 Section 17 of The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 3, edited by Charles F. Horn, Rossiter Johnson and John Roode, The Great Jewish Revolt, Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70 by Josephus, Part 3. It was now a miserable case and a sight that would justly bring tears into our eyes how men stood as to their food while the more powerful had more than enough and the weaker were lamenting for want of it. But the famine was too hard for all other passions and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty. For what was otherwise worthy of reverence was, in this case, despised in so much that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths and what was still more to be pitied so did the mothers do as to their infants. And when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives and while they ate after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing but the seditious everywhere came upon them immediately and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others for when they saw any house shut up this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food whereupon they broke open the doors and ran in and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their very throats and this by force. The old men who held their food fast were beaten and if the women hid what they had within their hands their hair was torn for so doing nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten and shook them down upon the floor but still they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their coming in and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize upon as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right they also invented terrible methods of torments to discover where any food was and they were these to stop up the passages of the privy parts of the miserable wretches and to drive sharp steaks up their fundaments and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even to hear in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread or that he might discover a handful of barley-meal that was concealed and this was done when these tormentors were not themselves hungry for the thing had been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it but this was done to keep their madness in exercise and as making preparation of provisions for themselves for the following days these men went also to meet those that had crept out of the city by night as far as the Roman guards to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild and when those people thought they had got clear of the enemy they snatched from them what they had brought with them even while they had frequently entreated them and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God to give them back some part of what they had brought though these would not give them the least crumb and they were to be well contented that they were only spoiled and not slain at the same time it is impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's iniquity I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly that neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was from the beginning of the world finally they brought the Hebrew nation into contempt that they might themselves appear comparatively less impious with regard to strangers they confessed what was true that they were the slaves the scum and the spurious and abortive offspring of our nation while they overthrew the city themselves and forced the Romans whether they would or no to gain a melancholy reputation by acting gloriously against them and did almost draw that fire upon the temple which they seemed to think came too slowly and indeed when they saw that temple burning from the upper city they were neither troubled at it nor did they shed any tears on that account while yet these passions were discovered among the Romans themselves so now Titus's banks were advanced a great way notwithstanding his soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall he then sent a party of horsemen and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that went out into the valleys to gather food some of these were indeed fighting men who were not contented with what they got by rapine but the greater part of them were poor people who were deterred from deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations for they could not hope to escape away together with their wives and children without the knowledge of the seditious nor could they think of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account nay the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out so nothing remained but that when they were concealed from the robbers they should be taken by the enemy and when they were going to be taken they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished as after they had fought they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy so they were first whipped and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died and were then crucified before the wall of the city this miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them while they caught every day five hundred Jews nay some days they caught more yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force go their way and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as guarded them useless to him the main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight out of fear lest they might themselves afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment so the soldiers out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews mailed those they caught one after one way and another after another to the crosses by way of jest when their multitude was so great that room was wanting for the crosses and crosses wanting for the bodies but so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight that on the contrary they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise for they brought the relations of those that had deserted upon the wall with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon the security offered them and showed them what miseries those underwent who fled to the Romans and told them that those who were caught were supplicants to them and not such as were taken prisoners this sight kept many of those within the city who were so eager to desert till the truth was known yet did some of them run away immediately as unto certain punishment esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet departure if compared with that by famine so Titus commanded that the hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off that they might not be thought deserters and might be credited on account of the calamity they were under and sent them in to John and Simon with this exhortation that they would now at length leave off their madness and not force him to destroy the city thereby they would have those advantages of repentance even in their utmost distress that they would preserve their own lives and so find a city of their own and that temple which was their peculiar he then went round about banks that were cast up and hastened them in order to show that his words should in no long time be followed by his deeds in answer to which the seditious cast reproaches upon Caesar himself upon his father also and cried out with a loud voice that they contend death and did well in preferring it before slavery that they would do all the mischief to the Romans they could while they had breath in them and that for their own city since they were as he said to be destroyed they had no concern about it and that the world itself was a better temple to God than this that yet this temple would be preserved by him that inhabited therein whom they still had for their assistant in this war and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings which would come to nothing because the conclusion of the whole depended upon God only these words were mixed with reproaches and with them they made a mighty clamour in the meantime Antiochus Epiphanus came to the city having with him a considerable number of other armed men and a band called the Macedonian band about him all of the same age tall and just past their childhood armed and instructed after the Macedonian manor whence it was that they took that name Antiochus with his Macedonians made a sudden assault upon the wall and indeed for his own part his strength and skill were so great that he guarded himself from the Jewish darts and shot his darts at them while yet the young men with him were almost all sorely galled for they had so great a regard to the promises that had been made of their courage that they would needs persevere in their fighting and at length many of them retired but not till they were wounded and then they perceived that true Macedonians if they were to be conquerors must have Alexander's good fortune also now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth day of the month Artemisius Giar so had they much adieu to finish them by the twenty ninth day of the same month after they had labored hard for seventeen days continually for there were now four great banks raised one of which was at the tower Antonia this was raised by the fifth legion over against the middle of that pool which was called Struthius another was cast up by the twelfth legion at the distance of about twenty cubits from the other but the labors of the tenth legion which lay a great way off these were on the north quarter and at the pool called Amygdalan as was that of the fifteenth legion about thirty cubits from it and at the high priest's monument and now when the engines were brought John had from within undermined the space that was over against the tower of Antonia as far as the banks themselves and had supported the ground over the mine with beams laid across one another whereby the Roman works stood upon an uncertain foundation then did he order such materials to be brought in as were dobbed over with pitch and bitumen and set them on fire and as the cross-beams that supported the banks were burning the ditch yielded on the sudden and the banks were shaken down and fell into the ditch with a prodigious noise now at the first there arose a very thick smoke and dust as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank but as the suffocated materials were now gradually consumed a plain flame break out on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon the Romans and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them and indeed this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they had already gained their point cooled their hopes for the time to come they also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains to extinguish the fire since if it were extinguished the banks were swallowed up already and become useless to them two days after this Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy the other banks for the Romans had brought their engines to bear there and began already to make the wall shake and here one teptheus of Garces a city of Galilee and Megasaurus one who was derived from some of Queen Maryamne's servants and with them one from Adiabene he was the son of Nabataeus and called by the name of Shaguerus from the ill fortune he had the word signifying a lame man snatched some torches and ran suddenly upon the engines nor were there during this war any men that ever sallied out of the city who were their superiors either in their boldness or in the terror they struck into their enemies for they ran out upon the Romans not as if they were enemies but friends without fear or delay nor did they leave their enemies till they had rushed violently through the midst of them and set their machines on fire and though they had darts thrown at them on every side and were on every side assaulted with their enemies' swords yet did they not withdraw themselves out of the dangers they were in till the fire had caught hold of the instruments and when the flame went up the Romans came running from their camp to save their engines then did the Jews hinder their suckers from the wall and fought with those that endeavored to quench the fire without any regard to the danger their bodies were in so the Romans pulled the engines out of the fire while the hurdles that covered them were on fire but the Jews caught hold of the battering rams through the flame itself and held them fast although the iron upon them was become red hot and now the fire spread itself from the engines to the banks and prevented those that came to defend them and all this while the Romans were encompassed round about with the flame and despairing of saving their works from it they retired to their camp then did the Jews become still more and more in number by the coming of those that were within the city to their assistance and as they were very bold upon the good success they had had their violent assaults were almost irresistible nay, they proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemies' camp and fought with their guards now there stood a body of soldiers in a ray before that camp which succeeded one another by turns in their armor and as to those, the law of the Romans was terrible that he who left his post there let the occasion be whatsoever it might be he was to die for it so that body of soldiers preferring rather to die in fighting courageously than as a punishment for their cowardice stood firm and at the necessity these men were in of standing to it many of the others that had run away out of shame had turned back again and when they had set the engines against the wall they put the multitude from coming more of them out of the city which they could the more easily do because they had made no provision for preserving or guarding their bodies at this time for the Jews fought now hand to hand with all that came in their way and without any caution fell against the points of their enemies' spears and attacked them bodies against bodies for they were now too hard for the Romans not so much by their other war-like actions as by these courageous assaults they made upon them and the Romans gave way more to their boldness than they did to the sense of the harm they had received from them and now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia wither he was gone to look out for a place for raising other banks and reproached the soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to be in danger when they had taken the walls of their enemies and sustained the fortune of men besieged while the Jews were allowed to sally out against them though they were already in a sort of prison he then went round about the enemy with some chosen troops and fell upon their flank himself so the Jews who had been before assaulted in their faces wheeled about to Titus and continued the fight the armies also were now mixed one among another and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing one another and the noise that was made so far hindered them from hearing one another that neither side could discern an enemy from a friend however the Jews did not flinch though not so much from their real strength as from their despair of deliverance the Romans also would not yield by reason of the regard they had to glory and to their reputation in war and because Caesar himself went into the danger before them in so much that I cannot but think the Romans would in the conclusion have now taken even the whole multitude of the Jews so very angry were they at them had these not prevented the upshot of the battle and retired into the city however seeing the banks of the Romans were demolished these Romans were very much cast down upon the loss of what had cost them so long pains and this in one hour's time and many indeed despaired of taking the city with their usual engines of war only and now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be done those that were of the warmest tempers thought he should bring the whole army against the city and storm the wall the opinion of Titus was that if they aimed at quickness joined with security they must build a wall round about the whole city and he gave orders that the army should be distributed to their several shares of this work Titus began the wall from the camp of the Assyrians where his own camp was pitched and drew it down to the lower parts of Sinopolis then it went along the valley of Cedron to the mount of Olives it then bent toward the south and encompassed the mountain as far as the rock called Peristerion and that other hill which lies next it and is over the valley which reaches to Siloam when it bended again to the west and went down to the valley of the fountain beyond which it went up again at the monument of Ananus, the high priest and encompassing that mountain where Pompey had formerly pitched his camp it returned back to the north side of the city and was carried on as far as a certain village called the House of the Arabinthi after which it encompassed Herod's monument and there on the east was joined to Titus' own camp where it began now the length of this wall was forty furlongs one only abated now at this wall without were erected thirteen places to keep garrison in whose circumferences put together amounted to ten furlongs the hole was completed in three days so that what would naturally have required some months was done in so short an interval as is incredible when Titus had therefore encompassed the city with this wall and put garrisons into proper places he went round the wall at the first watch of the night and observed how the guard was kept the second watch he allotted to Alexander the commanders of legions took the third watch they also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in the night time and who should go all night long round the spaces that were interposed between the garrisons so all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews together with their liberty of going out of the city then did the famine widen its progress and devoured the people by whole houses and families the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged the children also and the young men wandered about the marketplaces like shadows all swelled with the famine and fell down dead where so ever their misery seized them as for burying them those that were sick themselves were not able to do it and those that were hearty and well were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves for many died as they were burying others and many went to their coffins before that fatal hour was come nor was there any lamentations made under these calamities nor were heard any mournful complaints but the famine confounded all natural passions those who were just going to die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes and open mouths a deep silence also and a kind of deadly night had seized upon the city while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries were themselves for they break open those houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies and plundered them of what they had and carrying off the coverings of their bodies went out laughing and tried the points of their swords in their dead bodies and in order to prove what metal they were made of they thrust some of those through that still lay alive upon the ground but for those that entreated them to lend them their right hand and their sword to dispatch them they were too proud to grant their requests and left them to be consumed by the famine now every one of these died with their eyes fixed upon the temple and left the seditious alive behind them now the seditious at first gave orders that the dead should be buried out of the public treasury as not enduring the stench of their dead bodies but afterward when they could not do that they had them cast down from the walls into the valleys beneath however when Titus and going his rounds along those valleys saw them full of dead bodies and the thick putrefaction running about them he gave a groan and spreading out his hands to heaven called God to witness that this was not his doing and such was the sad case of the city itself but the Romans were very joyful since none of the seditious could now make sallies out of the city because they were themselves disconsolate and the famine already touched them also these Romans besides had great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of Syria and out of the neighboring provinces many of whom would stand near to the wall of the city and show the people what great quantities of provisions they had and so make the enemy more sensible of their famine by the great plenty even to satiety which they had themselves End of Section 17 Recording by Linda Johnson Section 18 of The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 3 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 3 Edited by Charles F. Horn, Rosseter Johnson and John Rood The Great Jewish Revolt, Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, AD 70 by Josephus, Part 4 In the meantime Josephus as he was going round the city had his head wounded by a stone that was thrown at him upon which he fell down as giddy Josephus soon recovered of his wound and came out and cried out aloud that it would not be long ere they should be punished for this wound they had given him He also made a fresh exhortation to the people to come out upon the security that would be given them This sight of Josephus encouraged the people greatly and brought a great consternation upon the seditious Hereupon some of the deserters having no other way leaped down from the wall immediately while others of them went out of the city with stones as if they would fight them but thereupon they fled away to the Romans But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found within the city and they met with a quicker dispatch from the two great abundance they had among the Romans than they could have done from the famine among the Jews When they came first to the Romans they were puffed up by the famine and swelled like men in a dropsy after which they all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty and so burst asunder accepting such only as were skillful enough to restrain their appetites and by degrees took in their food into bodies unaccustomed there too Yet did another plague seize upon those thus preserved for there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews' bellies for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold as we told you before when they came out and for these did the seditious search them all for there was a great quantity of gold in the city in so much that as much was now sold in the Roman camp for twelve attic drachmas as was sold before for twenty-five but when this contrivance was discovered in one instance the fame of it filled their several camps that the deserters came to them full of gold so the multitude of the Arabians with the Syrians cut up those that came as supplicants and searched their bellies nor does it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this since in one night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected when Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice he threatened that he would put such men to death if any of them were discovered to be so insolent as to do so again moreover he gave it in charge to the legions that they should make a search after such as were suspected and should bring them to him but it appeared that the love of money was too great for all their dread of punishment and a vehement desire of gain is natural to men and no passion is so venturesome as covetousness otherwise such passions have certain bounds and are subordinate to fear but in reality it was God who condemned the whole nation and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to their destruction this therefore which was forbidden by Caesar under such a threatening was ventured upon privately against the deserters and these barbarians would go out still and meet those that ran away before any saw them and looking about them to see that no Romans spied them they dissected them and pulled this polluted money out of their bowels which money was still found in a few of them while yet a great many were destroyed by the bare hope there was of thus getting by them which miserable treatment made many that were deserting to return back again into the city and indeed why do I relate to these particular calamities while Meneas the son of Lazarus came running to Titus at this very time and told him that there had been carried out through that one gate which was entrusted to his care no fewer than a hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty dead bodies in the interval between the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus Nisan when the Romans pitched their camp by the city and the first day of the month Panimus, Tammuz this was itself a prodigious multitude and though this man was not himself set as a governor at that gate yet was he appointed to pay the public stipend for carrying these bodies out and so was obliged of necessity to number them while the rest were buried by their relations though all their burial was but this to bring them away and cast them out of the city after this man there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens and told him the entire number of the poor that were dead and that no fewer than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates though still the number of the rest could not be discovered and they told him further that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the poor they laid their corpses on heaps in very large houses and shut them up therein as also that a medimno of wheat was sold for a talent and that when a while afterward it was not possible to gather herbs by reason the city was all walled about some persons were driven to that terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old dung-hills of cattle and to eat the dung which they got there and what they of old could not endure so much as to see they now used for food when the Romans barely heard all this they commiserated their case while the seditious who saw it also did not repent but suffered the same distress to come upon themselves for they were blinded by that fate which was already coming upon the city and upon themselves also and now the Romans although they were greatly distressed in getting together their materials raised their banks in one in twenty days after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that had joined to the city and that for ninety furlongs round about and when the banks were finished they afforded a foundation for fear both to the Romans and to the Jews for the Jews expected that the city would be taken unless they could burn those banks as did the Romans expect that if these were once burned down they should never be able to take it for there was a mighty scarcity of materials and the bodies of the soldiers began to fail with such hard labours as did their souls faint with so many instances of ill success the Romans had an advantage in that their engines for sieges cooperated with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews when they were coming out of the city whereby the man that fell became an impediment to him that was next to him as did the danger of going farther make them less zealous in their attempts and for those that had run under the darts some of them were terrified by the good order and closeness of the enemy's ranks before they came to a close fight and others were pricked with their spears and turned back again at length they were approached one another for their cowardice and retired without doing anything this attack was made upon the first day of the month Panimus, Tammuz so when the Jews were retreated the Romans brought their engines although they had all the wild stones thrown at them from the tower of Antonia and were assaulted by fire and sword and by all sorts of darts which necessity afforded the Jews to make use of for although these had great dependence on their own wall and a contempt of the Roman engines yet did they endeavor to hinder the Romans from bringing them now these Romans struggled hard on the contrary to bring them as deeming that this zeal of the Jews was in order to avoid any impression to be made on the tower of Antonia because its wall was but weak and its foundations rotten however that tower did not yield to the blows given it from the engines yet did the Romans bear the impressions made by the enemy's darts which were perpetually cast at them and did not give way to any of those dangers that came upon them from above and so they brought their engines to bear but then as they were beneath the other and were sadly wounded by the stones thrown down upon them some of them threw their shields over their bodies and partly with their hands and partly with their bodies and partly with crows they undermined its foundations and with great pains they removed four of its stones then night came upon both sides and put an end to this struggle for the present however that night the wall was so shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used his stratagem before and had undermined their banks that the ground then gave way and the wall fell down suddenly when this accident had unexpectedly happened the minds of both parties were variously affected for though one would expect that the Jews would be discouraged because this fall of their wall was unexpected by them and they had made no provision in that case yet did they pull up their courage because the tower of Antonia itself was still standing as was the unexpected joy of the Romans that this fall of the wall soon quenched by the sight they had of another wall which John and his party had built within it upon the fifth day of the month Panimus, Tammuz twelve of those men that were on the forefront and kept watch upon the banks got together and called to them the standard bearer of the fifth legion and two others of a troop of horsemen and one trumpeter these went without noise about the ninth hour of the night through the ruins to the tower of Antonia and when they had cut the throats of the first guards of the place as they were asleep they got possession of the wall and ordered the trumpeter to sound his trumpet upon which the rest of the guard got up on the sudden and ran away before anybody could see how many they were that were gotten up for partly from the fear they were in and partly from the sound of the trumpet which they heard they imagined a great number of the enemy were gotten up but as soon as Caesar heard the signal he ordered the army to put on their armor immediately and came thither with his commanders and first of all ascended as did the chosen men that were with him and as the Jews were flying away to the temple they fell into that mine which John had dug under the Roman banks then did the seditious of both the bodies of the Jewish army as well that belonging to John as that belonging to Simon gave them away and indeed were no way wanting as to the highest degree of force and alacrity for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if once the Romans got into the temple as did the Romans look upon the same thing as the beginning of their entire conquest so a terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the temple while the Romans were forcing their way in order to get possession of that temple and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of Antonia in which battle the darts were on both sides useless as well as the spears and both sides drew their swords and fought it out hand to hand now during this struggle the positions of the men were undistinguished on both sides and they fought at random the men being intermixed one with another and confounded by reason of the narrowness of the place while the noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct manner because it was so very loud great slaughter was now made on both sides and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of those that were dead and dashed them to pieces accordingly to which side so ever the battle inclined those that had the advantage exhorted one another to go on as did those that were beaten with great lamentation but still there was no room for flight nor for pursuit but disorderly revolutions and retreats while the armies were intermixed one with another but those that were in the first ranks were under the necessity of killing or being killed without any way for escaping for those on both sides that came behind forced those before them to go on leaving any space between the armies at length the Jews violent zeal was too hard for the Romans skill and the battle already inclined entirely that way for the fight had lasted from the ninth hour of the night till the seventh hour of the day while the Jews came on in crowds and had the danger the temple was in for their motive the Romans having no more here than a part of their army for those legions on which the soldiers on that side depended were not come up to them so it was at present thought sufficient by the Romans to take possession of the tower of Antonia in the meantime the rest of the Roman army had in seven days time overthrown some foundations of the tower of Antonia and had made a ready and broad way to the temple then did the legions come near the first court and began to raise their banks the one bank was over against the northwest corner of the inner temple another was at that northern edifice which was between the two gates and of the other two one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the temple the other against its northern cloister however these works were thus far advanced by the Romans not without great pains and difficulty and particularly by being obliged to bring their materials from the distance of a hundred furlongs they had further difficulties also upon them sometimes by their over great security they were in that they should overcome the Jewish snares laid for them and by that boldness of the Jews which their despair of escaping had inspired them with all in the meantime the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been in as the war advanced higher and higher and creeping up to the holy house itself that they as it were cut off those limbs of their body which were infected in order to prevent the distemper's spreading further for they set the northwest cloister which was joined to the tower of Antonia on fire and after that break off about twenty cubits of that cloister and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary two days after which or on the twenty fourth day of the forenamed month Panamas or Tamuz the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to the other when the fire went fifteen cubits farther the Jews in like manner cut off its roof nor did they entirely leave off what they were about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the temple even when it was in their power to have stopped the fire nay, they lay still while the temple was first set on fire and deemed this spreading of the fire to be for their own advantage however the armies were still fighting one against another about the temple and the war was managed by continual sallies of particular parties against one another now of those that perished by famine in the city the number was prodigious and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable for if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear a war was commenced presently and the dearest friends fell a fighting one with another about it snatching from each other the most miserable supports of life nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food but the robbers would search them when they were expiring lest anyone should have concealed food in his bosom and counter-fitted dying nay, these robbers gaped for want and ran about stumbling and staggering along like mad dogs and reeling against the doors of the houses like drunken men they would also in the great distress they were in rush into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day moreover, their hunger was so intolerable that it obliged them to chew everything while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch and endured to eat them nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes and the very leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and nod the very wisps of old hay became food to some and some gathered up fibres and sold a very small weight of them for four attic drachmas but why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on men in their eating inanimate things while I'm going to relate a matter of fact the like to which no history relates either among the Greeks or barbarians it is horrible to speak of it and incredible when heard I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours that I might not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity but that I have innumerable witnesses to it in my own age and besides my country would have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries that she underwent at this time there was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan her name was Mary her father was Eleazar of the village Beth-e-Zab which signifies the house of Heisab she was eminent for her family and her wealth and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude and was with them besieged therein at this time the other effects of this woman had been already seized upon such I mean as she had brought with her out of Perea and removed to the city what she had treasured up besides as also what food she had contrived to save had been also carried off by the rapacious guards who came every day running into her house for that purpose this put the poor woman into a very great passion and by the frequent reproaches and imprecations she cast at these rapacious villains she had provoked them to anger against her but none of them, either out of the indignation she had raised against herself or out of commiseration of her case would take away her life and if she found any food she perceived her labors were for others and not for herself and it was now become impossible for her anyway to find any more food while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow when also her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself nor did she consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity she was in she then attempted a most unnatural thing and snatching up her son who was a child sucking at her breast she said oh, thou miserable infant for whom shall I preserve thee in this war this famine and this sedition as to the war with the Romans if they preserve our lives we must be slaves this famine also will destroy us even before that slavery comes upon us yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other come on, be thou my food and be thou a fury to these seditious violets and a byword to the world which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews as soon as she had said this she slew her son and then roasted him and eat the one half of him and kept the other half by her concealed upon this the seditious came in presently and smelling the horrid scent of this food they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready she replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them and with all uncovered what was left of her son here upon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind and stood astonished at the sight when she said to them this is my own son and what hath been done was my own doing come, eat of this food for I have eaten of it myself do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman or more compassionate than a mother but if you be so scrupulous and do abominate this my sacrifice as I have eaten the one half let the rest be reserved for me also after which those men went out trembling being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother upon which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately and while everybody laid this miserable case before their own eyes they trembled as if this unheard of action had been done by themselves so those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die and those already dead were esteemed happy because they had not lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries this sad instance was quickly told to the Romans some of whom could not believe it and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under but there were many of them who were hereby induced to a more bitter hatred than ordinary against our nation but for Caesar he excused himself before God as to this matter and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews as well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices but that they instead of concord had chosen sedition instead of peace war and before society and abundance a famine that they had begun with their own hands to burn down that temple which we have preserved hitherto and that therefore they deserved to eat such food as this was that however this horrid action of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their very country itself and men ought not to leave such a city upon the habitable earth to be seen by the son wherein mothers are thus fed although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat of since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us after they have undergone such miseries as these and at the same time that he said this he reflected on the desperate condition these men must be in nor could he expect that such men could be recovered to sobriety of mind after they had endured those very sufferings for the avoiding queer of it only was probable they might have repented End of section 18 Recording by Linda Johnson LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Great Events by Famous Historians Volume 3 Edited by Charles F. Horn, Rossiter Johnson and John Roode The Great Jewish Revolt, Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem AD 70 by Josephus Part 5 And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth day of the month loose ab whereupon Titus gave orders that the battering rams should be brought and set over against the western edifice of the inner temple for before these were brought the firmest of all the other engines had battered the wall for six days together without ceasing without making any impression upon it but the vast largeness and strong connection of the stones were superior to that engine and to the other battering rams also other Romans did indeed undermine the foundations of the northern gate and after a world of pains removed the outermost stones yet was the gate still upheld by the inner stones and stood still unhurt till the workmen despairing of all such attempts by engines and crows brought their ladders to the cloisters now the Jews did not interrupt them in so doing but when they were gotten up they fell upon them and fought with them some of them they thrust down and threw them backward headlong others of them they met and slew they also beat many of those that went down the ladders again and slew them with their swords before they could bring their shields to protect them some of the ladders they threw down from above when they were full of armed men a great slaughter was made of the Jews also at the same time while those that bear the ensigns fought hard for them as deeming it a terrible thing and what would tend to their great shame if they permitted them to be stolen away yet did the Jews at length get possession of these engines and destroyed those that had gone up the ladders while the rest were so intimidated by what those suffered who were slain that they retired although none of the Romans died without having done good service before his death of this editious those that had fought bravely in the former battles did the like now as besides them did Eleazar the brother's son of Simon the tyrant but when Titus perceived that his endeavors to spare a foreign temple turned to the damage of his soldiers and made them be killed he gave orders to set the gates on fire but then on the next day Titus commanded part of his army to quench the fire and to make a road for the more easy marching up of the legions while he himself gathered the commanders together Titus proposed to these that they should give him their advice what should be done about the holy house now some of these thought it would be the best way to act according to the rules of war and demolish it because the Jews would never leave off rebelling while that house was standing at which house it was that they used to get all together others of them were of opinion that in case the Jews would leave it and none of them would lay their arms up in it he might save it but that in case they got upon it and fought any more he might burn it because it must then be looked upon not as a holy house but as a citadel and that the impiety of burning it would then belong to those that forced this to be done and not to them but Titus said that although the Jews should get upon that holy house and fight us then yet ought we not to revenge ourselves on things that are inanimate instead of the men themselves and that he was not in any case for burning down so vast a work as that was because this would be a mischief to the Romans themselves as it would be an ornament to their government while it continued so Fronto and Alexander and Cerealis grew bold upon that declaration and agreed to the opinion of Titus then was this assembly dissolved when Titus had given orders to the commanders that the rest of their forces should lie still but that they should make use of such as were most courageous in this attack so he commanded that the chosen men that were taken out of the cohorts should make their way through the ruins and quench the fire now it is true that on this day the Jews were so weary and under such consternation that they refrained from any attacks but on the next day they gathered their whole force together and ran upon those that guarded the outward court of the temple very boldly through the east gate and this about the second hour of the day these guards received their attack with great bravery and by covering themselves with their shields before as if it were with a wall drew their squadron close together was it evident that they could not abide there very long but would be overborn by the multitude of those that sallied out upon them and by the heat of their passion however Caesar seeing from the tower of Antonia that this squadron was likely to give way sent some chosen horsemen to support them here upon the Jews found themselves not able to sustain their onset and upon the slaughter of those in the forefront many of the rest were put to flight but as the Romans were going off the Jews turned upon them and fought them and as those Romans came back upon them they retreated again until about the fifth hour of the day they were overborn and shut themselves up in the inner court of the temple so Titus retired into the tower of Antonia and resolved to storm the temple the next day early in the morning with his whole army and to encamp round about the holy house but as for that house God had for certain long ago doomed it to the fire and now that fatal day was come according to the revolution of ages it was the tenth day of the month loose ab upon which it was formerly burned by the king of Babylon although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves and were occasioned by them for upon Titus's retiring the seditious lay still for a little while and then attacked the Romans again when those that guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire that was burning the inner court of the temple but these Romans put the Jews to flight and proceeded as far as the holy house itself at which time one of the soldiers praying for any orders and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking and being hurried on by a certain divine fury snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire and being lifted up by another soldier he set fire to a golden window through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house on the north side of it as the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamour such as so mighty an affliction required and ran together to prevent it and now they spared not their lives any longer nor suffered anything to restrain their force since that holy house was perishing for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard about it and now Caesar was no way able to restrain the enthusiastic fury of the soldiers and the fire proceeded on more and more he went into the holy place of the temple with his commanders and saw it with what was in it which he found to be far superior to what the relations of foreigners contained and not inferior to what we ourselves boasted of and believed about it but as the flame had not as yet reached to its inward parts but was still consuming the rooms without the holy house and Titus supposing what the fact was that the house itself might yet be saved came in haste and endeavored to persuade the soldiers to quench the fire and gave order to Liberaleus the centurion and one of those spearmen that were about him to beat the soldiers that were refractory with their staves and to restrain them yet were their passions too hard for the regards they had for Caesar and the dread they had of him who forbade them as was their hatred of the Jews and a certain vehement inclination to fight them too hard for them also moreover the hope of plunder induced many to go on as having this opinion that all the places within were full of money and as seeing that all round about it was made of gold and besides one of those that went into the place prevented Caesar when he ran so hastily out to restrain the soldiers and threw the fire upon the hinges of the gate in the dark whereby the flame burst out from within the holy house itself immediately when the commanders retired and Caesar with them and when nobody any longer forbade those that were without to set fire to it and thus was the holy house burned down without Caesar's approbation while the holy house was on fire everything was plundered that came to hand and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain nor was there a commiseration of any age or any reverence of gravity but children and old men and profane persons and priests were all slain in the same manner so that this war went round all sorts of men and brought them to destruction and as well those that made supplication for their lives as those that defended themselves by fighting the flame was also carried a long way and made an echo together with the groans of those that were slain and because this hill was high and the works at the temple were very great one would have thought the whole city had been on fire nor can one imagine anything either greater or more terrible than this noise for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions who were marching all together and a sad clamour of the seditious who were now surrounded with fire and sword the people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy and under a great consternation and made sad moans at the calamity they were under the multitude also that was in the city joined in this outcry with those that were upon the hill and besides many of those that were worn away by the famine and their mouths almost closed when they saw the fire of the holy house they exerted their utmost strength and break out into groans and outcries again Perea did also return the echo as well as the mountains round about the city and augmented the force of the entire noise yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder for one would have thought that the hill itself on which the temple stood was seething hot as full of fire on every part of it that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them for the ground did nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it but the soldiers went over heaps of those bodies as they ran upon such as fled from them and now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out of the inner court of the temple by the Romans and had much adieu to get into the outward court and from thence into the city while the remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court as for the priests some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that were upon it with their bases which were made of lead and shot them at the Romans instead of darts but then as they gained nothing by so doing and as the fire burst out upon them they retired to the wall that was eight cubits broad and there they tarried and now the Romans judging that it was in vain to spare what was round about the holy house burned all those places as also the remains of the cloisters and the gates too accepted the one on the east side and the other on the south both which however they burned afterward they also burned down the treasury chambers in which was an immense quantity of money and an immense number of garments and other precious goods there reposited and to speak all in a few words there it was that the entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together while the rich people had there built themselves chambers to contain such furniture the soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer court of the temple wither the women and children and a great mixed multitude of the people fled in number about six thousand but before Caesar had determined anything about these people or given the commanders any orders relating to them the soldiers were in such a rage that they set that cloister on fire by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong and some were burned in the cloisters themselves nor did any one of them escape with his life and now the Romans upon the flight of the seditious into the city and upon the burning of the holy house itself and of all the buildings round about it brought their ensigns to the temple and set them over against its eastern gate and there did they offer sacrifices to them and there did they make Titus Imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy and now all the soldiers had such vast quantities of the spoils which they had gotten by plunder that in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold for half its former value but as for the tyrants themselves and those that were with them when they found that they were encompassed on every side and as it were walled round without any method of escaping they desired to treat with Titus by word of mouth accordingly such was the kindness of his nature and his desire of preserving the city from destruction joined to the advice of his friends who now thought the robbers were come to a temper that he placed himself on the western side of the outer court of the temple for there were gates on that side above the Zistis and a bridge that connected the upper city to the temple this bridge it was that lay between the tyrants and Caesar and parted them while the multitude stood on each side those of the Jewish nation about Simon and John with great hopes of pardon and the Romans about Caesar in great expectation how Titus would receive their supplication so Titus charged his soldiers to restrain their rage and to let their darts alone and appointed an interpreter between them which was a sign that he was the conqueror and first began the discourse and said quote I hope you, sirs, are now satiated with the miseries of your country who have not had any just notions neither of our great power or of your own great weakness but have, like madmen after a violent and inconsiderate manner made such attempts as have brought your people your city and your holy house to destruction you have been the men that have never left off rebelling since Pompey first conquered you and have since that time made open war with the Romans and now vile wretches do you desire to treat with me by word of mouth to what purpose is it that you would save such a holy house as this was which is now destroyed what preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your temple yet do you stand still at this very time in your armor nor can you bring yourselves so much as to pretend to be supplicants even in this your utmost extremity oh miserable creatures what is it you depend on are not your people dead is not your holy house gone is not your city and my power and are not your own very lives in my hands and do you still deem it a part of valor to die however I will not imitate your madness if you throw down your arms and deliver up your bodies to me I grant you your lives and I will act like a mild master of a family what cannot be healed shall be punished and the rest I will preserve for my own use end quote to that offer of Titus they made this reply that they could not accept of it because they had sworn never to do so but they desired they might have leave to go through the wall that had been made about them with their wives and children for that they would go into the desert and leave the city to him at this Titus had great indignation that when they were in the case of men already taken captives they should pretend to make their own terms with him as if they had been conquerors so he ordered this proclamation to be made to them that they should no more come out to him as deserters nor hope for any further security for that he would henceforth spare nobody but fight them with his whole army and that they must save themselves as well as they could for that he would from henceforth treat them according to the laws of war so he gave orders to the soldiers both to burn and to plunder the city who did nothing indeed that day but on the next day they set fire to the repository of the archives to Accra to the council house and to the place called Oflus at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of Queen Helena which was in the middle of Accra the lanes also were burned down as were also those houses that were full of the dead bodies of such as were destroyed by famine End of section 19 Section 20 of The Great Events by Famous Historians Volume 3 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Great Events by Famous Historians Volume 3 Edited by Charles F. Horn Rossiter Johnson and John Root The Great Jewish Revolt Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem A.D. 70 by Josephus Part 6 On the same day it was that the sons and brethren of Isates the King together with many others of the eminent men of the populace got together there and besought Caesar to give them his right hand for their security upon which, though he was very angry at all that were now remaining yet did he not lay aside his old moderation but received these men At that time, indeed he kept them all in custody but still bound the king's sons and kinsmen and led them with him to Rome in order to make them hostages for their country's fidelity to the Romans And now the seditious rushed into the royal palace into which many had put their effects because it was so strong that they drove the Romans away from it They also slew all the people that had crowded into it who were in number about 8400 and plundered them of what they had On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower city and set all on fire as far as Siloam The soldiers were indeed glad to see the city destroyed but they missed the plunder The seditious had carried off all their effects and were retired into the upper city for they did not yet at all repent of the mischiefs they had done but were insolent as if they had done well For as they saw the city on fire they appeared cheerful and put on joyful countenances in expectation, as they said of death to end their miseries Accordingly, as the people were now slain the Holy House was burned down and the city was on fire There was nothing further left for the enemy to do Yet did not Josephus grow weary even in this utmost extremity to beg of them to spare what was left of the city He spake largely to them about their barbarity and impiety and gave them his advice in order to their escape though he gained nothing thereby more than to be laughed at by them and as they could not think of surrendering themselves up because of the oath they had taken nor were strong enough to fight with the Romans any longer upon the square as being surrounded on all sides and a kind of prisoners already yet were they so accustomed to kill people that they could not restrain their right hands from acting accordingly So they dispersed themselves before the city and laid themselves in ambush among its ruins to catch those that attempted to desert to the Romans Accordingly, many such deserters were caught by them and were all slain for these were too weak by reason of their want of food to fly away from them so their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs Now every other sort of death was thought more tolerable than the famine in so much that though the Jews despaired now of mercy yet would they fly to the Romans and would themselves even of their own accord fall among the murderous rebels also nor was there any place in the city that had no dead bodies in it but what was entirely covered with those that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion and all was full of the dead bodies of such as had perished either by that sedition or by the famine So now the last hope which supported the tyrants and that crew of robbers who were with them was in the caves and caverns underground whither, if they could, once fly they did not expect to be searched for but endeavored that after the whole city should be destroyed and the Romans gone away they might come out again and escape from them This was no better than a dream of theirs for they were not able to lie hid either from God or from the Romans However, they depended on these underground subterfuges and set more places on fire than did the Romans themselves and those that fled out of their houses thus set on fire into the ditches they killed without mercy and pillaged them also and if they discovered food belonging to anyone they seized upon it and swallowed it down together with their blood also nay, they would now come to fight one with another about their plunder and I cannot but think that had not their destruction prevented it their barbarity would have made them taste of even the dead bodies themselves Now, when Caesar perceived that the upper city was so steep that it could not possibly be taken without raising banks against it he distributed the several parts of that work among his army and this on the 20th day of the month Luz Ab it was at this time that the commanders of the Edumians got together privately and took counsel about surrendering up themselves to the Romans accordingly, they sent five men to Titus and entreated him to give them his right hand for their security so Titus thinking that the tyrants would yield if the Edumians upon whom a great part of the war depended were once withdrawn from them after some reluctancy and delay complied with them and gave them security for their lives and sent the five men back but as these Edumians were preparing to march out Simon perceived it and immediately slew the five men that had gone to Titus and took their commanders and put them in prison of whom the most eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas but as for the multitude of the Edumians who did not at all know what to do now their commanders were taken from them he had them watched and secured the walls by a more numerous garrison yet could not that garrison resist those that were deserting for although a great number of them were slain yet were the deserters many more in number these were all received by the Romans because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing them and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them and because they hoped to get some money by sparing them for they left only the populace and sold the rest of the multitude with their wives and children and every one of them at a very low price and that because such as were sold were very many and the buyers were few and although Titus had made proclamation beforehand that no deserter should come alone by himself that so they might bring out their families with them yet did he receive such as these also however he set over them such as were to distinguish some from others in order to see if any of them deserved to be punished and indeed the number of those that were sold was immense but of the populace above forty thousand were saved whom Caesar let go wither every one of them pleased but now at this time it was that one of the priests the son of Thebuthus whose name was Jesus upon his having security given him by the oath of Caesar that he should be preserved upon condition that he should deliver to him and certain of the precious things that had been deposited in the temple came out of it and delivered him from the wall of the holy house to candlesticks like to those that lay in the holy house with tables and cisterns and vials all made of solid gold and very heavy he also delivered to him the veils and the garments with the precious stones and a great number of other precious vessels that belonged to their sacred worship the treasurer of the temple also whose name was Phineas was seized on and showed Titus the coats and girdles of the priests with a great quantity of purple and scarlet which were there deposited for the uses of the veil as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia with a large quantity of other sweet spices which used to be mixed together and offered as incense to God every day a great many other treasures were also delivered to him with sacred ornaments of the temple not a few which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted of their own accord and now were the banks finished on the seventh day of the month in 18 days time when the Romans brought their machines against the wall but for the seditious some of them as despairing of saving the city retired from the wall to the citadel others of them went down into the subterranean vaults though still a great many of them defended themselves against those that brought the engines for the battery yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by their strength and what was the principal thing of all by going cheerfully about their work while the Jews were quite dejected and become weak now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down and certain of the towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams those that opposed themselves fled away and such a terror fell upon the tyrants as was much greater than the occasion required for before the enemy got over the breach they were quite stunned and were immediately for flying away and now one might see these men who had hitherto been so insolent and arrogant in their wicked practices to be cast down and to tremble in so much that it would pity one's heart to observe the change that was made in those vile persons accordingly they ran with great violence upon the Roman wall that encompassed them in order to force away those that guarded it and to break through it and get away but when they saw that those who had formerly been faithful to them had gone away as indeed they were fled wither so ever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee as also when those that came running before the rest told them that the western wall was entirely overthrown while others said the Romans were gotten in and others that they were near and looking out for them which were only the dictates of their fear which imposed upon their sight they fell upon their face and greatly lamented their own mad conduct and their nerves were so terribly loosed that they could not flee away and here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God exercised upon these wicked wretches and on the good fortune of the Romans for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the security they had in their own power and came down from those very towers of their own accord wherein they could have never been taken by force nor indeed by any other way than by famine and thus did the Romans when they had taken such great pains about weaker walls yet by good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines for three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines whatsoever so they now left these towers of themselves or rather they were ejected out of them by God himself and fled immediately to that valley which was under Siloam where they again recovered themselves out of the dread they were in for a while violently against that part of the Roman wall which lay on that side but as their courage was too much depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force and their power was now broken with fear and affliction they were repulsed by the guards and dispersing themselves at distances from each other went down into the subterranean caverns so the Romans being now become masters of the walls they both placed their ensigns upon the towers and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had gained as having found the end of this war much lighter than its beginning for when they had gotten upon the last wall without any bloodshed they could hardly believe what they found to be true but seeing nobody to oppose them they stood in doubt what such an unusual solitude could mean but when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city with their swords drawn they slew those whom they overtook without mercy and set fire to the houses whether the Jews were fled and burned every soul in them and laid waste a great many of the rest and when they were come to the houses to plunder them they found in them entire families of dead men and the upper rooms full of corpses of such as died by the famine they stood in horror at this site and went out without touching anything although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner yet had they not the same for those that were still alive but they ran everyone through whom they met and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies and made the whole city run with blood with such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men's blood and truly so it happened that though the slayers left off at the evening yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night and as all was burning came that eighth day of the month Gorpeas elul upon Jerusalem a city that had been liable to so many miseries during this siege had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first foundation it would certainly have been the envy of the world nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore misfortunes as by producing such a generation of men as were the occasion of this its overthrow now when Titus was come into this upper city he admired not only some other places of strength in it but particularly those strong towers which the tyrants in their mad conduct had relinquished for when he saw their solid altitude and the largeness of their several stones and the exactness of their joints as also how great was their breadth and how extensive their length he expressed himself after the manner following quote we have certainly had God for our assistant in this war and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications for what could the hands of men or any machines do toward overthrowing these towers end quote at which time he had many such discourses to his friends he also let such go free as had been bound by the tyrants and were left in the prisons to conclude when he entirely demolished the rest of the city and overthrew its walls he left these towers as a monument of his good fortune which had proved his auxiliaries and enabled him to take what could not otherwise have been taken by him and now since his soldiers were already quite tired with killing men and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still remaining alive Caesar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms and oppose them but should take the rest alive but together with those whom they had orders to slay they slew the aged and the infirm but for those that were in their flourishing age and who might be useful to them they drove them together into the temple and shut them up within the walls of the court of the women over which Caesar set one of his freedmen as also Fronto one of his own friends the last was to determine everyone's fate according to his merits so this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers who were impeached one by another but of the young men he chose out the tallest and most beautiful and reserved them for the triumph and as for the rest of the multitude that were above 17 years old he put them into bonds and sent them to the Egyptian mines Titus also sent a great number into the provinces as a present to them that they might be destroyed upon their theatres by the sword and by the wild beasts but those that were under 17 years of age were sold for slaves now during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men they are perished for want of food 11,000 some of whom did not taste any food through the hatred their guards bore to them and others would not take in any when it was given them the multitude also was so very great that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was collected to be 97,000 as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege 11,000 the greater part of whom was indeed of the same nation with the citizens of Jerusalem but not belonging to the city itself they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread and were on a sudden shut up by an army which at the very first occasioned so great a straightness among them that there came a pestilential destruction upon them and soon afterward such a famine as destroyed them more suddenly that this city could contain so many people in it is manifest by that number of them which was taken under Cestius who being desirous of informing Nero of the power of the city who otherwise was disposed to condemn that nation and treated the high priests if the thing were possible to take the number of their whole multitude so these high priests upon the coming of that feast which is called the Passover when they slay their sacrifices from the ninth hour till the eleventh but so that a company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves and many of them were twenty in a company found the number of sacrifices was one hundred and fifty six thousand five hundred which upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together amounts to two millions seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were pure and holy for as to those that have the leprosy or the gonorrhea or women that have their monthly courses or such as are otherwise polluted it is not lawful for them to be partakers of this sacrifice nor indeed for any foreigners neither who come hither to worship now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in prison and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants accordingly the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world for to speak only of what was publicly known the Romans slew some of them some they carried captives and others they made a search for underground and when they found where they were they broke up the ground and slew all they met with there were also found slain there above two thousand persons partly by their own hands and partly by one another but chiefly destroyed by the famine but then the ill-saver of the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted upon them in so much that some were obliged to get away immediately while others were so greedy of gain that they would go in among the dead bodies that lay on heaps and tread upon them for a great deal of treasure was found in these caverns and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to be esteemed lawful many also of those that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now brought out for they did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the very last yet did God avenge himself upon them both in a manner agreeable to justice as for John he wanted food together with his brethren in these caverns and begged that the Romans would now give him their right hand for his security which he had often proudly rejected before but for Simon he struggled hard with the distress he was in till he was forced to surrender himself so he was reserved for the triumph and to be then slain as was John condemned to perpetual imprisonment and now the Romans set fire to the extreme parts of the city and burned them down and entirely demolished its walls and thus was Jerusalem taken in the second year of the reign of Vespasian on the eighth day of the month Gorpaius Elul it had been taken five times before though this was the second time of its desolation for Shishak the king of Egypt and after him Antiochus and after him Pompey and after them Socius and Herod took the city but still preserved it but before all these the king of Babylon conquered it and made it desolate one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years and six months after it was built but he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites and is in our own tongue called Melchisedec the righteous king for such he really was on which account he was there the first priest of God and first built a temple there and called the city Jerusalem which was formerly called Salem however David the king of the Jews ejected the Canaanites and settled his own people therein it was demolished entirely by the Babylonians four hundred and seventy seven years and six months after him and from King David who was the first of the Jews who reigned therein to this destruction under Titus were one thousand one hundred and seventy nine years but from its first building till this last destruction were two thousand one hundred and seventy seven years yet hath not its great antiquity nor its vast riches nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable earth nor the greatness of the veneration which was made to it on a religious account been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed and thus ended the siege of Jerusalem End of section 20 Recording by Linda Johnson