 section 13 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 Rudd the burning of Rome under Nero AD 64 by Tacitus there followed a dreadful disaster whether fortuitously or by the wicked contrivance of the prince is not determined for both are asserted by historians but of all the calamities which ever befell this city from the rage of fire this was the most terrible and severe it broke out in that part of the circus which is contiguous to Mount Spalotine and Cilius where by reason of shops in which we kept such goods as minister elements to fire the moment it commenced it acquired strength and being accelerated by the wind it spread at once through the whole extent of the circus for neither were the houses secured by enclosures nor the temples environed with walls nor was there any other obstacle to intercept its progress but the flame spreading every way impetuously invaded first the lower regions of the city then mounted to the higher then again ravaging the lower it baffled every effort to extinguish it by the rapidity of its destructive course and from the liability of the city to conflagration in consequence of the narrow and intricate alleys and the irregularity of the streets in ancient Rome add to this the wailings of terrified women the infirm condition of the aged and the helplessness of childhood such as strove to provide for themselves and those who labored to assist others these dragging the feeble those waiting for them some hurrying others lingering all together created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment and while they look back upon the danger in their rear they often found themselves beset before and on their sides or if they had escaped into the quarters adjoining these two were already seized by the devouring flames even the parts which they believed remote and exempt were found to be in the same distress at last not knowing what to shun or where to seek sanctuary they crowded the streets and lay along in the open fields some from the loss of their whole substance even the means of their daily sustenance others from affection for their relations whom they had not been able to snatch from the flames suffer themselves to perish in them though they had opportunity to escape neither dared any men offered to check the fire so repeated were the menaces of many who forbade to extinguish it and because others openly threw firebrands with loud declarations that they had one who authorized them whether they did it that they might plunder with the less restrained or in consequence of orders given Nero who was at the juncture so journeying at Antium did not return to the city till the fire approached that quarter of his house which connected the palace with the gardens of messiness nor could it however be prevented from devouring the house and palace and everything around but for the relief of the people thus destitute and driven from their dwellings he opened the field of Mars and the monumental edifices erected by a grippa and even his own gardens he likewise reared temporary houses for the reception of the forlorn multitude and from Ostia and the neighboring cities were brought up the river household necessaries and the price of grain was reduced to three cester says the measure all which proceedings though of a popular character were thrown away because a rumor had become universally current that at the very time when the city was in flames Nero going on the stage of his private theater saying the destruction of Troy assimilating the present disaster to that catastrophe of ancient times at length on the sixth day the conflagration was stayed at the foot of a school a by pulling down any men's quantity of buildings so that an open space and as it were void air might check the raging element by breaking the continuity but or the consternation had subsided the fire broke out of fresh with no little violence but in regions were spacious and therefore with less destruction of human life but more extensive havoc was made of the temples and the portico's dedicated to amusement this conflagration to was the subject of Moore's and Soria's remark as it arose in the a million possessions of Tegelinus and Nero seemed to aim at the glory of building a new city and calling it by his own name for of the 14 sections into which Rome is divided four were still standing and tired three were leveled with the ground and in the seven others they remained only here and there a few remnants of houses shattered and have consumed it were no very easy task to recount the number of tenements and temples which were lost but the following most venerable for antiquity and sanctity were consumed that dedicated by Servius Tullius to the moon the temple and great altar consecrated by Evander the Arcadian to Hercules while present the chapel vowed by Romulus to Jupiter stator the palace of Numa with the temple of Vesta and in it the tutelor gods of Rome were over the treasures accumulated by so many victories the beautiful productions of Greek artists ancient writings of authors celebrated for genius until then preserved entire were consumed and though great was the beauty of the city in its renovated form the older inhabitants remembered many decorations of the ancient which could not be replaced in the modern city there were some who remarked that the commencement of this fire showed itself on the 14th before the Callens of July the day in which the Sennons set fire to the captured city others carried their investigation so far as to determine that an equal number of years months and days intervened between the two fires to proceed hero appropriated to his own purposes the ruins of his country and founded upon them a palace in which the old-fashioned and in those luxurious times common ornaments of gold and precious stones were not so much the object of attraction as lands and lakes in one part woods like vast deserts in another part open spaces and expansive prospects the projectors and superintendents of this plan were severe and seller men of such ingenuity and daring enterprise as to attempt to conquer by art the obstacles of nature and full away the treasures of the prince they had even undertaken to sink a navigable canal from the lake of verness to the mouth of the Tiber over an arid shore or through opposing mountains nor indeed does there occur anything of a humid nature for supplying water except the pump time marshes the rest is either craggy rock or parched soil and had it even been possible to break through these obstructions the toil had been intolerable and disproportion to the object Nero however who longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility exerted all his might to perforate the mountains adjoining to a verness and to this day there remain traces of his abortive project but the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out not as after the Gaelic fire without discrimination and regularity but with the lines of streets measured out broad spaces left for transit the height of the buildings limited open areas left and porticoes added to protect the front of the cluster dwellings these porticoes Nero engaged to rear at his own expense and then to deliver to each proprietor the areas about them cleared he moreover proposed rewards proportion to every man's rank and private substance and fixed a day within which if their houses single and clustered were finished they should receive them he appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle of the rubbish and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the Tiber should return laden with rubbish that the buildings themselves should be raised a certain portion of their height without beams and arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba that stone being proof against fire that over the water springs which had been improperly intercepted by private individuals overseers should be placed to provide for their flowing in greater abundance and in a greater number of places for the supply of the public that every housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire neither should there be party walls but every house should be enclosed by its own walls these regulations which were favorably received in consideration of their utility were also a source of beauty to the new city yet some there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to health as from the narrowness of the streets and the height of the buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded whereas now the spacious breadth of the streets without any shade to protect it was more intensely heated in warm weather such were the provisions made by human councils the gods were next addressed with expiations and recourse had to the symbols books by admonition from them to Vulcan series and proserpina supplicatory sacrifices were made and Juno propitiated by the matrons first in the capital then upon the nearest shore where by water drawn from the sea the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled the ceremony of placing the goddess in her sacred chair and her vigil were celebrated by ladies who had husbands but not all the relief that could come from men not all the bounties that the prince could bestow nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration hence to suppress the rumor he falsely charged with the guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures the persons commonly called Christians who were hated for their enormities Christus the founder of that name was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius but the pernicious superstition repressed for a time broke out again not only through Judea where the mischief originated but through the city of Rome also whether all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters as to a common receptacle and where they are encouraged accordingly first those recedes who confess they were Christians next on their information a vast multitude were convicted not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race and in their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs or nailed to crosses or set fire to and when they declined burned to serve for nocturnal lights Nero offered his own gardens for that spectacle and exhibited a circensian game indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of a charioteer or else standing in his chariot hence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers though guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital punishment because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good but victims to the ferocity of one man in the meantime in order to supply money all Italy was pillaged the provinces ruined both the people in alliance with us and the states which are called free even the gods were not exempt from plunder on this occasion their temples in the city being despoiled and all the gold conveyed away which the roman people in every age either in gratitude for triumphs or in fulfillment of vows had consecrated in times of prosperity or in seasons of dismay through Greece and Asia indeed the gifts and oblations and even the statues of the deities were carried off and of section 13 section 14 of the great events by famous historians volume three 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 three edited by Charles F. Horn, Roseter Johnson and John Rudd persecution of the Christians under Nero AD 64 to 68 Frederick William Farrar down to the reign of Nero Christians in the Roman Empire were regarded by the ruling powers merely as a Jewish sect harmless and guilty of nothing which could call for the interference of the state with their ways of life or of worship they were therefore unmolested but during the reign of the infamous emperor in whom they saw antichrist and the actual embodiment of the symbolic monstrosities of the apocalypse the Christians began to be recognized as a separate people and from milder persecutions at first under cover of legal procedure they were soon subjected to outrages tortures and deaths then which history has none more revolting and pitiful to record in Cowlbach's great painting of Nero's persecution there is enough of portrayal and suggestion to add a terrible vividness to the ordinary historians word pictures the emperor surrounded by his moon companions stands on his garden terrace to receive divine honors while a group of suffering Christians among them st peter crucified head down and st paul passionately protesting against the diabolical work moved to compassion a company of elderly men and a body of german soldiers who look upon the horrible spectacle of martyrdom this the first persecution of the christians reached its culminating point of ferocity in ad 64 after Nero had been accused of kindling or conniving at the work of those who did kindle the great fire in Rome in order to divert attention even if he could not turn suspicion from himself having charged the christians with causing the conflagration he ordered the atrocities which added a still darker stain to his personal and imperial record of shameless crime and savage inhumanity first such as confessed themselves to be Christians were dealt with and from these information was extorted on which vast numbers were convicted not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hitting the human race Nero's character and acts have been depicted by many writers and in famous works of art but not even the pencil of cowback can make more keen the realization of those scenes enacted in this persecution than the thrilling narration of farar which for picturesque eloquence fired with dramatic intensity has seldom been surpassed in english literature Nero was so secure in his absolutism he had hitherto founded so impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to exhaust the terrified adulation of the senate that he was usually indifferent to the Pascunids which were constantly holding up his name to execration and contempt but now he felt that he had gone too far and that his power would be seriously impelled if he did not succeed in diverting the suspicions of the populace he was perfectly aware that when the people in the streets cursed those who set fire to the city they meant to curse him if he did not take some immediate step he felt that he might perish as Gaius had perished before him by the dagger of the assassin it is at this point of his career that Nero becomes a prominent figure in the history of the church it was this phase of cruelty which seemed to throw a blood-red light over his whole character and led men to look on him as the very incarnation of the world power in its most demonic aspect as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's Apocalypse as the man of sin whom in language figurative indeed yet awfully true the Lord should slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming for Nero endeavored to fix the odious crime of having destroyed the capital of the world upon the most innocent and faithful of his subjects upon the only subjects who offered heartfelt prayers on his behalf the Roman Christians they were the defenseless victims of this horrible charge for though they were the most harmless they were also the most hated and the most slandered of living men why he should have thought of singling out the Christians has always been a curious problem for at this point Saint Luke ends the acts of the Apostles perhaps purposely dropping the curtain because it would have been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto neutral or friendly Roman government began to play so disgraceful apart neither Tacitus nor Suetonius nor the apocalypse help us to solve this particular problem the Christians had filled no large space in the eyes of the world until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks that the pudins and Claudia of Roman 16 where the pudins and Claudia of Marshall's epigrams seems to me to be a baseless dream if the foreign superstition with which Pomponia Grisina wife of all as Plotius the conqueror of Britain was charged and of which she was acquitted was indeed as has been suspected the Christian religion at any rate the name of Christianity was not alluded to by the ancient writers who had mentioned the circumstance even if Romans 16 was addressed to Rome and not as I believe to Ephesus they of the household of narcissists which were in the Lord were unknown slaves as also where they have Caesar's household the slaves and artisans Jewish and Gentile who formed the Christian community at Rome had never in any way come into collision with the Roman government they must have been the victims rather than the exciters of the messianic tumults for such that they are conjectured to have been which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile edict of Claudius. Nay so obedient and docile were they required to be by the very principles on which their morality was based so far were they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots that in writing to them a few years earlier the greatest of their leaders had urged upon them a payment of tribute and a submission to the higher powers not only for wrath but also for conscious sake because the earthly ruler in his office of repressing evil works is a minister of God that the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged against them was well known both at the time and afterward but how was it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which was rankling in many hearts against himself by torturing men and women on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a stolid indifference but even with fierce satisfaction. Gibbon had conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the Jews and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with double force upon the former Christians suffered even more than the Jews because of the Calamity so assiduously circulated against them and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of their peculiar tenets Nero says Tacitus exposed to accusation and tortured with the most exquisite penalties a set of men detested for their enormities whom the common people called Christians Christus the founder of this sect was executed during the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate and the deadly superstition suppressed for a time began to burst out once more not only throughout Judea where the evil had its root but even in the city wither from every quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted and find their votaries the lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus from making any inquiry into the real views and character of the Christians is shown by the fact that he catches up the most baseless allegations against them he talks of their doctrines as savage and shameful when they breathed the very spirit of peace and purity he charges them with being animated by a hatred of their kind when their central tenet was a universal charity the masses he says called them Christians and while he almost apologizes for staining his page with soul vulgar in appellation he merely mentions in passing that though innocent of the charge of being turbulent incendiaries on which they were tortured to death they were yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries to be classed with the lowest dregs of Roman criminals but the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty namely the circumstances which led to the Christians being thus singled out the Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution to persecute the Jews at Rome would not have been an easy matter they were sufficiently numerous to be formidable and had overrode Cicero in the zenith of his fame besides this the Jewish religion was recognized tolerated licensed throughout the length and breadth of the empire no man however much he and his race might be detested and despised could have been burned or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew we hear of no Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of the Jewish war and then chiefly in Palestine itself it is clear that a shedding of blood in fact some form or other of human sacrifice was imperatively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery in vain had the sibling books been once more consulted and in vain had public prayer been offered in accordance with their directions to Vulcan and the goddesses of earth and Hades in vain had the roman matrons walked in procession and dark robes and with their long pair unbound to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno and to sprinkle with seawater her ancient statue in vain had largesse's been lavished upon the people and propitiary sacrifices offered to the gods in vain had public banquets been celebrated in honor of various deities a crime had been committed and romans had perished unevent blood cried for blood before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted or the indignation of heaven appeased Nero had always hated persecuted and exiled the philosophers and no doubt so far as he knew anything of the Christians so far as he saw among his own countless slaves anyone who had embraced this superstition which the elite of Rome described as not only new but excreable and malefic he would hate their gravity impurity and feel for them that raging envy which is the tribute that virtue receives from vice moreover Saint Paul and all probability had recently stood before his tribunal and though he had been acquitted on the special charges of turbulence and profanation respecting which he had appealed to Caesar yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear from the emissaries of the Sanhedrum many fierce slanders of a sect which was everywhere spoken against the Jews were by far the deadliest enemies of the Christians and two persons of Jewish proclivities were at this time in close proximity to the person of the emperor one was the pantomimist allotaurus the other was papaya the harlot empress the Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites and had even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should have the kingdom of Jerusalem it is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil influence at work to undermine the Christians for about this very time the unscrupulous Pharisee Flavius Josephus had availed himself of the intrigues of the palace to secure the liberation of some Jewish priests if that seems certain the Jews had it in their power during the reign of Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne does not historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them Saint Clement says in his epistle that the Christians suffered through jealousy whose jealousy who can tell what dark secrets lie veiled under the suggestive word was actor a Christian and was papaya jealous of her that suggestion seems at once inadequate and improbable especially as actor was not hurt but there was a deadly jealousy at work against the new religion to the pagans Christianity was but a religious extravagance contemptible indeed but otherwise insignificant to the Jews on the other hand it was an object of hatred which never stopped short of bloodshed when it possessed or could usurp the power and which the long suppressed by circumstances displayed itself in all the intensity of its virulence during the brief spasm of the dictatorship of Bercobus Christianity was hateful to the Jews on every ground it nullified their law it liberated all Gentiles from the heavy yoke of that law without thereby putting them on a lower level it even tended to render those who were born Jews indifferent to the institutions of mosaism it was as it were a fatal revolt and schism from within more dangerous than any assault from without and worse than all it was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism which was its bitter antagonist while it sheltered its existence under the mantle of Judaism as a religio licitta it drew down upon the religion from whose bosom it sprang all the scorn and hatred which were attached by the world to its own special tenants for however much the Greeks and Romans despised the Jews they despised still more the belief that the lord and savior of the world was a crucified malefactor who had risen from the dead i see in the proselytism of papea guided by Jewish malice the only adequate explanation of the first christian persecution hers was the jealousy which had goaded Nero to matricide hers not improbably was the instigated fanaticism of a proselyte which urged him to imbrew his hands in modern blood and she had her reward a woman of whom tacitis has not a word of good to say and who seems to have been repulsive even to Suetonius is handed down by the renegade farisi as a devout woman as a worshiper of god and indeed when once the christians were pointed out to the popular vengeance many reasons would be induced to prove their connection with the conflagration temples had perished and were they not notorious enemies of the temples did not popular rumor charge them with nocturnal orgies and theestian feasts suspicions of incendiarism were sometimes brought against jews but the jews were not in the habit of talking and these sectaries were about a fire which should consume the world and rejoicing in the prospect of that fiery consummation nay more when pagans had bewailed the destruction of the city and the loss of the ancient monuments of Rome had not these pernicious people used ambiguous language as though they joyously recognized in these events the signs of a coming in even when they tried to suppress all outward tokens of exaltation had they not listened to the fuse and lamentations of their fellow citizens with some sparkle in the eyes and had they not answered with something of triumph in their tones there was a satanic plausibility which dictated the selection of these particular victims because they hated the wickedness of the world with its ruthless schemes and hideous idolatries they were accused of hatred of the whole human race the charge of ensivismy so fatal in this reign of terror was sufficient to ruin a body of men who scorned the sacrifices of heathendom and turned away with abhorrence from its banquets and gayities the cultivated classes looked down upon the christians with a disdain which would hardly even mention them without an apology the canal of pagan cities insulted them with obscene inscriptions and blasphemous pictures on the very walls of the places where they met nay they were popularly known by nicknames like cementici and samoxi untranslatable terms of opprobrium derived from the faggots with which they were burned and the stakes to which they were chained even heroic courage which they displayed was described as being sheer obstinacy and stupid fanaticism but in the method chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocence nero gave one more proof of the close connection between effeminate aestheticism and sanguinary callousness as in the old days on that appropriate hill the temple of quimash had stood close by that of malach so now we find the spoliarium besides the furnaces lust hard by hate the conifesina of tiberias at caprae adjoined the salaria history has given many proofs that no man is more systematically heartless than a corrupted debauchee like people like prince in the then condition of realm nero well knew that a nation cruel by their sports to blood injured would be most likely to forget their miseries and condone their suspicions by mixing games and gaiety with spectacles of refined and atrocious cruelty of which for 18 centuries the most passing record had sufficed to make men's blood run cold tacitus tells us that those who confessed were first seized and then on their evidence a huge multitude were convicted not so much on the charge of incendiarism as for their hatred to mankind compressed and obscure as the sentence is tacitus clearly means to imply by the confession to which he eludes the confession of christianity and though he is not sufficiently generous to acquaint the christians absolutely of all complicity in the great crime he distinctly says that they were made the scapegoats of a general indignation the phrase a huge multitude is one of the few existing indications of the number of modders in the first persecution and of the number of christians in the roman church when the historian says that they were convicted on the charge of hatred against mankind he shows how completely he confounds them with the jews against whom he elsewhere brings the accusation of hostile feelings toward all except themselves then the historian adds one casual but frightful sentence a sentence which flings a dreadful light on the cruelty of nero and the roman mob he adds and various forms of mockery were added to enhance their dying agonies covered with the skins of wild beasts they were doomed to die by the mangling of dogs or by being nailed to crosses or to be set on fire and burned after twilight by way of nightly illumination nero offered his own garden for the show and gave a chariot race mingling with the mob in the dress of a charioteer or actually driving about among them hence guilty as the victims were and deserving of the worst punishments a feeling of compassion toward them began to rise as men felt as they were being immolated not for any advantage to the commonwealth but to glut the savagery of a single man imagined that awful scene once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the square before st. peters at Rome imagine it that we may realize how vast is the change which christianity has wrought in the feelings of mankind there where the vast dome now rises were once the gardens of nero they were thronged with gay crowds among whom the emperor moved in his frivolous degradation and on every side were men dying slowly on their cross of shame along the paths of those gardens on the autumn nights were ghastly torches blackening the ground beneath them with streams of sulfurous pitch and each of those living torches was a martyr in his shirt or fire and in the amphitheater hard by in sight of 20 000 spectators famished dogs were tearing to pieces some of the best and purest of men and women hideously disguised in the skins of bears or wolves thus did nero baptize in the blood of martyrs the city which was to be for ages the capital of the world the specific atrocity of such spectacles unknown to the earlier ages which they called barbarous was due to the cold-blooded selfishness the hideous realism of a refined delicate aesthetic age to please these lisping hoff on buds these debauched and sanguinary dandies art for sooth must know nothing of morality must accept and rejoice in a healthy animalism must estimate life by the number of its few wildest pulsations must reckon that life is worthless without the most thrilling experiences of horror or delight comedy must be actual shame and tragedy genuine bloodshed when the play of a franias called the conflagration was put on the stage a house must be really burned and its furniture really plundered in the mime called loriolas an actor must really be crucified and mangled by a bear and really fling himself down and deluge the stage with blood when the heroism of mucus scavola were represented a real criminal must thrust his hand without a groan into the flame and stand motionless while it is being burned prometheus must be really chained to his rock and dare check in very fact be tossed and gored by the wild bull and orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear and i carous must really fly even though he fall and be dashed to death and hercules must ascend the funeral pyre and there be veritably burned alive and slaves and criminals must play their parts heroically in gold and purple till the flames envelop them it was the ultimate romance of a degraded and brutalized society the roman people victors once now vile in base could now only be amused by sanguinary melodrama fables must be made realities and the criminal must gracefully transform his supreme agonies into amusements for the multitude by becoming a gladiator or a tragedian such were the spectacles at which nero loved to gaze through his emerald eyeglass and worse things than these things indescribable unutterable infamous mythologies were enacted in which women must play their part in torments of shamefulness more intolerable than death a saint peter must hang upon the cross in pinkie and gardens as a real oriolas upon the stage a christian boy must be the icarus and a christian man the scavola or the hercules or the orpheus of the amphitheater and christian women modest maidens holy matrons must be made the deniads or the persurpenes or worse and play their parts as priestesses of saturn and series and in bloodstained dramas of the dead no wonder that nero became to christian imagination the very incarnation of evil the antichrist the wild beast from the abyss the delicate of the great red dragon with a diadem and a name of blasphemy upon his brow no wonder that he left a furrow of horror in the hearts of men and that 10 centuries after his death the church of saint maria del popolo had to be built by pope pascal II to exercise from christian room his restless and miserable ghost and it struck them with deeper horror to see that the antichrist so far from being abhorred was generally popular he was popular because he presented to the degraded populace their own image and similitude the frog-like unclean spirits which proceeded as it were out of his mouth were potent with these dwellers in an atmosphere of pestilence they had lost all love for freedom and nobleness they cared only for dolls and excitement even when the infamies of the patronius had been superseded by the murderous orgies of tigelenus nira was still everywhere welcomed with shouts as a god on earth and saluted on all coins as apollo as hercules as the savior of the world the poets still assured him that there were no deity in heaven who would not think it in honor to concede to him his prerogatives that if he did not place himself well in the center of olympus the equilibrium of the universe would be destroyed victims were slain along his path and altars raised for him for this wretch whom an honest slave could not but despise and loathe as though he was too great for mere human honors namor he found adorers and imitators of his ex-grabble example an auto of itelius a domitian a comadus a caracala a heliogobulus to poison the air of the world the lusts and hungers and furies of the world lamented him and cherished his memory and longed for his return and yet though all bad men who were the majority admired and even loved him he died the death of a dog tremendous as was the power of imperialism the romans often treated their individual emperors as nero himself treated the syrian goddess whose image he first worshiped with awful veneration and then subjected to the most grotesque indignities for retribution did not linger and the vengeance fell at once on the guilty emperor and the guilty city careless seems the great avenger history's pages but record one death grapple in the darkness twixt false systems and the word truth forever on the scaffold wrong forever on the throne yet the scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth god within the shadow keeping watch above his own the air was full of prodigies there were rubble storms the plague brought feelful ravages rumors spread from lip to lip men spoke of monstrous births of deaths by lightning under strange circumstances of a brazen statue of nero melted by the flash of places struck by the brand of heaven in 14 regions of the city of sudden darkening of the sun a hurricane devastated campania comets blazed in the heavens earthquakes shook the ground on all sides were the traces of deep uneasiness and superstitious terror to all these portents which were accepted as true by christians as well as by pagans the christians would give a specifically terrible significance they strengthened their conviction that the coming of the lord drew nine they convinced the better sort of pagans that the hour of their deliverance from a tyranny so monstrous and so disgraceful was near at hand in spite of the shocking servility with which alike the senate and the people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph nero felt that the air of rome was heavy with curses against his name he withdrew to naples and he was at supper there on march 19th ad 68 the anniversary of his mother's murder when he heard that the first note of revolt had been sounded by the brave c julius vindex prefect of father gall he was so far from being disturbed by the news that he showed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order gall to be plundered for eight days he took no notice of the matter he was only roused to send an address to the senate because vindex wounded his vanity by calling him a he know barbis a bad singer but when messenger after messenger came from the provinces with tidings of menace he hurried back to rome at last when he heard that virginius rufus had also rebelled in germany and galba in spain he became aware of the desperate nature of his position on receiving this intelligence he fainted away and remained for some time unconscious he continued indeed his grossness and frivolity but the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his melodramatic brain he would slay all the exiles he would give up all the provinces to plunder he would order all the galls in the city to be butchered he would have all the senators invited to banquets and would then poison them he would have the city set on fire and the wild beasts of the amphitheater let loose among the people he would depose both the consoles and become sole console himself since legend said that only by a console could galls be conquered he would go with an army to the province and when he got there would do nothing but weep and when he had thus moved the rebels to compassion would next day sing with them at a great festival the ode of victory which he must at once compose not a single manly resolution lent a moment's dignity to his miserable fall sometimes he talked of escaping to austia and arming the sailors at others of escaping to alexandria and earning his bread by his divine voice meanwhile he was hourly subjected to the deadliest insults and terrified by dreams and omens so somber that his faith in the astrologers who had promised him the government of the east and the kingdom of jerusalem began to be rudely shaken when he heard that not a single army or general remained faithful to him he kicked over the table at which he was dining dashed to pieces on the ground two favorite goblets embossed with scenes from the Homeric poems and placed in a golden box some poison furnished to him by locusta the last effort which he contemplated was to mount the rostra beg pardon of the people for his crimes ask them to try him again and at the worst to allow him the prefecture of Egypt but this design he did not dare to carry out from fear that he would be torn to pieces before he reached the forum meanwhile he found that the palace had been deserted by his guards and that his attendants had robbed his chamber even in the golden box in which he had stored his poison rushing out as though to drown himself in the tiber he changed his mind and begged for some quiet hiding place in which to collect his thoughts the freedman feon offered him a lowly villa about four miles from the city barefooted and with a faded coat thrown over his tunic he hid his head and face in a kerchief and rode away with only four attendants on the road he heard the tumult of the praetorians cursing his name amid evil omens and serious perils he reached the back of feon's villa and creeping toward it through a muddy reed bed was secretly admitted into one of its mean slave chambers by an aperture through which he had to crawl on his hands and feet there is no need to dwell on the miserable spectacle of his end perhaps the meanest and most usalanimous which had ever been recorded the poor wretch who without a pang had caused so many brave romans and so many innocent christians to be murdered could not summon up resolution to die he devised every operatic incident of which he could think when even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him he ordered his grave to be dug and fragments of marble to be collected for its adornment and water and wood for its funeral pyre perpetually whining what an artist to perish meanwhile a courier arrived for feon nero snatched his dispatches out of his hand and read that the senate had decided that he should be punished in the ancestral fashion as a public enemy asking what the ancestral fashion was he was informed that he would be stripped naked and scourged to death with rods with his head thrust into a fork horrified at this he seized two daggers and after theatrically trying their edges she'd them again with the excuse that the fatal moment had not yet arrived then he made sporus begin to sing his funeral song and begged someone to show him how to die even his own intense shame at his cowardice was an insufficient stimulus and he wiled away the time in vapid epigrams and pompous quotations the sound of horses hooves then broke on his ears and venting one more greek quotation he held the dagger to his throat it was driven home by epiphruditis one of his literary slaves at this moment the satorian who came to arrest him rushed in nero was not yet dead and under pretense of helping him the centurion began to stench the wound with his cloak too late he said is this your fidelity so he died and the bystanders were horrified with the way in which his eyes seem to be staring out of his head in a rigid stare he had begged that his body might be burned without posthumous insults and this was conceded by icelus the freedman of galba so died the last of the caesars and as robespierre was lamented by his landlady so even nero was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known him in the exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood and by acta who had inspired his youth with the genuine love but his history does not end with his grave he was to live on in the expectation alike of jews and christians the fifth head of the wild beast of the revelation wasn't some sort to reappear as the eighth the head with its diadem and its names of blasphemy had been wounded to death but in the apocalyptic sense the deadly wound was to be healed the roman world could not believe that the air of the defied julian race could be cut off thus suddenly and obscurely and vanish like foam upon the water the christians felt sure that it required something more than an ordinary death stroke to destroy the antichrist and to end the vitality of the wild beast from the abyss who had been the first to set himself in deadly antagonism against the redeemer and to wage war upon the saints of god end of section 14 section 15 of the great events by famous historians volume three this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the great events by famous historians volume three edited by charles f horn rosseter johnson and john rude the great jewish revolt siege and destruction of ad 70 by josephus part one from ad 66 events of great moment occurred in palestine the jews were in the throes of revolt against the roman government at the same time the chief factions of the revolutionary party were constantly fighting each other one of these factions was led by the famous john of qiskala another by simon bargeorus and a third by eliezer these factions of a party which since the reduction of judaea to a roman province soon after the death of herod had resisted the oppression of the procurators were now stirred to revolt by the exactions of the procurator jesius floris the revolutionary party called the zealots gained power and there were many outbreaks in jerusalem the council of the more prudent spirits was disregarded at last roman blood was shed the nobility and priesthood played into the hands of the zealots by applying to floris to put down the revolt floris marched against jerusalem and was badly beaten by the zealots open war henceforth existed josephus a jew of the lineage of aron trained according to the best discipline of his race and who had also been well received at rom was placed by his countrymen in command of the province of galilee afterward as a historian he described the events of the war vespacian who was then rom's greatest general soon came at the head of 60 000 roman soldiers he attacked galilee josephus with such followers as he could gather took position on an almost inaccessible hill in jota pata which the romans for five days stormed in vain then besieged its brave defenders afterward repeatedly assaulted and finally during the night following the 47th day of the siege titus serving under his father vespacian gained possession of the place josephus with 40 of the principal citizens hid in a cave but their refuge was discovered through treachery vespacian was anxious to take josephus alive he sent the tribune nikonor who had been his friend to the jewish leader to induce him with fair promises to surrender josephus was about to give himself up but was prevented by his companions we will care for the honor of our country they said at the same time they offered a sword and a hand that shall use it against thee josephus then proposed that they should all die together but by the hands of one another instead of suicide lots were cast he who drew the first offered his neck to him who stood next and so forward finally through marvelous fortune josephus and one other alone were left and here the slaughter ended the two survivors surrendered to the romans loud cries for the death of josephus arose but he was spared by the intercession of titus the fall of jota pata led to the subjugation of galilee when captured josephus made to vespacian the prophecy thou shalt be emperor thou and thy son after thee a prediction soon to be fulfilled for in ad 69 vespacian was proclaimed emperor and the next year went to rom leaving titus to carry on the war and subdue jerusalem vespacian himself it is recorded released josephus cutting off his chains thus relieving him from all stain of dishonor the capture of jerusalem by titus in this campaign says hausmer is one of the most memorable events in the history of mankind it caused the expulsion of an entire race from its home the roman valor skill and persistence were never more conspicuously displayed no more desperate resistance was ever opposed to the eagle emblemed mistress of the ancient world there is no event of ancient history the details of which are more minutely known the circumstances in all their appalling features are given to us by the eyewitness josephus so that we know them as vividly as we do the events of the career of grant the legions had orders to encamp at the distance of six furlongs from jerusalem at the mount called the mount of olives which lies over against the city on the east side and is parted from it by a deep valley interposed between them which is named cedron now when hither to the several parties in the city had been dashing one against another perpetually this foreign war now suddenly come upon them after a violent manner put the first stop to their contentions one against another and as the seditious now saw with astonishment the romans pitching three several camps they began to think of an awkward sort of concord and said one to another what do we hear and what do we mean when we suffer three fortified walls to be built to coop us in that we shall not be able to breathe freely while the enemy is securely building a kind of city in opposition to us and while we sit still within our own walls and become spectators only of what they are doing with our hands idle and our armor laid by as if they were about someone that was for our good and advantage we are it seems so did they cry out only courageous against ourselves while the romans are likely to gain the city without bloodshed by our sedition thus did they encourage one another when they were gotten together and took their armor immediately and ran out upon the tenth legion and fell upon the romans with great eagerness and with a prodigious shout as they were fortifying their camp these romans were caught in different parties and this in order to perform their several works and on that account had in great measure laid aside their arms for they thought the jews would not have ventured to make a sally upon them and had they been disposed so to do they supposed their sedition would have distracted them so they were put into disorder unexpectedly when some of them left their works they were about and immediately marched off while many ran to their arms but were smitten and slain before they could turn back upon the enemy the jews became still more and more in number as encouraged by the good success of those that first made the attack and while they had such good fortune they seemed both to themselves and to the enemy to be many more than they really were the disorderly way of their fighting at first put the romans also to a stand who had been constantly used to fight skillfully in good order and with keeping their ranks and obeying the orders that were given them for which reason the romans were caught unexpectedly and were obliged to give way to the assaults that were made upon them now when these romans were overtaken and turned back upon the jews they put a stop to their career yet when they did not take care enough of themselves through the vehemence of their pursuit they were wounded by them but as still more and more jews sallied out of the city the romans were at length brought into confusion and put to flight and ran away from their camp nay things looked as though the entire legion would have been in danger unless titus had been informed of the case they were in and had sent them suckers immediately so he reproached them for their cowardice and brought those back that were running away and fell himself upon the jews on their flank with those select troops that were with him and slew a considerable number and wounded more of them and put them all to flight and made them run away hastily down the valley now as these jews suffered greatly in the declivity of the valley so when they were gotten over it they turned about and stood over against the romans having the valley between them and there fought with them thus did they continue the fight till noon but when it was already a little afternoon titus set those that came to the assistance of the romans with him and those that belonged to the cohorts to prevent the jews from making any more salleys and then sent the rest of the legion to the upper part of the mountain to fortify their camp this march of the romans seemed to the jews to be a flight and as the watchman who was placed upon the wall gave a signal by shaking his garment there came out a fresh multitude of jews and that with such mighty violence that one might compare it to the running of the most terrible wild beasts to say the truth none of those that opposed them could sustain the fury with which they made their attacks but as if they had been cast out of an engine they break the enemy's ranks to pieces who were put to flight and ran away to the mountain none but titus himself and a few others with him being left in the midst of the eclivity now these others who were his friends despised the danger they were in and were ashamed to leave their general earnestly exhorting him to give way to these jews that are fond of dying and not to run into such dangers before those that ought to stay before him to consider what his fortune was and not by supplying the place of a common soldier to venture to turn back upon the enemy so suddenly and this because he was general in the war and lord of the habitable earth on whose preservation the public affairs do all depend these persuasions titus seemed not so much as to hear but opposed those that ran upon him and smote them on the face and when he had forced them to go back he slew them he also fell upon great numbers as they marched down the hill and thrust them forward while those men were so amazed at his courage and his strength that they could not fly directly to the city but declined from him on both sides and pressed after those that fled up the hill yet did he still fall upon their flank and put a stop to their fury in the meantime a disorder and a terror fell again upon those that were fortifying their camp at the top of the hill upon their seeing those beneath them running away in so much that the whole legion was dispersed while they thought that the sallies of the jews upon them were plainly insupportable and that titus was himself put to flight because they took it for granted that if he had stayed the rest would never have fled for it thus were they encompassed on every side by a kind of panic fear and some dispersed themselves one way and some another till certain of them saw their general in the very midst of an action and being under great concern for him they loudly proclaimed the danger he was in to the entire legion and now shame made them turn back and they reproached one another that they did worse than run away by deserting Caesar so they used their utmost force against the jews and declining from the straight declivity they drove them on heaps into the bottom of the valley then did the jews turn about and fight them but as they were themselves retiring and now because the romans had the advantage of the ground and were above the jews they drove them all into the valley as now the war abroad ceased for a while the sedition within was revived and on the feast of unleavened bread which was now come it being the 14th day of the month xanthicus nisan when it is believed the jews were first freed from the egyptians eleazar and his party opened the gates of this inmost court of the temple and admitted such of the people as were desirous to worship god into it but john made use of this festival as a cloak for his treacherous designs and armed the most inconsiderable of his own party the greater part of whom were not purified with weapons concealed under their garments and sent them with great zeal into the temple in order to seize upon it which armed men when they were gotten in threw their garments away and presently appeared in their armor upon which there was a very great disorder and disturbance about the holy house while the people who had no concern in the sedition supposed that this assault was made against all without distinction as the zealots thought it was made against themselves only so these left off guarding the gates any longer and leaped down from their battlements before they came to an engagement and fled away into the subterranean caverns of the temple while the people that stood trembling at the altar and about the holy house were rolled on heaps together and trampled upon and were beaten both with wooden and with iron weapons without mercy such also as had differences with others slew many persons that were quiet out of their own private enmity and hatred as if they were opposite to the seditious and all those that had formerly offended any of these plotters were now known and were now led away to the slaughter and when they had done abundance of horrid mischief to the guiltless they granted a truce to the guilty and let those go off that came out of the caverns these followers of john also did now seize upon this inner temple and upon all the warlike engines therein and then ventured to oppose simon and thus that sedition which had been divided into three factions was now reduced to two but titus intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city than scopus placed as many of his choice horsemen and footmen as he thought sufficient opposite to the jews to prevent their sallying out upon them while he gave orders for the whole army to level the distance as far as the wall of the city so they threw down all the hedges and walls which the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees and cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the city and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms and demolished the rocky precipices with iron instruments and thereby made all the place level from scopus to hered's monuments which adjoined to the pool called the serpent's pool now at this very time the jews contrived the following stratagem against the romans the bolder sort of the seditious went out at the towers called the women's towers as if they had been ejected out of the city by those who were for peace and rambled about as if they were afraid of being assaulted by the romans and were in fear of one another while those that stood upon the wall and seemed to be of the people's side cried out aloud for peace and entreated they might have security for their lives given them and called for the romans promising to open the gates to them and as they cried out after that manner they threw stones at their own people as though they would drive them away from the gates these also pretended that they were excluded by force and that they petitioned those that were within to let them in and rushing upon the romans perpetually with violent they then came back and seemed to be in great disorder now the roman soldiers thought this cunning stratagem of theirs was to be believed real and thinking they had the one party under their power and could punish them as they pleased and hoping that the other party would open their gates to them set to the execution of their designs accordingly but for Titus himself he had this surprising conduct of the jews in suspicion for whereas he had invited them to come to terms of accommodation by Josephus but one day before he could then receive no civil answer from them so he ordered the soldiers to stay where they were however some of them that were set in the front of the works prevented him and catching up their arms ran to the gates whereupon those that seemed to have been ejected at the first retired but as soon as the soldiers were gotten between the towers on each side of the gate the jews ran out and encompassed them round and fell upon them behind while that multitude which stood upon the wall threw a heap of stones and darts of all kinds at them in so much that they slew a considerable number and wounded many more for it was not easy for the romans to escape by reason those behind them pressed them forward besides which the shame they were under for being mistaken and the fear they were in of their commanders engaged them to persevere in their mistake wherefore they fought with their spears a great while and received many blows from the jews though indeed they gave them as many blows again and at last repelled those that had encompassed them about while the jews pursued them as they retired and followed them and threw darts at them as far as the monuments of queen helena now the warlike men that were in the city and the multitude of the seditious that were with simon were ten thousand besides the idoumians those ten thousand had fifty commanders over whom this simon was supreme the idoumians that paid him homage were five thousand and had eight commanders among whom those of greatest fame were jacob the son of sosis and simon the son of cathlas john who had seized upon the temple had six thousand armed men under twenty commanders the zealots also that had come over to him and left off their opposition were two thousand four hundred and had the same commander that they had formerly eliezer together with simon the son of arenas now while these factions fought one against another the people were their prey on both sides and that part of the people who would not join with them in their wicked practices were plundered by both factions simon held the upper city and the great wall as far as sedron and as much of the old wall as bent from siloam to the east and which went down to the palace of monobazus who was king of the adiabani beyond euphrates he also held that fountain and the akra which was no other than the lower city he also held all that reached to the palace of queen helena the mother of monobazus but john held the temple and the parts there too adjoining for a great way as also offla and the valley called the valley of sedron and when the parts that were interposed between their possessions were burned by them they left a space wherein they might fight with each other for this internal sedition did not cease even when the romans were encamped near their very walls but although they had grown wiser at the first onset the romans made upon them this lasted but a while for they returned to their former madness and separated one from another and fought it out and did everything that the besiegers could desire them to do for they never suffered anything that was worse from the romans than they made each other suffer nor was there any misery endured by the city after these men's actions that could be esteemed new but it was most of all unhappy before it was overthrown while those that took it did it a greater kindness for i venture to affirm that the sedition destroyed the city and the romans destroyed the sedition which it was a much harder thing to do than to destroy the walls so that we may justly ascribe our misfortunes to our own people and the just vengeance taken on them to the romans as to which matter let everyone determined by the actions on both sides now when affairs within the city were in this posture titus went round the city on the outside with some chosen horsemen and looked about for a proper place where he might make an impression upon the walls but as he was in doubt where he could possibly make an attack on any side for the place was no way accessible where the valleys were and on the other side the first wall appeared too strong to be shaken by the engines he thereupon thought it best to make his assault upon the monument of john the high priest for there it was that the first fortification was lower and the second was not joined to it the builders neglecting to build strong where the new city was not much inhabited here also was an easy passage to the third wall through which he thought to take the upper city and through the tower of antonia the temple itself but at this time as he was going round about the city one of his friends whose name was nicanor was wounded with a dart on his left shoulder as he approached together with josephus to near the wall and attempted to discourse to those that were upon the wall about terms of peace for he was a person known by them on this account it was that caesar as soon as he knew their vehemence that they would not bear even such as approach them to persuade them what tended to their own preservation was provoked to press on the siege he also at the same time gave his soldiers leave to set the suburbs on fire and ordered that they should bring timber together and raise banks against the city and when he had parted his army into three parts in order to set about those works he placed those that shot darts and the archers in the midst of the banks that were then raising before whom he placed those engines that threw javelins and darts and stones that he might prevent the enemy from sallying out upon their works and might hinder those that were upon the wall from being able to obstruct them so the trees were now cut down immediately and the suburbs left naked but now while the timber was being carried to raise the banks and the whole army was earnestly engaged in their works the Jews were not however quiet and it happened that the people of Jerusalem who had been hitherto plundered and murdered were now of good courage and supposed they should have a breathing time while the others were very busy in opposing their enemies without the city and that they should now be avenged on those that had been the authors of their miseries in case the romans did but get the victory however john stayed behind out of his fear of simon even while his own men were earnest in making a sally upon their enemies without yet did not simon lie still for he lay near the place of the siege he brought his engines of war and disposed of them at due distances upon the wall both those which they took from cestius formerly and those which they got when they seized the garrison that lay in the tower antonia but though they had these engines in their possession they had so little skill in using them that they were in great measure useless to them but a few there were who had been taught by deserters how to use them which they did use though after an awkward manner so they cast stones and arrows at those that were making the banks they also ran out upon them by companies and fought with them now those that were at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over their banks and their engines were opposed to them when they made their excursions the engines that all the legions had ready prepared for them were admirably contrived but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the 10th legion those that threw darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest by which they not only repelled the excursions of the jews but drove those away that were upon the walls also now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent and were carried two furlongs and farther the blow they gave was no way to be sustained not only by those that stood first in the way but by those that were beyond them for a great space as for the jews they at first watched the coming of the stone for it was of a white color and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made but could be seen also before it came by its brightness accordingly the watchman that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go and the stone came from it and cried out aloud in their own country language the sun cometh so those that were in its way stood off and threw themselves down upon the ground by which means and by their thus guarding themselves the stone fell down and did them no harm but the romans contrived how to prevent that by lacking the stone who then could aim at them with success when the stone was not discerned beforehand as it had been till then and so they destroyed many of them at one blow yet did not the jews under all this distress permit the romans to raise their banks in quiet but they shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves and repelled them both by night and by day end of section 15 recording by linda johnson section 16 of the great events by famous historians volume three this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org the great events by famous historians volume three edited by charles f horn rosseter johnson and john root the great jewish revolt siege and destruction of jerusalem ad 70 by josephus part two and now upon the finishing the roman works the workmen measured the distance there was from the wall and this by lead and a line which they threw to it from their banks for it they could not measure it any otherwise because the jews would shoot at them if they came to measure it themselves and when they found that the engines could reach the wall they brought them thither then did titus set his engines at proper distances so much nearer to the wall that the jews might not be able to repel them and gave orders they should go to work and when they're upon a prodigious noise echoed round about from three places and that on a sudden there was a great noise made by the citizens that were within the city and no less a terror fell upon the seditious themselves where upon both sorts seeing the common danger they were in contrived to make a like defense so those of different factions cried out one to another that they acted entirely as in concert with their enemies whereas they ought however notwithstanding god did not grant them a lasting concord in their present circumstances to lay aside their enmities one against another and to unite together against the romans accordingly simon gave those that came from the temple leave by proclamation to go upon the wall john also himself though he could not believe simon was in earnest gave them the same leave so on both sides they laid aside their hatred and their peculiar quarrels and formed themselves into one body they then ran round the walls and having a vast number of torches with them threw them at the machines and shot darts perpetually upon those that impelled those engines which battered the wall nay the boulder sort leaped out by troops upon the hurdles that covered the machines and pulled them to pieces and fell upon those that belonged to them and beat them not so much by any skill they had as principally by the boldness of their attacks however titus himself still sent assistance to those that were the hardest to be set and placed both horsemen and archers on the several sides of the engines and thereby beat off those that brought the fire to them he also thereby repelled those that shot stones or darts from the towers and then set the engines to work in good earnest yet did not the wall yield to these blows accepting where the battering ram of the 15th legion moved the corner of a tower while the wall itself continued unhurt for the wall was not presently in the same danger with the tower which was extant far above it nor could the fall of that part of the tower easily break down any part of the wall itself together with it and now the jews intermitted their sallies for a while but when they observed the romans dispersed all abroad at their works and in their several camps for they thought the jews had retired out of weariness and fear they all at once made a sally at the tower hippicus through an obscure gate and at the same time brought fire to burn the works and went boldly up to the romans and to their very fortifications themselves where at the cry they made those that were near them came presently to their assistance and those farther off came running after them and here the boldness of the jews was too hard for the good order of the romans and as they beat those whom they first fell upon so they pressed upon those that were now gotten together so this fight about the machines was very hot while the one side tried hard to set them on fire and the other side to prevent it on both sides there was a confused cry made and many of those in the forefront of the battle were slain however the jews were now too hard for the romans by the furious assaults they made like madmen and the fire caught hold of the works and both all those works and the engines themselves had been in danger of being burned had not many of those select soldiers that came from alexandria opposed themselves to prevent it and had they not behaved themselves with greater courage than they themselves supposed they could have done for they outdid those in this fight that had greater reputation than themselves this was the state of things till caesar took the stoutest of his horsemen and attacked the enemy while he himself slew twelve of those that were in the forefront of the jews which death of these men when the rest of the multitude saw they gave way and he pursued them and drove them all into the city and saved the works from the fire now it happened at this fight that a certain jew was taken alive who by titus's order was crucified before the wall to see whether the rest of them would be a frighted and a bait of their obstinacy but after the jews were retired john who was commander of the idumians and was talking to a certain soldier of his acquaintance before the wall was wounded by a dart shot at him by an arabian and died immediately leaving the greatest lamentation to the jews and sorrow to the seditious for he was a man of great eminence both for his actions and his conduct also now on the next night a surprising disturbance fell upon the romans for whereas titus had given orders for the erection of three towers of fifty cubits high that by setting men upon them at every bank he might from thence drive those away who were upon the wall it so happened that one of these towers fell down about midnight and as its fall made a very great noise fear fell upon the army and they supposing that the enemy was coming to attack them ran all to their arms whereupon a disturbance and a tumult arose among the legions and as nobody could tell what had happened they went on after a disconsolate manner and seeing no enemy appear they were afraid one of another and everyone demanded of his neighbor the watchword with great earnestness as though the jews had invaded their camp and now were they like people under a panic fear until titus was informed of what had happened and gave orders that all should be acquainted with it and then though with some difficulty they got clear of the disturbance they had been under now these towers were very troublesome to the jews who otherwise opposed the romans very courageously for they shot at them out of their lighter engines from those towers as they did also by those that threw darts and the archers and those that flung stones for neither could the jews reach those that were over them by reason of their height and it was not practicable to take them nor to overturn them they were so heavy nor to set them on fire because they were covered with plates of iron so they retired out of the reach of the darts and did no longer endeavor to hinder the impression of their rams which by continually beating upon the wall did gradually prevail against it so that the wall already gave way to the nico for by that name did the jews themselves call the greatest of their engines because it conquered all things and now they were for a long while grown weary of fighting and of keeping guards and were retired to lodge in the nighttime at a distance from the wall it was on other accounts also thought by them to be superfluous to guard the wall there being besides that two other fortifications still remaining and they being slothful and their councils having been ill concerted on all occasions so a great many grew lazy and retired then the romans mounted the breach where nico had made one and all the jews left the guarding that wall and retreated to the second wall so those that had gotten over that wall opened the gates and received all the army within it and thus did the romans get possession of this first wall on the fifteenth day of the siege which was the seventh day of the month artemisius giar when they demolished a great part of it as well as they did of the northern parts of the city which had been demolished also by cestius formerly and now titus pitched his camp within the city at that place which was called the camp of the assyrians having seized upon all that lay as far as cedron but took care to be out of the reach of the jews darts he then presently began his attacks upon which the jews divided themselves into several bodies and courageously defended that wall while john and his faction did it from the tower of antonia and from the northern cloister of the temple and fought the romans before the monuments of king alexander and simon's army also took for their share the spot of ground that was near john's monument and fortified it as far as to that gate where water was brought in to the tower hippicus however the jews made violent sallies and that frequently also and in bodies together out of the gates and there fought the romans and when they were pursued all together to the wall they were beaten in those fights as wanting the skill of the romans but when they fought them from the walls they were too hard for them the romans being encouraged by their power joined to their skill as were the jews by their boldness which was nourished by the fear they were in and that hardiness which is natural to our nation under calamities they were also encouraged still by the hope of deliverance as were the romans by their hopes of subduing them in a little time nor did either side grow weary but attacks and fighting upon the wall and perpetual sallies out in bodies were there all the day long nor were there any sort of warlike engagements that were not then put in use and the night itself had much adieu to part them when they began to fight in the morning nay the night itself was passed without sleep on both sides and was more uneasy than the day to them while the one was afraid lest the wall should be taken and the other lest the jews should make sallies upon their camps both sides also lay in their armor during the night time and thereby were ready at the first appearance of light to go to the battle now among the jews the ambition was who should undergo the first dangers and thereby gratify their commanders above all they had a great veneration and dread of simon and to that degree he was regarded by every one of those that were under him that at his command they were very ready to kill themselves with their own hands what made the romans so courageous was their usual custom of conquering and disuse of being defeated their constant wars and perpetual warlike exercises and the grandeur of their dominion and what was now their chief encouragement titus who was present everywhere with them all for it appeared a terrible thing to grow weary while caesar was there and fought bravely as well as they did was himself at once an eye witness of such as behaved themselves valiantly and he was to reward them also it was besides esteemed an advantage at present to have anyone's valour known by caesar on which account many of them appear to have more alacrity than strength to answer it and now as the jews were about this time standing in a ray before the wall and that in a strong body and while both parties were throwing their darts at each other longinas one of the equestrian order leaped out of the army of the romans and leaped into the very midst of the army of the jews and as they dispersed themselves upon this attack he slew two of their men of the greatest courage one of them he struck in his mouth as he was coming to meet him the other was slain by him by that very dart which he drew out of the body of the other with which he ran this man through his side as he was running away from him and when he had done this he first of all ran out of the midst of his enemies to his own side so this man signalized himself for his valour and many there were who were ambitious of gaining the like reputation and now the jews were unconcerned at what they suffered themselves from the romans and were only solicitous about what mischief they could do them and death itself seemed a small matter to them if at the same time they could but kill any one of their enemies but titus took care to secure his own soldiers from harm as well as to have them overcome their enemies he also said that inconsiderate violence was madness and that this alone was the true courage that was joined with good conduct he therefore commanded his men to take care when they fought their enemies that they received no harm from them at the same time and thereby show themselves to be truly valiant men and now titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower of the north part of the wall in which a certain crafty jew whose name was castor lay in ambush with ten others like himself the rest being fled away by reason of the archers these men lay still for a while as in great fear under their breastplates but when the tower was shaken they arose and castor did then stretch out his hand as a petitioner and called for caesar and by his voice moved his compassion and begged of him to have mercy upon them and titus in the innocencey of his heart believing him to be in earnest and hoping that the jews did now repent stopped the working of the battering ram and forbade them to shoot at the petitioners and bid castor say what he had a mind to say to him he said that he would come down if he would give him his right hand for his security to which titus replied that he was well pleased with such his agreeable conduct and would be well pleased if all the jews would be of his mind and that he was ready to give the like security to the city now five of the ten dissembled with him and pretended to beg for mercy while the rest cried out aloud that they would never be slaves to the romans while it was in their power to die in a state of freedom now while these men were quarreling for a long while the attack was delayed castor also sent to simon and told him that they might take some time for consultation about what was to be done because he would elude the power of the romans for a considerable time and at the same time that he sent thus to him he appeared openly to exhort those that were obstinate to accept of titus's hand for their security but they seemed very angry at it and brandished their naked swords upon the breastworks and struck themselves upon their breast and fell down as if they had been slain here upon titus and those with him were amazed at the courage of the men and as they were not able to see exactly what was done they admired at their great fortitude and pitted their calamity during this interval a certain person shot a dart at castor and wounded him in his nose whereupon he presently pulled out the dart and showed it to titus and complained that this was unfair treatment so caesar reproved him that shot the dart and sent josephus who then stood by him to give his right hand to castor but josephus said that he would not go to him because these pretended petitioners meant nothing that was good he also restrained those friends of his who were zealous to go to him but still there was one ineus a deserter who said he would go to him castor also called to them that somebody should come and receive the money which he had with him this made ineus the more earnestly to run to him with his bosom open then did castor take up a great stone and threw it at him which missed him because he guarded himself against it but still it wounded another soldier that was coming to him when caesar understood that this was a delusion he perceived that mercy in war is a pernicious thing because such cunning tricks have less place under the exercise of greater severity so he caused the engine to work more strongly than before on account of his anger at the deceit put upon him but castor and his companions set the tower on fire when it began to give way and leaped through the flame into a hidden vault that was under it which made the romans further suppose that they were men of great courage as having cast themselves into the fire now caesar took this wall there on the fifth day after he had taken the first and when the jews had fled from him he entered into it with a thousand armed men and those of his choice troops and this at a place where were the merchants of wool the braziers and the market for cloth and where the narrow streets led obliquely to the wall wherefore if titus had either demolished a larger part of the wall immediately or had come in and according to the law of war had laid waste what was left his victory would not I suppose have been mixed with any loss to himself but now out of the hope he had that he should make the jews ashamed of their obstinacy by not being willing when he was able to afflict them more than he needed to do he did not widen the breach of the wall in order to make a safer retreat upon occasion for he did not think they would lay snares for him that did them such a kindness when therefore he came in he did not permit his soldiers to kill any of those they caught nor to set fire to their houses neither nay he gave leave to the seditious if they had a mind to fight without any harm to the people and promised to restore the people's effect to them for he was very desirous to preserve the city for his own sake and the temple for the sake of the city as to the people he had them of a long time ready to comply with his proposals but as to the fighting men this humanity of his seemed a mark of his weakness and they imagined that he made these proposals because he was not able to take the rest of the city they also threatened death to the people if they should any one of them say a word about a surrender they moreover cut the throats of such as talked of a peace and then attacked those romans that were come within the wall some of them they met in the narrow streets and some they fought against from their houses while they made a sudden sally out at the upper gates and assaulted such romans as were beyond the wall till those that guarded the wall were so affrighted that they leaped down from their towers and retired to their several camps upon which a great noise was made by the romans that were within because they were encompassed round on every side by their enemies as also by them that were without because they were in fear for those that were left in the city thus did the jews grow more numerous perpetually and had great advantages over the romans by their full knowledge of those narrow lanes and they wounded a great many of them and fell upon them and drove them out of the city now these romans were at present forced to make the best resistance they could for they were not able in great numbers to get out at the breach in the wall it was so narrow it is also probable that all those that were gotten within had been cut to pieces if titus had not sent them suckers for he ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of these narrow lanes and he stood himself where was the greatest multitude of his enemies and with his darts he put a stop to them as with him did domicius sabonus also a valiant man and one that in this battle appeared so to be thus did Caesar continue to shoot darts at the jews continually and to hinder them from coming upon his men and this until all his soldiers had retreated out of the city and thus were the romans driven out after they had possessed themselves of the second wall where upon the fighting men that were in the city were lifted up in their minds and were elevated upon this their good success and began to think that the romans would never venture to come into the city anymore and that if they kept within it themselves they should not be any more conquered for god had blinded their minds for the transgressions they had been guilty of nor could they see how much greater forces the romans had than those that were now expelled no more than they could discern how a famine was creeping upon them for hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries and drank the blood of the city but now poverty had for a long time seized upon the better part and a great many had died already for want of necessaries although the seditious indeed supposed the destruction of the people to be an easement to themselves for they desired that none others might be preserved but such as were against a peace with the romans and were resolved to live in opposition to them and they were pleased when the multitude of those of a contrary opinion were consumed as being then freed from a heavy burden and this was their disposition of mind with regard to those that were within the city while they covered themselves with their armor and prevented the romans when they were trying to get into the city again and made a wall of their own bodies over against that part of the wall that was cast down thus did they valiantly defend themselves for three days but on the fourth day they could not support themselves against the vehement assaults of Titus but were compelled by force to fly whither they had fled before so he quietly possessed himself again of that wall and demolished it entirely and when he had put a garrison into the towers that were on the south parts of the city he contrived how he might assault the third wall a resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little while and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration and to see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a little more compliant or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a famine because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be sufficient for them long so he made use of this relaxation in order to compass his own designs accordingly as the usual appointed time when he must distribute subsistence money to the soldiers was now come he gave orders that the commanders should put the army into battle array in the face of the enemy and then give every one of the soldiers his pay the Romans spent four days in bringing this subsistence money to the several legions but on the fifth day when no signs of peace appeared to come from the Jews Titus divided his legions and began to raise banks both at the tower of Antonia and at John's monument now his designs were to take the upper city at that monument and the temple at the tower of Antonia for if the temple were not taken it would be dangerous to keep the city itself so at each of these parts he raised him banks each legion raising one as for those that wrought at John's monument the Idumeans and those that were in arms with Simon made sallies upon them and put some stock to them while John's party and the multitude of zealots with them did the like to those that were before the tower of Antonia these Jews were now too hard for the Romans not only in direct fighting because they stood upon the higher ground but because they had now learned to use their own engines for their continual use of them one day after another did by degrees improve their skill about them for of one sort of engines for darts they had 300 and 40 for stones by the means of which they made it more tedious for the Romans to raise their banks but then Titus knowing that the city would be either saved or destroyed for himself did not only proceed earnestly in the siege but did not omit to have the Jews exhorted to repentance so he mixed good counsel with his works for the siege and being sensible that exhortations are frequently more effectual than arms he persuaded them to surrender the city now in a manner already taken and thereby to save themselves and sent Josephus to speak to them in their own language for he imagined they might yield to the persuasion of a countrymen of their own as Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice the seditious would neither yield to what he said nor did they deem it safe for them to alter their conduct but as for the people they had a great inclination to desert to the Romans accordingly some of them sold what they had and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by them for a very small matter and swallowed down pieces of gold that they might not be found out by the robbers and when they had escaped to the Romans went to stool and had wherewithal to provide plentifully for themselves for Titus let a great number of them go away into the country whither they pleased and the main reasons why they were so ready to desert were these that now they should be freed from those miseries which they had endured in that city and yet should not be in slavery to the Romans however John and Simon with their factions did more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming in of the Romans and if anyone did but afford the least shadow of suspicion of such an intention his throat was cut immediately but as for the richer sort it proved all one to them whether they stayed in the city or attempted to get out of it for they were equally destroyed in both cases for every such person was put to death under this pretense that they were going to desert but in reality that the robbers might get what they had the madness of the seditious did also increase together with their famine and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and more for there was no corn which anywhere appeared publicly but the robbers came running into and searched men's private houses and then if they found any they tormented them because they had denied they had any and if they found none they tormented them worse because they supposed they had more carefully concealed it the indication they made use of whether they had any or not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches which if they were in good case they supposed they were in no want at all of food but if they were wasted away they walked off without searching any further nor did they think it proper to kill such as these because they saw they would very soon die of themselves from want of food many there were indeed who sold what they had for one measure it was of wheat if they were of the richer sort but of barley if they were poorer when these had so done they shut themselves up in the inmost rooms of their houses and ate the corn they had gotten some did it without grinding it by reason of the extremity of the want they were in and others baked bread of it according as necessity and fear dictated to them a table was nowhere laid for a distinct meal but they snatched the bread out of the fire half baked and ate it very hastily end of section 16 recording by linda johnson