it through his side as the man tried to run away.

Afterward, Longinus fought his way back through the enemy and returned to the Roman side. His courage won him great praise, and many other soldiers wanted to gain the same reputation.

The Jews cared little about the harm they suffered from the Romans. Their only concern was how much damage they could inflict in return. They considered death a small price if they could kill even one of their enemies.

Titus, however, tried to protect his soldiers while leading them to victory. He said that reckless violence was madness. True courage, he said, had to be joined with good judgment. He ordered his men to fight in such a way that they would not suffer unnecessary harm from the enemy. Only then, he said, would they prove themselves truly brave.

Titus brought one of his engines against the middle tower on the northern part of the wall. A clever Jew named Castor was hiding there with ten other men. The rest of the defenders had fled because of the Roman archers.

For a while, Castor and his companions stayed hidden beneath their breastplates and acted as though they were terrified. But when the tower began to shake, they stood up. Castor stretched out his hand like a man asking for mercy. He called out to Caesar and appealed to his compassion.

Titus believed that Castor was sincere. He hoped the Jews had finally changed their minds, so he stopped the battering ram and ordered the soldiers to stop shooting at the men. He then told Castor to say what he wanted.

Castor replied that he would come down if Titus would give him his right hand as a guarantee of safety.

Titus said he was pleased with such a reasonable decision. He added that he wished all the Jews would think the same way. He was ready, he said, to give the same protection to the whole city.

Five of Castor's ten companions joined the deception and pretended to beg for mercy. The others shouted that they would never become slaves to the Romans while they still had the power to die free.

The men continued arguing for a long time, and the attack was delayed. Castor also sent a message to Simon, telling him that they had time to consider what should be done. He said he could hold off the Romans for a long while.

At the same time, Castor openly urged the stubborn men to accept Titus's offer of safety. They appeared furious at his words. They waved their drawn swords over the breastwork, struck their own chests, and fell down as though they had been killed.

Titus and the soldiers with him were astonished by what they saw. They couldn't tell exactly what the men were doing, so they admired their courage and felt pity for their apparent suffering.

During this delay, someone shot a dart at Castor and wounded him in the nose. Castor immediately pulled out the dart, showed it to Titus, and complained that he had been treated unfairly.

Caesar rebuked the soldier who had shot him. He then sent Josephus, who was standing nearby, to give Castor his right hand.

Josephus refused to go. He said the men were only pretending to ask for mercy and had no good intentions. He also held back some of his friends who wanted to approach the tower.

Still, a deserter named Eneas said that he would go. Castor then called out that someone should come and collect the money he had with him. This made Eneas run toward the tower even more eagerly, with his chest uncovered.

Castor picked up a large stone and threw it at him. Eneas protected himself, so the stone missed him, but it struck and wounded another soldier who was coming toward the tower.

When Caesar understood that the whole thing was a trick, he saw that mercy in war could be dangerous. Such deceptions were more likely to succeed when an enemy showed too much softness. Angered by the Jews' deceit, he ordered the engine to strike the tower with greater force than before.

When the tower began to collapse, Castor and his companions set it on fire. They then leaped through the flames into a hidden vault beneath the tower. The Romans, who didn't know about the vault, believed that the men had thrown themselves into the fire and admired them as men of extraordinary courage.

CHAPTER 8

How the Romans Took the Second Wall Twice and Prepared to Take the Third

On the fifth day after taking the first wall, Caesar captured this wall as well. When the Jews fled from him, he entered the city with a thousand armed men, including some of his best troops. They entered at the place where the wool merchants, the braziers, and the cloth market were located. The streets there were narrow and ran at an angle toward the wall.

If Titus had destroyed a larger section of the wall at once, or had entered the city and, according to the laws of war, destroyed what remained, his victory would probably have cost him nothing. But Titus hoped the Jews would be ashamed of their stubbornness when they saw that he had the power to punish them more severely but chose not to. For that reason, he didn't enlarge the breach in the wall, which would have given his soldiers a safer way to retreat if they needed it. He didn't believe the Jews would set a trap for men who had shown them such mercy.

After entering the city, Titus ordered his soldiers not to kill anyone they captured or burn their houses. He even allowed the rebels to continue fighting if they wished, as long as the people were not harmed. He promised to return the people's property to them. Titus wanted to preserve the city for his own sake, and he wanted to save the temple because of the city.

The people had been ready for some time to accept his terms. The fighting men, however, saw this mercy as a sign of weakness. They thought Titus offered these terms only because he lacked the strength to take the rest of the city. They threatened to kill anyone among the people who spoke about surrender.

They also killed those who talked about peace. Then they attacked the Romans who had entered the city. They fought some of them in the narrow streets and attacked others from their houses. At the same time, they made a sudden attack through the upper gates against the Romans who remained outside the wall.

The Romans guarding the wall became so frightened that they jumped down from their towers and withdrew to their separate camps. The Romans inside the city raised a great cry because enemies surrounded them on every side. Those outside the city also cried out because they feared for the soldiers trapped within.

The Jews continued to gather in larger numbers. They knew the narrow streets well and used that knowledge against the Romans. They wounded many of them, attacked them from every side, and drove them out of the city.

The Romans inside the city were forced to defend themselves as best they could. They couldn't escape in large numbers through the breach because it was too narrow. It seems likely that every Roman who had entered the city would have been killed if Titus hadn't sent help.

Titus ordered his archers to take positions at the upper ends of the narrow streets. He himself went to the place where the largest crowd of Jewish fighters had gathered and stopped their advance with his darts. Domitius Sabinus, a brave soldier who showed great courage in this battle, fought beside him.

Titus continued shooting at the Jews and kept them from reaching his men. He did this until every Roman soldier had escaped from the city.

In this way, the Romans were driven out after they had taken the second wall. The fighting men inside the city became proud of their success. They began to believe that the Romans would never dare enter the city again. As long as they stayed inside, they thought no one could defeat them.

God had blinded their minds because of the crimes they had committed. They couldn't see how much larger the Roman army was than the force that had just been driven out. They also failed to recognize that famine was closing in around them.

Until then, they had lived off the suffering of the people and had drunk the blood of the city. But poverty had already taken hold of the better part of the population, and many people had died because they lacked the necessities of life.

The rebels considered the deaths of the people a benefit to themselves. They wanted no one to survive except those who opposed peace with the Romans and were determined to keep fighting them. They were pleased whenever the number of people who disagreed with them grew smaller, because they believed this freed them from a heavy burden.

This was how the rebels treated the people inside the city. At the same time, they covered themselves with armor and blocked the Romans whenever they tried to enter the city again. They even formed a wall of their own bodies in front of the section that had been broken down.

For three days, they defended themselves bravely. On the fourth day, they could no longer withstand Titus's fierce attacks. He drove them away by force, sending them back to the places where they had fled before.

Titus then took possession of the wall again and destroyed it completely. After placing a garrison in the towers on the southern side of the city, he began planning his attack on the third wall.

CHAPTER 9

Titus Resumes the Siege When the Jews Are Not Calmed by His Withdrawal, Then Sends Josephus to Speak to Them About Peace

Titus decided to pause the siege for a short time. He wanted to give the rebels time to think. He also wanted to see whether the destruction of the second wall would make them more willing to surrender, or whether fear of famine would weaken their resolve. The food they had seized through robbery would not last forever. Titus used this pause to advance his own plans.

The regular time for distributing the soldiers' pay had arrived. Titus ordered the commanders to place the army in battle formation before the city and then pay every soldier. The soldiers opened the cases where their weapons had been stored, put on their breastplates, and brought out their horses in full equipment. The whole area before the city shone with armor for a great distance.

Nothing pleased the Roman soldiers more than this display, and nothing frightened the Jews more. The entire old wall and the northern side of the temple were crowded with spectators. The houses were full of people watching, and there was hardly a place in the city without a crowd.

Even the bravest Jews were overcome with fear when they saw the whole Roman army gathered in one place, their armor shining and their ranks in perfect order. The rebels might have changed their minds when they saw that sight, if their crimes against the people had not been so terrible that they believed the Romans would never forgive them. They were convinced that, if they stopped defending the city, they would be put to death with great suffering. So they decided that it was better to die in battle.

Fate had also condemned the innocent to suffer with the guilty. The city itself was to be destroyed along with the rebels who controlled it.

The Romans spent four days distributing the soldiers' pay among the legions. On the fifth day, when no sign of peace had come from the Jews, Titus divided the legions and began building siege banks near the Tower of Antonia and John's Monument.

His plan was to capture the upper city at John's Monument and the temple at the Tower of Antonia. If the Romans did not take the temple, it would be dangerous for them to hold the city. Each legion built a siege bank at one of the two locations.

The Idumeans and the men fighting under Simon attacked the soldiers working near John's Monument. Their attacks slowed the Roman work. John's followers and the large group of Zealots with them attacked the soldiers building the bank near the Tower of Antonia.

The Jews now had the advantage over the Romans in direct fighting. They held the higher ground, and they had also learned how to use the engines they had captured or built. Their constant use of these machines had improved their skill. They possessed three hundred engines for throwing darts and forty for throwing stones. With them, they made it much harder for the Romans to complete their siege banks.

Titus knew that the city would either be saved or destroyed through his actions. He continued the siege with full force, but he didn't neglect to call the Jews to repentance. He joined advice to his military efforts.

He knew that words often accomplish more than weapons. So he urged the Jews to surrender a city that was almost already taken and save their own lives. He sent Josephus to speak to them in their own language, believing they might listen to a man from their own nation.

Josephus walked along the wall until he found a place beyond the reach of the Jewish darts but close enough for them to hear him. He called out to them at length, begging them to spare themselves, their country, and their temple.

He told them not to be more stubborn in defending these things than foreigners had been. The Romans had no connection to the Jewish temple or its laws, yet they respected both, even though they belonged to an enemy people. Until then, the Romans had kept their hands away from the holy places. But the Jews themselves, who had been raised under those laws and would be the only people to benefit from preserving them, were rushing to destroy them.

They had already seen the strongest walls fall. The wall still standing was weaker than the walls the Romans had taken. They knew that Roman power could not be defeated. Their ancestors had lived under Roman rule for many years. If fighting for freedom was right, they should have fought at the beginning. But people who had already submitted to Roman power and remained under it for so long could not suddenly claim that they would throw off the yoke. That was the action of people who wanted a miserable death, not people who truly loved freedom.

Men may resent being ruled by weak or dishonorable masters. But there was no reason to feel shame at submitting to those who ruled almost the entire world. What nation had escaped Roman power, except those living in places too hot or too cold for Roman armies to reach? Fortune had gone over to the Romans everywhere. God, after giving them power over the nations, had now established that power in Italy.

Even wild animals, as well as human beings, know that the weaker must yield to the stronger. Those who are strongest in war rule over the rest. Their ancestors had been greater than they were in strength, courage, and every other advantage, yet they had submitted to Rome. They would not have done so if they had not believed that God was with the Romans.

What could the Jews depend on now? Most of their city had already been taken. Those still inside were suffering more than prisoners, even though the walls remained in their hands. The Romans knew about the famine consuming the city. The people had already been weakened by hunger, and soon the fighting men would be weakened too.

Even if the Romans laid down their weapons and stopped attacking, the Jews would still face a war inside the city. Famine was fighting against them every hour. They would have to defeat hunger itself and overcome the natural demands of their own bodies.

Josephus urged them to change their behavior before their suffering became impossible to cure. They still had the chance to follow advice that could save them. The Romans would not hold their earlier actions against them if they stopped their arrogant resistance. The Romans were naturally mild when they conquered and preferred their own advantage to the demands of anger.

Their advantage did not lie in leaving the city empty or turning the countryside into a desert. For that reason, Caesar was offering them his hand and promising them safety. But if he took the city by force, he would spare none of them, especially if they rejected his offer in the middle of such terrible suffering.

The fall of the walls already taken should convince them that the third wall would soon fall as well. Even if the fortifications were strong enough to resist Roman weapons, famine would fight for Rome.

While Josephus spoke, many Jews mocked him from the wall. Others insulted him, and some threw darts at him. When his reasonable advice failed to move them, he appealed to the history of their own nation.

He shouted:

"O miserable people! Have you forgotten the One who used to protect you? Do you really think you can fight the Romans with weapons and human strength? When have we ever defeated another nation by those means? When has God, the Creator of our people, failed to punish those who harmed us?

"Will you not turn around and look back? Will you not consider why you fight with such violence and how greatly you have offended the One who once supported you? Do you remember the great deeds God performed for your ancestors and for this holy place? Do you remember the powerful enemies he placed under your control?

"I tremble as I speak of God's works before ears that have become unworthy to hear them. Still, listen to me. You are not fighting only against the Romans. You are fighting against God himself.

"In ancient times, Necao, the king of Egypt, who was also called Pharaoh, came with a great army and seized Sarah, the mother of our nation. What did Abraham, our ancestor, do? Did he go to war against this powerful man? Abraham had three hundred and eighteen captains, and each captain had a large army. Yet Abraham considered all of them useless without God's help.

"He simply stretched out his hands toward this holy place, the place you have now polluted, and trusted in God as his unconquerable protector instead of trusting in his own army. Was Sarah not returned to her husband the very next evening without being dishonored? Did the king of Egypt not flee while honoring this place, after being frightened by visions during the night? Did he not give silver and gold to the Hebrews as a people loved by God?

"Should I say nothing about our ancestors' time in Egypt? They were treated cruelly and remained under foreign rulers for four hundred years. They could have fought with weapons, but they did nothing except place their trust in God.

"Who doesn't know what happened to Egypt? The land was filled with wild animals and disease. Its crops failed. The Nile stopped providing water. Ten plagues followed one after another. Through these events, our ancestors were sent away under guard without a battle and without danger, because God led them out as his own people.

"Did Israel not suffer when the Assyrians carried away our sacred ark? Their idol Dagon suffered as well. The people who carried the ark were struck with a terrible disease in their private parts. Their bodies became so afflicted that they were forced to return the ark to us. They sent it back with cymbals, tambourines, and other offerings to calm God's anger over their violation of the holy ark.

"God was our commander then. He did these great things for our ancestors because they did not take up war themselves. They left their cause in his hands.

"When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, brought all of Asia with him and surrounded this city, did human hands destroy his army? Our people lifted their hands to God in prayer instead of taking up their weapons. An angel of God destroyed that enormous army in one night. When the Assyrian king rose the next morning, he found one hundred eighty-five thousand dead bodies. He fled with the rest of his army, even though the Hebrews were unarmed and did not pursue him.

"You also know about our captivity in Babylon. Our people remained prisoners for seventy years. Were they not freed when God moved Cyrus to bring about their release? Cyrus became God's instrument. Through him, our people were set free and restored the worship of their Deliverer in the temple.

"To speak generally, we cannot point to a single example in which our ancestors succeeded through war or failed when they trusted God without fighting. When they remained at home, they conquered whenever God, their Judge, chose to give them victory. When they went out to fight, they were defeated.

"Consider the time when the king of Babylon besieged this same city. Our king, Zedekiah, fought against him even though the prophet Jeremiah had warned him not to. Zedekiah was captured, and the city and temple were destroyed.

"Yet that king and his people were more restrained than you are. When Jeremiah cried out that God was angry with them because of their sins and told them they would be taken captive unless they surrendered the city, neither the king nor the people killed him.

"But you insult me and throw darts at me because I urge you to save yourselves. You become angry when someone reminds you of your sins. You cannot stand to hear the crimes you commit every day.

"Consider another example. When Antiochus, called Epiphanes, attacked this city and committed many offenses against God, our ancestors went out to fight him. They were defeated in battle. The enemy plundered the city, and our sanctuary was left desolate for three years and six months.

"How many more examples do I need? What else could have brought the Roman army against our nation except the wickedness of its people? How did our slavery begin? It began with the quarrels among our ancestors. Aristobulus and Hyrcanus fought each other, and their conflict brought Pompey against this city. God placed under Roman rule people who were unworthy of the freedom they had enjoyed.

"After a siege of three months, our ancestors were forced to surrender. They had not committed the offenses against the temple and the laws that you have committed, and they had far better advantages for war than you do.

"Do you not know what happened to Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus? Under his rule, God allowed this city to be captured because of the people's sins. Later, Herod, the son of Antipater, brought Sosius against us. Sosius brought the Roman army. The city was surrounded and besieged for six months. Then, as punishment for their sins, the people were defeated and the city was plundered.

"Our history shows that weapons were never given to our nation so that we could win through them. We have always been handed over to our enemies to be defeated and captured. Those who live in this holy place should leave all things in God's hands. They should look for human help only after they have first submitted themselves to the One who rules above.

"But what have you done that our lawgiver commanded? What have you not done that he condemned? You are more wicked than those who were captured so quickly. You have not avoided even the sins people usually hide, such as theft, treachery, and adultery. You fight over robbery and murder and invent new forms of evil.

"The temple itself has become a hiding place for every crime. This holy place has been polluted by the hands of our own people. Yet the Romans respected it even when it was far from them. They allowed many of their own customs to yield to our law.

"After all this, do you still expect the God you have insulted to support you? You certainly have clean hands when you ask him for help. Did King Hezekiah lift such hands in prayer against the king of Assyria when God destroyed that great army in one night? Do the Romans commit the same wickedness as the Assyrian king, so that you can expect God to punish them in the same way?

"The Assyrian king accepted money from our king on the condition that he would not destroy the city. Yet he broke his oath and came back to burn the temple. The Romans ask for nothing more than the tribute our ancestors paid to their ancestors. If they receive that tribute, they do not intend to destroy this city or harm the sanctuary. They will even allow your descendants to remain free, protect your possessions, and leave our holy laws untouched.

"It is madness to think that God will favor the wicked as much as the righteous. He knows when sinners must be punished. He destroyed the Assyrian army on the first night it camped against us.

"If God had decided that our nation deserved freedom or that the Romans deserved punishment, he would have punished them at once, just as he punished the Assyrians. He could have done so when Pompey first attacked our nation, when Sosius came after him, when Vespasian destroyed Galilee, or when Titus first approached this city.

"Pompey and Sosius suffered no defeat. They captured the city by force. Vespasian left the war against you to receive the empire. As for Titus, the springs that had nearly dried up while you controlled them now flow more freely since he arrived.

"You know what happened at Siloam and at all the other springs outside the city. Their water had become so scarce that it was sold by measured amounts. Now there is enough water for your enemies to drink, enough for their animals, and enough to water their gardens.

"You saw the same sign before, when the king of Babylon fought against us, captured the city, and burned the temple. Yet I believe the Jews of that generation were not as wicked as you are.

"I believe God has left his sanctuary and now stands with those you are fighting. Even a good man leaves an impure house and hates those who live in it. Do you really think God will remain with you in your crimes? He sees what is hidden and hears what people try hardest to conceal.

"What crime among you is kept secret? What wrongdoing is unknown even to your enemies? You display your sins openly. You compete with one another to see who can be more wicked. You parade injustice as if it were virtue.

"Still, there is a path to safety if you are willing to take it. God is quick to forgive those who admit their sins and turn away from them.

"O hard-hearted people, throw down your weapons and have pity on your country, which is already falling into ruin. Turn away from your wicked ways. Think about the greatness of this city you are about to betray. Think about the temple, which holds gifts from so many nations.

"Who could be the first to set that temple on fire? Who could willingly destroy all these things? What deserves to be preserved more than this? You are more senseless than the stones themselves.

"If you cannot see these things clearly, then at least pity your families. Look at your children, your wives, and your parents. They will slowly be destroyed by famine or war.

"I know that this danger reaches my own mother, my wife, and my family, a family that has never been insignificant and that was honored in earlier times. Perhaps you think I give this advice only because I am worried about them. If that is all you believe, then kill them. Take my own blood as the price of your rescue. I am ready to die if my death will bring you back to a sound mind."

CHAPTER 10

How Many People Tried to Escape to the Romans, and the Terrible Suffering of Those Who Remained in the City

Josephus spoke these words loudly, but the rebels refused to listen. They didn't think it was safe to change course. The people, however, strongly wanted to surrender to the Romans. Some sold everything they owned, even the most valuable treasures they had saved, for almost nothing. Others swallowed pieces of gold so the robbers wouldn't find them. Once they reached the Romans, they relieved themselves and recovered the money they had hidden. Titus allowed many of them to leave and settle wherever they wished.

The people were eager to escape for two reasons. They would be freed from the suffering they had endured inside the city, and they wouldn't be made slaves by the Romans. John and Simon, along with their factions, watched the people leaving even more closely than they watched the Romans approaching. If anyone gave the slightest reason to suspect that he intended to escape, they killed him at once.

For the wealthy, staying in the city or trying to flee made no difference. They were killed either way. The rebels accused each one of planning to desert, but their real purpose was to seize his property.

As the famine grew, the rebels became more violent. Both their hunger and their madness increased day after day. Whenever any grain appeared in public, the robbers rushed toward it and searched the private homes of the city. If they found food, they tortured the owners for denying that they had any. If they found nothing, they tortured them even more severely because they assumed the food had been hidden better.

They judged whether a person had food by looking at his body. If he still looked healthy, they assumed he had plenty and continued searching him. If he was thin and wasted away, they left him alone because they could see that he would soon die of hunger. They didn't think it necessary to kill someone who was already dying.

Many people sold everything they owned for a single measure of grain. The wealthier sold their possessions for wheat, while the poor received barley. Afterward, they locked themselves in the innermost rooms of their homes and ate whatever grain they had obtained. Some ate it without grinding it because they were too desperate to wait. Others baked it into bread, depending on what fear and necessity demanded. No one sat down to a proper meal. They pulled the half-baked bread from the fire and swallowed it as quickly as they could.

It was a miserable sight, one that should bring tears to anyone's eyes. The powerful had more food than they needed, while the weak cried out from hunger. Famine overcame every other feeling and destroyed even the shame that normally keeps people from doing terrible things.

Children pulled the food from their fathers' mouths. Mothers did the same to their own infants. Even when those they loved most were dying in their hands, they weren't ashamed to take away the last bit of food that might have kept them alive.

The people couldn't even eat in secret. The rebels searched everywhere and immediately seized whatever food they found. When they saw a house with its doors shut, they took it as proof that the people inside had found something to eat. They broke down the doors, rushed in, and tore the food from the mouths of those who were eating.

They beat old men who held on to their food. When women tried to hide food in their hands, the rebels pulled out their hair. They showed no pity to the elderly or to children. They lifted children from the ground while the children clung to their food, then shook them onto the floor.

They were even more brutal toward those who had managed to swallow their food before the rebels could take it. The rebels acted as if they had been robbed of something that belonged to them. They invented terrible tortures to discover where food had been hidden. They blocked the bodies of their victims and drove sharp stakes into them. They forced people to endure things too horrible to describe just to make them confess that they had a single loaf of bread or a small amount of barley flour.

They did this even when they weren't hungry themselves. Their actions would have been less cruel if hunger had forced them to behave that way. Instead, they tortured people to satisfy their own madness and to store up food for the days ahead.

The rebels also watched for people who slipped out of the city at night and reached the Roman guards while searching for wild plants and herbs. When those people thought they had escaped danger, the rebels attacked them and stole whatever they had gathered. The victims often begged them, calling on the great name of God, to return at least part of their food. The rebels wouldn't give them even a crumb. The victims had to consider themselves fortunate that they were robbed instead of killed.

These were the sufferings endured by the poor under the guards of the tyrants. The wealthy and respected were taken before the leaders themselves. Some were falsely accused of plotting against the city and were killed. Others were charged with planning to hand the city over to the Romans. The easiest way to destroy someone was to find a person willing to claim that he intended to desert.

If Simon had already stripped a man of everything he owned, he sent him to John. John then took whatever remained, just as Simon had taken what was left after Jotapata's men had plundered him. In this way, the two leaders shared the blood and property of the people. They divided the bodies and possessions of the poor between them.

Their desire for power made them enemies, but they agreed perfectly in their wicked actions. A man who kept what he had seized from the suffering of others was considered guilty because he refused to share it with the other tyrant. And the one who was denied a share felt cheated, as if he had lost something valuable by being left out of such cruelty.

It's impossible to describe every crime these men committed. I can only give this short judgment: no other city had ever suffered such misery, and no generation had ever produced so many wicked people from the beginning of history.

In the end, they brought the whole Hebrew nation into disgrace so that they themselves would appear less evil when compared with foreigners. They proved by their actions that they were slaves, the refuse, and the illegitimate offspring of our people.

They destroyed their own city and forced the Romans, whether they wanted to or not, to gain a sorrowful reputation by winning such a glorious victory over them. They nearly set the Temple on fire themselves, as if they thought the flames were taking too long to reach it.

When they saw the Temple burning from the upper city, they showed no grief and shed no tears. The Romans, however, showed sorrow at the sight. I will speak about these matters later, when I come to that part of the history.

CHAPTER 11

How the Jews Were Crucified Before the City Walls, Concerning Antiochus Epiphanes, and How the Jews Destroyed the Banks Raised by the Romans

By this time, Titus's banks had advanced a great distance, although his soldiers had suffered heavily from the attacks launched from the wall. He sent out a group of horsemen and ordered them to ambush the Jews who went into the valleys to search for food.

Some of these people were fighting men who refused to depend only on robbery. Most, however, were poor citizens. They were driven to leave the city because of the famine, but they were afraid to desert because of what might happen to their families. They couldn't hope to escape with their wives and children without the rebels finding out. Yet they also couldn't leave their families behind to be killed by the robbers because of them.

The famine made them bold enough to go out. Once they had avoided the rebels, however, they were caught by the Romans. When the Romans moved to seize them, the Jews fought back because they feared punishment. After fighting, they thought it was too late to beg for mercy. The Romans whipped them, tortured them in every way, and then crucified them before the city wall.

Titus felt great pity for them as this miserable scene took place. The Romans captured five hundred Jews on some days, and even more on others. Still, Titus didn't think it was safe to release those who had been seized. He also knew that assigning guards to so many prisoners would make the guards useless for other duties.

The main reason Titus didn't stop this cruelty was that he hoped the Jews inside the city would surrender when they saw it. He thought fear might keep them from suffering the same fate. But the Roman soldiers were filled with anger and hatred toward the Jews. They nailed each prisoner to a cross in a different position, mocking them as they did so. Before long, there were so many bodies that there wasn't enough room for the crosses, and there weren't enough crosses for all the bodies.

The rebels didn't repent when they saw this terrible sight. Instead, they persuaded the people to understand it in another way. They brought the relatives of those who had escaped to the wall, along with others who were eager to leave under the safety Titus had promised them. They showed these people the suffering of those who had fled to the Romans.

The rebels claimed that the captured Jews had come as Roman supplicants, not as prisoners. This sight stopped many inside the city who had been preparing to desert, at least until they learned the truth. Still, some fled at once, choosing what seemed like certain death from the enemy over death by starvation.

Titus ordered that the hands of many who had been caught should be cut off. That way, the rebels couldn't accuse them of being deserters, and the people inside the city would believe their account of the suffering they had endured. Titus sent them back to John and Simon with this message:

"Stop your madness at last. Don't force me to destroy the city. Even now, while you are in the greatest danger, you can still repent. You can save your own lives, keep your city, and preserve the temple that belongs to you."

Afterward, Titus went around the banks that had been raised and urged the soldiers to hurry their work. He wanted to show that his actions would soon follow his words.

The rebels answered by insulting Caesar and his father. They shouted that they did not fear death and were right to prefer it over slavery. They said they would do as much harm to the Romans as they could while they were still alive. As for their city, they said they had no concern for it if Titus intended to destroy it. The whole world, they declared, was a better temple to God than that one.

They added that the temple would be preserved by the God who lived there. He was still their helper in the war, and for that reason they laughed at all of Titus's threats. The result of the war, they said, depended on God alone. They mixed these words with insults and made a great uproar from the wall.

At this time, Antiochus Epiphanes arrived at the city with a large number of armed men. A group known as the Macedonian band surrounded him. Its members were all about the same age, tall, just past childhood, and trained and armed in the Macedonian fashion. That was how they received their name.

Many of them, however, were unworthy of such a famous nation. The king of Commagene had once prospered more than any other king under Roman rule. But his fortune later changed. When he grew old, he openly declared that no one should be called happy before his death.

His son, who had come to the city while his father was still in good health, said he couldn't understand why the Romans were so slow to attack the wall. Antiochus was a soldier by nature, bold when facing danger, and so strong that his courage usually brought him success.

Titus smiled at this and said he would share the danger of an attack with him. Antiochus then went forward with the Macedonians and suddenly assaulted the wall. His strength and skill were so great that he protected himself from the Jewish arrows while shooting at the defenders.

The young men with him, however, were badly wounded. They had such confidence in the promises that had been made about their courage that they refused to stop fighting. At last, many of them withdrew, but only after they had been wounded. Then they learned that true Macedonians needed more than courage if they wanted to win. They also needed the good fortune of Alexander.

The Romans began raising their banks on the twelfth day of the month Artemisius, called Jyar by the Jews. They worked for seventeen straight days and finished them on the twenty-ninth day of the same month.

Four great banks had been raised. The fifth legion built one near the tower of Antonia, opposite the middle of the pool called Struthius. The twelfth legion built another about twenty cubits away.

The tenth legion worked much farther north, near the pool called Amygdalon. The fifteenth legion raised its bank about thirty cubits from that one, near the monument of the high priest.

When the Romans brought their engines forward, John had already dug a tunnel beneath the ground opposite the tower of Antonia. The tunnel extended as far as the Roman banks. He supported the earth above it with beams placed across one another, leaving the Roman works standing on an unsafe foundation.

John then ordered his men to bring in materials covered with pitch and bitumen. They set these materials on fire. As the beams supporting the banks burned, the ground suddenly gave way. The banks shook, collapsed, and fell into the ditch with an enormous crash.

At first, the fire produced a thick cloud of smoke and dust because the flames were smothered beneath the fallen banks. As the buried materials slowly burned away, a clear flame suddenly rose into the air.

The Romans were terrified when they saw it. The cleverness of the plan discouraged them, especially because the disaster came when they thought victory was already within reach. Their hopes for the future were badly weakened. They also decided that there was no reason to put out the fire. Even if they extinguished it, the banks had already fallen into the ditch and were useless.

Two days later, Simon and his followers attacked the other Roman banks. The Romans had brought their engines against them and had already begun to make the wall shake.

Three men led the attack. One was Tephtheus of Garsis, a city in Galilee. Another was Megassarus, who came from the household of Queen Mariamne. The third was Chagiras, the son of Nabateus, who came from Adiabene. His name meant "a lame man," a reference to the bad fortune he had suffered.

They seized torches and rushed suddenly toward the Roman engines. During the entire war, no men who came out of the city showed greater courage or caused more fear among the enemy.

They charged the Romans as if they were running toward friends, without fear or hesitation. They didn't stop until they had forced their way through the enemy ranks and set the siege machines on fire. Darts flew at them from every direction, and Roman soldiers attacked them with swords, but they refused to withdraw until the flames had caught hold of the engines.

When the fire rose, Roman soldiers ran from the camp to save the machines. The Jews on the wall stopped them from reaching the engines and fought those who tried to put out the flames. They ignored the danger to their own bodies.

The Romans pulled the engines away from the fire, even though the wicker coverings over them were burning. The Jews seized the battering rams through the flames and held them in place, although the iron fittings had become red-hot.

The fire spread from the engines to the banks and stopped the Romans who came to defend them. The Romans were surrounded by flames and, unable to save their works, retreated to the camp.

More Jews came out of the city to help their companions. Their earlier success made them even bolder, and their attacks became almost impossible to resist. They advanced as far as the fortifications around the Roman camp and fought against the guards.

A body of Roman soldiers stood in formation before the camp. They took turns remaining at their posts in full armor. Roman law made their duty especially severe. Any soldier who abandoned his position, whatever the reason, was sentenced to death.

Those soldiers preferred to die fighting bravely rather than receive death as punishment for cowardice. Because they held their ground, some of the others who had fled turned back out of shame.

When the Romans placed their engines against the wall, they stopped more Jews from coming out of the city. The Jews had made no preparation to protect their bodies or defend themselves in an orderly way. They fought at close range against anyone who came before them. Without caution, they threw themselves against the points of Roman spears and attacked their enemies face-to-face.

The Jews had become too strong for the Romans, not only because of their skill in war, but because of these fearless attacks. The Romans gave way more because of the Jews' boldness than because of the wounds they had received.

Titus had gone to the tower of Antonia to search for a place where new banks could be raised. When he returned, he severely rebuked the soldiers. He told them that they had allowed their own walls to fall into danger after capturing the walls of the enemy. They had taken on the position of besieged men while the Jews were still allowed to rush out against them, even though the Jews were already trapped inside the city.

Titus then took a group of chosen soldiers, moved around the enemy, and attacked their flank himself. The Jews had first been attacked from the front, but they turned and faced Titus as well. The battle continued.

The two armies became mixed together. Dust filled the air and prevented the soldiers from seeing one another. The noise of the fighting kept them from hearing one another, so neither side could tell friend from enemy.

The Jews refused to retreat, partly because they were strong, but even more because they had lost all hope of escape. The Romans also refused to yield. They cared about their honor and their reputation as soldiers, and Caesar himself had entered the danger ahead of them.

I believe the Romans would finally have captured the entire Jewish force, so fierce was their anger, if the Jews hadn't ended the battle by retreating into the city.

The Romans were greatly discouraged when they saw that their banks had been destroyed. They had spent so much time and effort building them, yet the Jews had brought them down in a single hour. Many Romans began to believe that they could never take the city with their usual siege engines alone.

CHAPTER 12

Titus Builds a Wall Around the City, and Famine Devours Whole Households and Families

Titus now met with his commanders to decide what should be done. The most aggressive among them urged him to bring the entire army against the city and storm its walls. Until then, only part of the army had fought the Jews. If the whole force attacked at once, they believed the Jews would never withstand it and would be buried under a shower of weapons.

Others advised greater caution. Some wanted to rebuild the siege ramps. Others said the ramps should be left alone and that the army should remain in front of the city. They could prevent the Jews from making sorties and stop them from bringing food into the city. In this way, the enemy could be left to famine without another direct battle. They argued that despair was hard to defeat, especially when people wanted to die by the sword rather than suffer a worse fate.

Titus didn't think such a large army should remain completely idle. At the same time, he saw little value in fighting people who were already destroying one another. He also pointed out that building more ramps would be difficult because there were no longer enough materials. Guarding against every attempt by the Jews to escape would be even harder.

Surrounding the entire city with the army would also be difficult because of the city's size, its rough ground, and the danger of sudden attacks. The Romans could guard the known roads leading out, but the Jews knew the area well. Once they were pushed into the greatest distress, they would find hidden paths and secret exits. If food were smuggled into the city, the siege could continue for a much longer time.

Titus admitted that he feared a long siege would lessen the glory of victory. Time may complete every task, but a reputation is won by accomplishing great things quickly. His opinion, therefore, was that they should combine speed with safety by building a wall around the entire city.

That wall, he said, was the only way to stop the Jews from escaping. Once it was complete, they would either lose all hope of saving the city and surrender, or they would become easier to defeat after famine had weakened them further. Titus also said he wouldn't remain idle after the wall was built. When the defenders had grown weaker, he would rebuild the siege ramps.

If anyone thought such a project was too large to complete without great difficulty, that person should remember that Romans weren't meant to undertake small works. Only God could accomplish every great thing with ease.

The commanders accepted Titus's plan. He ordered the army to divide the work among its different units. A kind of divine zeal came over the soldiers. The work wasn't simply divided among the legions, with one legion competing against another. The smaller divisions competed as well.

Each soldier wanted to please his decurion. Each decurion wanted to please his centurion. Each centurion wanted to please his tribune, and the tribunes competed to satisfy their superior commanders. Caesar himself watched this rivalry and rewarded the commanders who worked hardest. He went around the construction site many times each day to inspect what had been done.

Titus began the wall at the camp of the Assyrians, where his own camp stood. From there, he extended it down toward the lower parts of Cenopolis. It continued along the valley of Cedron and reached the Mount of Olives. From there, it turned south and went around the mountain as far as the rock called Peristereon and the neighboring hill above the valley that led to Siloam.

The wall then turned west and descended into the valley of the Fountain. Beyond that valley, it climbed again near the monument of Ananus the high priest. It went around the mountain where Pompey had once camped, then returned toward the northern side of the city. From there, it continued to a village called "The House of the Erebinthi."

After passing that village, the wall surrounded Herod's monument. On the eastern side, it joined Titus's own camp, where the work had begun. The wall measured thirty-nine furlongs in length, lacking only one furlong from forty.

Thirteen fortified posts were built along the outside of the wall. Together, their outer boundaries measured ten furlongs. The entire wall was finished in three days. A project that would normally have taken several months was completed in a time so short that it seemed almost impossible.

After Titus had surrounded the city and placed guards at the proper points, he walked around the wall during the first watch of the night to inspect the defenses. He assigned the second watch to Alexander, while the legion commanders took the third watch. They also drew lots to decide which officers would remain on guard through the night and which would travel around the spaces between the fortified posts.

The Jews had now lost every hope of escape, along with their freedom to leave the city. Famine spread farther through the city and consumed entire households and families. The upper rooms were filled with women and children dying of hunger. The streets were crowded with the bodies of old people.

Children and young men wandered through the marketplaces like shadows. Their bodies were swollen from hunger, and they fell dead wherever their suffering overcame them. Those who were sick had no strength to bury the dead. Those who were still healthy were held back by the enormous number of bodies and by the fear that they themselves might soon die.

Many people died while burying others. Many went to the graves before the hour of their own death had arrived. No one had the strength to mourn. No cries of grief could be heard. Famine had crushed every natural feeling. Those who were about to die looked at the people who had died before them with dry eyes and open mouths.

A terrible silence covered the city, like a deadly night. Yet the robbers were even more frightening than the famine. They broke into houses that had become little more than tombs, stole whatever they found, and carried away the coverings from the dead. They laughed as they left, then tested the edges of their swords on the bodies.

To test the strength of their weapons, they stabbed some who were still alive and lying on the ground. But when the dying begged them to lend a hand and finish them with the sword, the robbers were too proud to grant their requests. They left those people to be consumed by hunger.

Every one of these victims died with his eyes fixed on the Temple, while the rebels remained alive behind them. At first, the rebels ordered that the dead be buried at public expense because they couldn't bear the smell of the bodies. Later, when they could no longer pay for the burials, they had the bodies thrown over the walls into the valleys below.

As Titus made his rounds through the valleys, he saw them filled with dead bodies and thick with the stench of decay. He groaned at the sight. Raising his hands toward heaven, he called God to witness that this suffering wasn't his doing.

That was the condition of the city. The Romans, meanwhile, were encouraged because the rebels could no longer make sorties. They had lost heart, and famine had begun to strike them as well.

The Romans had plenty of grain and other supplies from Syria and the neighboring provinces. Some of them stood near the city wall and displayed the large amounts of food they possessed. Their abundance made the Jews feel the full weight of their own hunger. The Romans had more than enough, while the people inside the city had nothing.

Still, the rebels showed no desire to surrender. Titus felt pity for the people who remained and wanted to save as many as possible from the misery around them. Because of this, he began rebuilding the siege ramps, even though the materials were hard to find.

All the trees around the city had already been cut down to build the earlier ramps. The soldiers now had to bring materials from places as far as ninety furlongs away. With those supplies, they built four ramps, each larger than the ones before. This work was carried out only at the Tower of Antonia.

Caesar went around the legions, urged the soldiers to work faster, and showed the robbers that they were now within his power. Yet these men alone refused to repent of the crimes they had committed. They acted as though their souls and bodies belonged to someone else.

No feeling of kindness could reach their souls, and no suffering could stop their bodies. They continued tearing at the bodies of the dead like dogs and filling the prisons with the sick.

CHAPTER 13

The Great Slaughters and Sacrilege in Jerusalem

Simon would not allow Matthias, the man who had helped him gain control of the city, to escape punishment. Matthias was the son of Boethus and had once been one of the high priests. He was loyal to the people and highly respected by them. When the people were suffering under the Zealots, including John, Matthias persuaded them to admit Simon into the city and accept his help. Matthias had made no agreement with Simon and expected no harm from him.

But once Simon had entered the city and taken control, he treated Matthias as an enemy, just as he treated everyone else. He considered Matthias's advice to admit him a sign of foolishness. Simon had Matthias brought before him and condemned him to death for supporting the Romans, without allowing him to defend himself. He also condemned Matthias's three sons. His fourth son had escaped earlier and gone over to Titus.

Matthias begged to be killed before his sons, asking this as a favor because he had helped open the city's gates to Simon. Simon gave the opposite order. Matthias was to die last, after he had watched his sons being executed. Simon ordered Artanus, the son of Bamadus and the cruelest of his guards, to carry out the sentence in sight of the Romans. Artanus mocked Matthias and told him that he could now see whether the people he planned to join would send him any help.

Simon also ordered that none of their bodies be buried. After they were killed, a prominent priest named Ananias, the son of Masambalus, was executed as well. Aristens, a member of the Sanhedrin and a native of Emmaus, was also killed, along with fifteen other respected citizens.

They kept Josephus's father in prison and publicly announced that no citizen was allowed to speak with him or even associate with him, fearing that he might betray them. They also killed anyone who mourned these men, without even bothering to question them.

Judas, the son of Judas, was one of Simon's officers and had been trusted to guard one of the towers. When he saw what Simon was doing, he gathered ten of the men under his command who were most loyal to him. Perhaps he felt pity for the men who had been murdered so cruelly, but his main concern was his own safety.

He spoke to them this way:

"How long will we endure this misery? What hope do we have if we remain loyal to such wicked men? Hasn't famine already reached us? Aren't the Romans almost inside the city? Hasn't Simon betrayed the very men who helped him? Isn't there reason to fear that he will soon have us punished in the same way? The Romans, at least, are offering us safety.

"Come, let us surrender this wall and save ourselves and the city. Simon won't suffer much by it. Since he has given up hope of escaping, he may as well be brought to justice sooner than he expects."

The ten men accepted his arguments. Judas sent the rest of his men away in different directions so that no one would discover their plan. Then, around the third hour, he called out to the Romans from the tower.

Some of the Romans ignored him out of pride. Others didn't believe he was serious. Most of them delayed because they thought they would soon take the city without putting themselves in danger.

But Titus was approaching with his soldiers, and Simon learned what was happening before the Romans could take the tower. He immediately seized the tower for himself. Before it could be surrendered, he captured the men involved and killed them in full view of the Romans. He then mutilated their bodies and threw them down in front of the city wall.

During this time, Josephus was making his way around the city when a stone struck him in the head. He fell, dazed and wounded. The Jews then made a sudden attack, and they would have dragged him into the city if Caesar had not immediately sent soldiers to protect him.

While those soldiers fought, Josephus was carried away. He heard little of what had happened. The rebels assumed they had killed the man they most wanted dead and began shouting in celebration.

The news spread through the city, and the people who remained there became deeply discouraged. They had believed that Josephus's presence was the only reason they could safely surrender to the Romans.

When Josephus's mother heard in prison that her son had died, she said to the women guarding her, "Ever since the siege of Jotapata, I believed he would be killed. I never expected to see him alive again."

She also mourned privately with the servant women around her. She told them that this was all the reward she had received for bringing such an extraordinary son into the world. She wouldn't even be able to bury him, though she had once hoped that he would bury her.

Her grief, and the rebels' celebration, didn't last long. Josephus soon recovered from his wound, came out before the people, and shouted that they would soon be punished for injuring him. He again urged the people to leave the city, promising them the protection the Romans had offered.

When the people saw Josephus alive, they were greatly encouraged. The rebels, however, were filled with fear.

Some of the people who wanted to desert had no other choice, so they immediately jumped down from the wall. Others went out of the city carrying stones as if they intended to fight, but then fled to the Romans.

A worse fate awaited them there than anything they had suffered inside the city. The Romans had abundant food, and the deserters died more quickly from overeating than they would have died from famine among the Jews.

When the deserters first reached the Romans, their bodies were swollen from hunger, like men suffering from dropsy. They suddenly filled their empty stomachs with more food than their bodies could handle and burst apart. Only those who had enough sense to control their appetites and eat little by little survived.

But another disaster came upon those who lived. A Syrian deserter was caught removing pieces of gold from the excrement of the Jews' bodies. As we have already said, the deserters had swallowed gold coins before leaving the city. The rebels had searched for these coins, since gold had become plentiful in Jerusalem. In the Roman camp, a small amount of gold now sold for twelve Attic drachmas, though it had once sold for twenty-five.

When this method was discovered in one case, the story spread through the Roman camps. The deserters were believed to be arriving with gold hidden inside them. Arabians and Syrians began cutting open anyone who came to them for protection and searching their bodies.

No suffering that came upon the Jews seems more terrible than this. In a single night, about two thousand deserters were cut open in this way.

When Titus learned about this brutal practice, he nearly surrounded the guilty men with cavalry and had them shot. He would have done so if their number had not been so great. There were far more men who deserved punishment than there were deserters they had killed.

Instead, Titus called together the commanders of the auxiliary troops and the commanders of the Roman legions. He had learned that some Roman soldiers were also involved. He was furious with all of them and said:

"What? Have some of my own soldiers done this for the uncertain hope of profit, even though they carry weapons made of silver and gold? Have the Arabians and Syrians decided to do whatever they please in a foreign war? Are they using their cruelty toward the Jews and their hatred of them to make the Romans responsible for these murders?"

The disgraceful practice had spread among some of Titus's own soldiers as well. He threatened to execute anyone caught doing it again. He also ordered the legions to search for suspected offenders and bring them before him.

But the desire for money was stronger than their fear of punishment. Nothing makes people more daring than greed. Other passions usually have limits and remain subject to fear, but the love of wealth drives people into the greatest dangers.

Still, the whole nation had already been condemned by God, and every attempt to save themselves was turned into a cause of destruction. Though Titus had forbidden the practice under threat of death, the barbarians continued it in secret.

They went out to meet the deserters before anyone could see them. After checking to make sure no Roman was watching, they cut open the deserters and pulled the polluted gold from their bodies. A few of the victims were found to have gold inside them, but many more were killed simply because their attackers hoped they might find some.

This cruel treatment caused many people who had planned to desert to turn back and return to the city.

John could no longer plunder the people, so he turned to sacrilege. He melted down many of the sacred vessels that had been given to the temple. He also destroyed many of the vessels used by those who served in the holy ceremonies, including caldrons, dishes, and tables.

He even took the pouring vessels that Augustus and his wife had sent to the temple. The Roman emperors had always honored and decorated the temple, but John, who was himself a Jew, seized the gifts that foreigners had offered.

He told his followers that they had the right to use sacred objects while fighting for the God they worshiped. Those who fought for the temple, he said, should live from the temple.

Because of this, he emptied the sacred wine and oil that the priests kept for the burnt offerings. These supplies were stored in the inner court of the temple. John distributed them among the people, who used them to anoint themselves and to drink. Each person consumed more than a hin.

I can't keep from saying what I believe about this. If the Romans had delayed much longer before attacking these criminals, I think the ground would have opened and swallowed the city, or water would have flooded it, or thunder would have destroyed it as Sodom was destroyed.

Jerusalem had produced a generation more godless than the people who had suffered those ancient punishments. Their madness brought destruction upon everyone.

Why should I describe each of these disasters when Manneus, the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at that very time and told him what he had seen?

Through the one gate placed under his care, 115,880 dead bodies had been carried out between the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, called Nisan, when the Romans first camped beside the city, and the first day of the month Panemus, called Tammuz.

This was an enormous number. Manneus wasn't the governor of the gate, but he had been assigned to pay the public workers who carried out the bodies. He was therefore forced to count them. The relatives buried the rest, though their idea of burial was simply to carry the bodies away and throw them outside the city.

After him, several prominent citizens escaped to Titus and told him the total number of poor people who had died. They said that at least 600,000 bodies had been thrown out through the gates, while no one could discover the number of those who remained inside.

They also reported that when the people could no longer carry out the bodies of the poor, they piled the corpses in large houses and sealed them inside. A medimnus of wheat sold for a talent.

Later, the people could no longer gather herbs because the city was completely surrounded by walls. Some were driven into such terrible hunger that they searched the public sewers and old cattle dung piles. They ate the dung they found there, even though their ancestors had once been unable to bear the sight of such things.

The Romans felt pity when they heard these reports. The rebels saw the same suffering but did not repent. They allowed the same misery to fall upon themselves because they were blinded by the fate already closing in on the city and on them.

The Jewish War – Book 5 – Flavius Josephus

The Jewish War – Book 5

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

PREFACE

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Book 6

Book 7

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