Jewish War — Book 5

Josephus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

Titus, having crossed the desert above Egypt as far as Syria in the manner already described, arrived at Caesarea, having decided to organize his forces there first. But while he was still in Alexandria helping his father settle into the command newly entrusted to them by God, it happened that the sedition in Jerusalem, which had already flared up, split into three factions, and one of these turned against the others—

a development one might call, amid the general evil, a kind of good, and the work of justice. The assault of the Zealots on the populace, which set in motion the city's capture, has already been described in full detail—its origin and the extent of the harm it grew to. But one would not be wrong to say that this new outbreak was sedition arising within sedition, and that, like a rabid beast which, for want of prey from outside, turns on its own flesh, so it was with Eleazar son of Simon.

He was the very man who had first led the Zealots to break away from the populace into the temple precinct, professing outrage at John's daily acts of daring—for John never rested from killing—but in truth unwilling to submit to a tyrant who had risen after him. Driven by desire for total control and by ambition for power of his own, he broke away, taking with him Judas son of Chelcias and Simon son of Ezron, men of standing, along with Hezekiah son of Chobar, no obscure figure. Not a few of the Zealots followed each of them, and, seizing the inner court of the temple above the sacred gates, they set up their weapons upon the holy porches. Being well supplied with provisions, they grew bold—for there was no shortage of sacred stores for those who counted nothing impious.

But being few in number relative to their situation, they grew fearful and, keeping to their position, stayed put for the most part. John, for all his advantage in numbers of men, was correspondingly disadvantaged in position, and with the enemy holding the high ground over him, he neither made his attacks without fear nor kept still out of anger; suffering more harm than he inflicted on Eleazar's men, he nonetheless would not let up. Constant sallies and volleys of missiles went on, and the temple was everywhere defiled with slaughter.

Simon son of Gioras, whom the people, in their desperate straits, had brought in as an invited tyrant of their own, in hope of relief, now held the upper city and much of the lower, and pressed his attacks on John's men all the more vigorously, since they too were under attack from above. He was, in effect, closing in on them from below just as those above were closing in on them. And so, with John fighting on two fronts, it came about that he both suffered harm and inflicted it with equal ease: to the extent that he was worsted by being lower than Eleazar's party, to that same extent he had the advantage of height over Simon's. He therefore used his hand-weapons to fend off the attacks from below with force, while checking those hurling javelins down from the temple above by means of his engines—for he had no small number of quick-firing catapults, stone-throwers, and the like.

With these he not only warded off his attackers but also killed many who were performing the sacred rites. For though they had abandoned themselves to every kind of impiety, they still let in those who wished to sacrifice—watching the locals with suspicion and searching visitors closely. Yet those who, despite passing this scrutiny at the entrances and shaming their captors' cruelty, made it inside became mere fuel consumed by the sedition.

For missiles from the engines, carried by their force all the way to the altar and the sanctuary, fell upon the priests and those performing the rites, and many who had hastened from the ends of the earth to that place—sacred and revered by all people, in a single name known to both—fell before their own offerings, and drenched with their own blood that altar honored by both Greeks and barbarians alike; corpses of natives and foreigners, of priests and the profane, were heaped together, and the blood of every sort of body pooled within the sacred courts.

What suffering so great, O most wretched city, have you endured at the hands of the Romans, who came in only to purge with fire the pollutions your own people had brought upon you! For you were no longer God's dwelling place, nor could you remain so, having become a tomb for the bodies of your own people, and having turned the temple into a burial ground of civil war. Yet you might still become better again—if only you will one day appease the God who laid you waste.

But I must restrain even my own feelings, in keeping with the law of the narrative, since this is not the moment for private lamentation but for a recounting of events. I will now go through what followed in the course of the sedition.

With the city's would-be masters divided three ways, Eleazar's men, who guarded the sacred first-fruits, vented their drunken fury against John; those with John plundered the citizens and rose up against Simon; and Simon, in turn, found the city itself his sustenance against his rivals. Whenever John was attacked from both sides at once, he would turn his men about, striking those advancing from the city from the direction of the porticoes, while warding off with his engines those hurling javelins from the temple. But whenever he found himself free of the pressure from above—often, since drink and exhaustion gave his enemies pause—he would sally out with greater numbers and less fear against Simon's men.

And wherever he drove them back within the city, he would set fire to the houses, full of grain and every kind of provision; and Simon, in turn, did the very same thing when John withdrew and he advanced—as if the two of them were deliberately helping the Romans by destroying what the city had prepared for the siege, and cutting the very sinews of their own strength. As a result, everything around the temple was consumed by fire, and the city became a wasteland lying between two camps of its own people; nearly all the grain, which would have sufficed them for many years of siege, was burned up. It was famine, then, that took the city—something that need never have happened, had they not brought it upon themselves.

With the city under attack on every side by these plotters and their rabble, the populace in between was torn apart like some great body. The old and the women, in their helplessness before the evils within, prayed for the Romans and longed for the war from outside as a release from the miseries within. Terrible dread and fear gripped the honest citizens; there was no chance to deliberate a change of course, no hope of a settlement, and no escape for those who wished it, for everything was under guard, and the ringleaders of the brigands, still quarreling over everything else, agreed on one thing only—killing those who deserved to live, treating them as common enemies whether they favored peace with Rome or were merely suspected of wanting to desert. The shouting of the combatants never ceased, by day or by night, but more terrible still were the wails of the mourners, cried out in dread.

Their sorrows gave them endless fresh occasions for lament, yet their own terror stifled the cries; muzzled by fear, they were tormented by groans stifled deep within. No one showed any regard any longer for the living among their own kin, nor any concern for the burial of the dead—both stemming from each person's private despair, for those who took no part in the fighting had given up all effort in everything, since they expected to perish at any moment regardless.

Trampling over the corpses heaped one upon another, the fighters grappled with each other, growing wilder by drawing their frenzy from the bodies underfoot. Constantly devising some new means of ruin against their own people, and doing without restraint whatever was decided, they left untried no path of outrage or cruelty. Indeed, John even put the sacred timber to use in constructing engines of war: for the people and the chief priests had once resolved to shore up the temple and raise it twenty cubits higher, and King Agrippa, at enormous cost and effort, had brought down from Lebanon timber suited to the purpose—beams remarkable both for their straightness and their size. But the war intervened and cut short the project, and John cut up the timber and built towers of a height sufficient for fighting those above him in the temple.

He set these towers up, brought forward behind the enclosure directly opposite the western portico—the one place where such an approach was possible, since all the other sections were separated by steps set some distance back. And so he hoped to master his enemies with engines built from an act of impiety; but God showed his labor to be useless, bringing the Romans against him before he could set a single tower in place. For Titus, once he had gathered part of his forces to himself and ordered the rest to meet him before Jerusalem, marched out from Caesarea.

There were three legions that had previously ravaged Judea together with his father, and, in addition, the twelfth, which had once suffered defeat under Cestius—a legion otherwise distinguished for its valor, and which now, mindful of what it had once suffered, advanced to take revenge with all the greater eagerness.

Of these he ordered the fifth to meet him by way of Emmaus, and the tenth to come up by way of Jericho, while he himself set out with the rest, joined also by far larger contingents of allied kings and numerous auxiliaries from Syria. The full strength of the four legions was likewise restored with troops that Vespasian had selected and sent along with Titus, out of those Mucianus had brought with him to Italy; for two thousand picked men from the forces at Alexandria and three thousand from the guards along the Euphrates accompanied him. Among his friends, the most esteemed for loyalty and judgment was Tiberius Alexander, who had previously governed Egypt for them and now commanded the forces—judged worthy of this, by the welcome he had given to their newly rising power, of being among the first to attach himself, with conspicuous good faith, to a fortune still uncertain; and now, given his seniority and his experience, he served Titus as an advisor in the needs of the war.

As Titus advanced into enemy territory, the allied kings and all the auxiliary forces went ahead, followed by road-builders and camp-surveyors; then came the officers' baggage-train, and behind their armed escorts, Titus himself, with his other picked troops and the lance-bearers; behind his unit came the cavalry. These rode ahead of the siege engines, and after them the tribunes and cohort commanders with their picked men; then, around the eagle, came the standards, with the trumpeters preceding the standards, and after them the main body of infantry, spread six abreast. The servants of each legion came behind, and ahead of them the baggage-train, while last of all came the hired troops, with their own guards bringing up the rear.

Leading his forces forward in good order, as is customary for the Romans, he marched through Samaria into Gophna, a town previously seized by his father and now under garrison. There, after camping one evening, he set out again toward dawn, and after a day's march, made camp at the place the Jews traditionally call the Valley of Thorns, near a village called Gabath Saul, meaning "the hill of Saul," about thirty stadia from Jerusalem.

From there he took with him about six hundred picked cavalry and rode ahead to reconnoiter the city, to gauge its defenses and the temper of the Jews—whether the sight of him, before matters came to blows, would make them lose heart and yield. For he had learned, and it was indeed true, that the populace, cowed by the rebels and the brigands, longed for peace but, being too weak, could not rise up against the insurrection.

So long as he rode straight up the highway leading to the wall, no one showed himself at the gates; but when he turned off the road toward the Psephinus tower, veering his troop of cavalry off to the side, countless numbers suddenly sprang out near the towers called the Women's Towers, bursting out through the gate opposite the tombs of Helena, and cut off the cavalry there. Those still running along the road they blocked by standing to face them, preventing them from joining those who had turned aside, and they cut Titus himself off with only a few companions.

He could not advance, for the ground around the gardens had been dug into trenches from the wall, and was broken up everywhere by cross-walls and many enclosures; and he saw that to retreat to his own men was impossible, given the mass of enemies in between, and that most of those who had fled along the highway did not even realize the king was in danger, but supposing that he had turned back with them, fled on themselves. Seeing that his safety now rested solely on his own courage, he wheeled his horse about, called out to those with him to follow, and plunged into the midst of the enemy,

forcing his way through to break out to his own men. It was here, above all, that one could grasp how the turns of war and the perils of kings are matters of concern to God: for though so many missiles were hurled at Titus, who wore neither helmet nor breastplate—having ridden out, as I said, not as a combatant but as a scout—not one touched his body, but all flew wide, as if by design missing their mark entirely. Slashing with his sword at those beside him,

constantly cutting them down and overturning many who faced him, he drove his horse over the fallen. His enemies raised a shout at Caesar's daring, and urged one another on to charge him, yet wherever he rode against them there was flight and a scattering of the crowd. Those sharing his danger kept close together, struck at from behind and from the side, for each man's one hope of survival was to keep pace with Titus and not fall behind to be surrounded.

Two of those farther back were in fact surrounded, one cut down along with his horse by javelins, and the other, leaping down, killed his horse and was carried off on foot; but with the rest, Titus made it safely back to camp. This unexpected success in their first encounter roused the spirits of the Jews, and the momentary advantage gave them great confidence for what lay ahead.

When, that night, the legion from Emmaus joined him, Caesar set out from there the next day and advanced to the place called Scopus, from which the city already came into view, along with the gleaming mass of the temple—for the place, lying low where it joins the northern side of the city, is aptly named Scopus, "the Lookout."

Seven stadia from the city, he ordered a camp to be fortified for the two legions together, and, three stadia behind them, another for the fifth—for he judged that this legion, worn out by its night march, deserved the safety of a more sheltered position while the others built their defenses. Just as the work of fortification was beginning, the tenth legion also arrived, by way of Jericho, where a detachment of infantry had been stationed to guard the crossing previously secured by Vespasian; it had been ordered to make camp six stadia from Jerusalem, on the mountain called the Mount of Olives, which faces the city to the east, separated from it by a deep ravine called the Kidron. And when those in the city, who had been fighting each other without pause, suddenly found the strife within halted for the first time by the war from outside bursting in on them all at once, the rebels, in astonishment,

When they saw the Romans encamped in three places, the rebels fell into evil agreement among themselves and asked one another what they meant to endure, sitting shut up behind three walls that blocked their very breath, while the war built its own city against them at its ease — and they themselves sat like spectators of fine and fortunate deeds, penned inside the walls, hands and armor set aside. "So we are brave only against each other," they cried, "while the Romans will win the city bloodlessly out of our own quarrel!"

With these words they rallied one another, and snatching up their arms they suddenly ran out against the Tenth Legion, and dashing through the ravine with a tremendous shout fell upon the enemy while they were still fortifying their camp. The soldiers were scattered about the work, and for that reason had set aside most of their weapons — for they had not supposed the Jews would venture a sortie — and were thrown into unexpected confusion just as they were eager to be diverted from their fatigue by the very fighting. Some abandoned the work at once and withdrew, while many ran for their weapons and were struck down before they could turn to face the enemy. The Jews kept gaining more men, emboldened by the success of the first attackers, and, favored by fortune, believed themselves and appeared to their enemies far more numerous than they were.

It is above all men accustomed to order, who know how to fight by discipline and command, whom sudden disorder catches off guard and throws into confusion. So it was that the Romans, caught unprepared by the assault, gave ground. Whenever those under attack turned to face them, they checked the Jews' charge and, since the Jews were less on their guard because of their own impetus, wounded them; but as the sortie kept swelling in numbers, the Romans, growing ever more disordered, were at last driven back from the camp. It seemed then that the whole legion would have been in danger, had not Titus, informed of what was happening, come speedily to its aid. Denouncing them bitterly for cowardice, he turned the fleeing men back, and himself, falling upon the Jews' flank with the picked men he had brought, killed many, wounded still more, and put all of them to flight, driving them down into the ravine.

Battered badly on the descent, once they had made their way through it they turned about again, and with the ravine between them fought it out with the Romans. So they fought until midday; but as the day began to decline a little past noon, Titus, having set the reinforcements who had come with him and the men from the cohorts in array against those still sallying out, sent the rest of the legion back up to the fortification-work on the ridge. To the Jews this looked like flight, and when the man posted as lookout on the wall shook out his cloak, an even fresher crowd sprang forward with such fury that their charge might be likened to the wildest of beasts. None of those drawn up against them held their ground at the encounter; struck as if by a machine, they broke their line and fled toward the mountain. Titus was left in the middle of the slope with only a few men,

and though many of his friends — those who out of respect for their commander had stood their ground, scorning the danger — urged him earnestly to give way before Jews bent on death and not to risk himself ahead of men whose duty it was to stand in front of him, to take thought for his own fortune and not fill the place of a common soldier when he was master of the war and of the world, and not to face so sharp a crisis at a moment when everything hung in the balance — to none of this would he even listen. He stood against those rushing at him, and striking them face to face killed those who pressed him, and falling upon the massed ranks on the slope drove the crowd back. They, terrified by his bearing and his strength, still did not flee straight into the city, but swerving aside from him pressed instead upon those fleeing further up the hill.

These too he attacked on the flank, cutting off their impetus. Meanwhile the men above, fortifying the camp, on seeing those below in flight, were seized again by panic and fear, and the whole legion scattered, believing that the Jews' onset was irresistible and that Titus himself had been routed — for surely, they thought, the rest would never flee while he still stood his ground. And, as though gripped by a panic terror, they were carried off this way and that, until some, catching sight of their commander wheeling about in the midst of the fighting, and fearing greatly for him, shouted the danger to the whole legion. Shame then turned them back, and reproaching one another still more for flight, for having abandoned Caesar, they threw themselves with all their strength against the Jews, and once they had inclined down the slope they drove them together into the hollow.

The Jews, giving ground step by step, kept fighting, but the Romans, having the advantage of higher ground, forced them all together into the ravine. Titus pressed hard upon those before him, and sent the legion back once more to its wall-building, while he himself, with those who had earlier stood by him, held off the enemy — so that, if the truth must be told without adding anything out of flattery or subtracting anything out of malice, Caesar in person twice rescued the whole legion when it was in danger, and secured for it the freedom to build its camp.

When the fighting outside had abated for a little while, the sedition within flared up again. On the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, when the feast of Unleavened Bread was beginning — the day on which the Jews believe they were first delivered from the Egyptians — Eleazar's men opened the gates a crack and let in from the people those who wished to worship; but John, using the festival as a screen for his plot, armed the more obscure of his followers — most of whom were ritually unclean — secretly under their clothes, and sent them hurrying in to seize the temple beforehand. Once inside, they threw off their garments and suddenly stood revealed as armed men.

At once the greatest confusion and uproar arose around the sanctuary, the people outside the sedition supposing the assault to be aimed indiscriminately at everyone, the Zealots supposing it aimed at themselves alone. Some abandoned their posts guarding the gates and, leaping down from the battlements before coming to blows, fled into the underground passages of the temple; others of the people, cowering by the altar and crowding around the sanctuary, were trampled underfoot, struck without restraint by clubs and by the sword. Many peaceable men were killed by their personal enemies and rivals out of private hatred and enmity, as though they were opponents of the sedition, and every man who had ever offended one of the conspirators was now recognized as a Zealot and dragged off to be abused. Having inflicted many terrible things on the innocent, they granted a truce to the guilty, and let those who had come forward out of the underground passages go free.

They themselves now held the inner sanctuary and all the stores of weapons within it, and grew bold against Simon. So the sedition, which before had been divided in three, now settled into two factions. Titus, wishing to move his camp nearer the city from Scopus, stationed against those making sorties a chosen force of horse and foot sufficient, he judged, for the purpose, and ordered the whole remaining force to level the ground as far as the wall.

When every fence and enclosure that the inhabitants had set up for gardens and trees had been thrown down, and all the cultivated timber in between cut away, the hollows and ravines of the place were filled in, and the rocky outcrops were leveled with iron tools, until the whole area from Scopus to the tombs of Herod, which adjoin the pool called the Pool of the Serpents, was made level ground.

In those same days the Jews contrived the following ambush against the Romans. The bolder of the rebels went out beyond the towers called the Women's Towers, pretending to have been driven out by those who favored peace, and, feigning fear of the Romans' approach, kept huddling together and crouching before one another. Meanwhile, standing apart on the wall, a crowd that passed for the ordinary people cried out for peace and begged for a pledge of good faith, calling on the Romans and promising to open the gates; and even as they shouted this, they pelted their own comrades with stones, as though driving them away from the gates. Those men in turn pretended to be forcing their way toward the entrances and begging the people within, and repeatedly, as they rushed toward the Romans, they turned back again, giving the appearance of men in disorder.

Among the soldiers their trickery lost nothing of its credibility; rather, holding those they thought they had in hand ready for punishment, and hoping the others would open the city, they set about the business. But Titus was suspicious of the strangeness of this appeal — for indeed, only the day before, when he had invited them through Josephus to come to terms, he had found no reasonable response from them — and so on this occasion he ordered the soldiers to stay in place. Some of those stationed at the earthworks, however, anticipated the order, snatched up their weapons, and ran out toward the gates. At first those who seemed to have been driven out withdrew before them, but once the soldiers had come between the towers flanking the gate, the Jews ran out, encircled them, and pressed upon them from behind; and the men on the wall poured down a dense hail of stones and every kind of missile, killing a good many and wounding still more.

For it was not easy to escape the wall while those behind kept forcing them on, and besides, shame at their blunder and fear of their officers drove them to persist in their mistake. So, thrusting with their spears for a long while and taking many blows from the Jews, though certainly giving back no fewer, they at last drove back those who had encircled them; and the Jews, retreating before them, followed them, still hurling missiles, as far as the tombs of Helena.

Then, exulting in their success with tasteless insolence, they jeered at the Romans for having been taken in by the trick, brandished their shields, leaped about, and shouted for joy. The soldiers, for their part, were met with threats from their officers and the anger of Caesar, who told them that the Jews, who were driven by nothing but desperation, did everything with forethought and calculation, laying ambushes and setting traps, and that even fortune attended their stratagems because of their obedience and their mutual trust and loyalty to one another; whereas the Romans, whose fortune had always depended on their discipline and their obedience to their commanders, were now stumbling before their enemies and being caught through sheer lack of self-control in close combat — the most shameful thing of all — fighting without orders while Caesar himself was present.

He said that the laws of military service would groan mightily over this, and his own father, when he learned of this blow, would groan mightily too, seeing that he himself, grown old in wars, had never suffered such a reverse, while the laws always punished with death even those who had disturbed their ranks in the slightest way — yet now they had seen an entire army behave like deserters. They would soon learn, he said, those who had taken such license, that even victory among the Romans is held in disgrace when won without orders.

Having spoken thus sharply to the officers, he made it plain he meant to apply the law against all of them. The men gave themselves up for lost, as though they were about to die justly at any moment; but the legions, gathering around Titus, pleaded for their fellow-soldiers and begged him to grant to the obedience of all a pardon for the rashness of a few, promising that their future courage would make up for the present lapse. Caesar yielded, moved both by their entreaties and by considerations of advantage: for he judged that punishment against a single man should be carried through to the deed, but punishment against a multitude should stop at words.

So he was reconciled with the soldiers, after admonishing them at length to be wiser in future, while he himself considered how to guard against the Jews' stratagems. In four days, the ground as far as the walls having been leveled, and wishing to bring up the baggage and the rest of the multitude in safety, he drew out the strongest part of his force in a line facing the wall along the northern side, and toward the west, deepening the phalanx to seven ranks, with the infantry drawn up in front and the cavalry behind, each in three files, and the archers stationed in the seventh, middle rank.

With the sorties of the Jews thus barred by so dense a mass, the pack-animals of the three legions and the multitude passed by in safety. Titus himself encamped about two stadia from the wall, opposite the corner where it turned, facing the tower called Psephinus, toward which the circuit of the wall, running down from the north, bends back toward the west; the other division of the army fortified its camp near the tower called Hippicus, likewise two stadia from the city. The Tenth Legion, however, remained in its place on the Mount of Olives.

The city, fortified by three walls except where it was encircled by impassable ravines — for there a single wall sufficed — was itself built upon two hills facing each other, divided by a central ravine, into which the houses on both sides descended in tiers. Of the two hills, the one holding the Upper City was much higher and straighter in its length; because of its strength it was called the Citadel by King David — the father of Solomon, who built the first temple — while we call it the Upper Market. The other hill, called the Acra, and supporting the Lower City, was shaped like a crescent on both sides. Facing it was a third hill,

lower by nature than the Acra and separated from it, originally, by another broad ravine. But in later times, in the days when the Hasmoneans reigned, they filled in the ravine, wishing to join the city to the temple, and also cut down the height of the Acra, making it lower, so that the temple might be visible above it from that side as well. The ravine called the Valley of the Cheesemakers, which, as we have said, separates the hill of the Upper City from that of the Lower, runs down as far as Siloam — for so we call that spring, whose water is sweet and abundant. On the outside, the city's two hills were surrounded by deep ravines, and because of the cliffs on both sides there was no approach to the city from any direction.

Of the three walls, the old one was hard to capture both because of the ravines and because of the hill on which it was built above them; and besides the natural advantage of the site, it had also been strongly constructed, David and Solomon, and the kings who reigned between and after them, having taken great pride in the work. Beginning on the north at the tower called Hippicus and extending to the Xystus, it then joined the council-chamber and reached completion at the western portico of the temple. On the other side, toward the west, beginning from the same point, it ran through the place called Bethso, extended to the Essene Gate, then turned south above the spring of Siloam, from there bent again toward the east to the Pool of Solomon, and, running on to a place called Ophlas, joined the eastern portico of the temple. The second wall began

The third wall began at the gate they called Genath, part of the first wall, and circling the northern quarter alone, rose as far as the Antonia. Its beginning was the Hippicus tower, from which it stretched to the northern district as far as the Psephinus tower, then came down opposite the monuments of Helena — she was the queen of Adiabene, daughter of King Izates — and, running on for a long way through royal caves, bent at a corner tower by the tomb called the Fuller's Tomb, and joining the old circuit, ended at the valley called the Kidron. This was the wall Agrippa built around the newly settled part of the city, which had until then lain completely exposed; for as the population overflowed, it crept out little by little beyond the existing walls. Building up the northern side of the temple next to the hill, they advanced no small distance and came to inhabit even a fourth hill, called Bezetha, which lies opposite the Antonia but is cut off from it by a deep trench — for it had been trenched on purpose, so that the foundations of the Antonia, not adjoining the hill, would be less accessible and less exposed to being overtopped; indeed the depth of the trench added considerably to the height of its towers. The newly built quarter was called in the local tongue Bezetha, which, translated into Greek, would mean 'new city.'

Since the people living there needed protection, Agrippa — the father of the present king and his namesake — began the wall we have described; but fearing that Claudius Caesar might suspect from the scale of the construction some plot of revolution and insurrection, he stopped after laying only the foundations. And indeed the city could not have been taken at all if the wall had been carried through as it was begun. Its stones were twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide, fitted together so that they could neither easily be undermined with iron tools nor shaken loose by engines; the wall itself was ten cubits thick, and its height, one may suppose, would have been still greater had the ambition of its founder not been cut short. Even so, when it was later raised in haste by the Jews, it reached

twenty cubits, with battlements two cubits high and breastworks three cubits high, so that the whole height came to twenty-five cubits. The towers rising above the wall were twenty cubits wide and twenty cubits high, square and solid throughout like the wall itself; and the fitting and beauty of the stones fell in nothing short

of a temple's. Above the solid twenty-cubit height of the towers were costly chambers, and above these upper rooms, and cisterns to catch the rainwater, with broad spiral stairways leading up in each one. The third wall had ninety such towers, the spaces between them two hundred cubits each; the middle wall had fourteen towers,

and the old wall was divided into sixty. The whole circuit of the city measured thirty-three stadia. Wonderful as the entire third wall was, more wonderful still was the Psephinus tower, standing at its northwest corner, where Titus later pitched his camp; for being seventy cubits high, it afforded a view of Arabia at sunrise, and of the sea

as far as the farthest boundary of the Hebrews' territory; and it was octagonal. Opposite this stood the Hippicus, and beside it two others, all built by King Herod within the old wall — towers unmatched in the inhabited world for size, beauty, and strength; for besides his naturally grand spirit and his ambition for the city, the king

indulged his private feelings and honored the memory of the three people dearest to him — a brother, a friend, and a wife — after whom he named the towers, the wife he had, as we have said, put to death out of love, the other two he had lost in war, having fought bravely. The Hippicus, named after his friend, was square, twenty-five cubits in width and in length each way, and thirty

cubits in height, solid throughout without any hollow. Above this solid mass, joined seamlessly to the stonework, was a cistern twenty cubits deep for catching rain; above this a two-storied building twenty-five cubits high, divided into rooms of various design, above which rose turrets two cubits high and breastworks three cubits high, so that the total height came to eighty cubits. The second

tower, which he named Phasael after his brother, had width and length equal, forty cubits each, and its solid mass rose to a height of forty cubits. Above this ran a portico ten cubits high, shielded by parapets and battlements; and in the middle of the portico was built another tower, divided into costly rooms and even a bathhouse, so

that nothing was lacking to make the tower seem a palace. Its summit was crowned all around with battlements and turrets — the text here is corrupt. Its total height was about ninety cubits, and its shape resembled the lighthouse at Pharos which guides sailors into Alexandria, though its girth was far greater; at the time of the siege it served as the stronghold of Simon. The

third tower, the Mariamme — for so the queen was called — was solid up to twenty cubits, and measured twenty cubits in width and the same in length, but had above it living quarters more costly and more elaborate than the others, since the king thought it fitting that the tower named after his wife should be adorned more richly than those named after men, just as the men, he supposed, were stronger than the woman.

Its total height was fifty-five cubits. Great as these three towers were in themselves, they appeared far greater still because of their position; for the old wall on which they stood was itself built on a high hill, and above the hill a still higher summit rose thirty cubits, on which the towers stood, gaining thereby a great deal more

in elevation. The size of the stones, too, was astonishing: they were not made of ordinary rubble, nor of stones a man could carry, but were cut from white marble; each block was twenty cubits long, ten wide, and five thick, and they were fitted together so precisely that each tower seemed to be a single rock that had grown there naturally, and only afterward been shaped by craftsmen's hands into

its form and angles — so completely did the joints of the masonry disappear from view. Adjoining these towers on the north, within the wall, was the king's palace, beyond all description; for it lacked no extravagance or refinement whatsoever. It was walled all around to a height of thirty cubits, at regular intervals, set with ornamented towers and very large banquet halls that could seat a hundred guests,

in which the variety of stone was beyond describing, for much rare stone had been gathered there from every quarter; the ceilings were marvelous for the length of their beams and the brilliance of their ornament, and the number and variety of the rooms surrounding them was countless, and every one of them was fully furnished, most of what lay in each made of silver and gold. There were many colonnades running one into another

in a circuit, each with its own distinct columns, and the open ground before them was everywhere green, with varied plantings and long walkways running through them, and around these deep channels and cisterns everywhere full of bronze fountainwork, through which the water poured out, and around the streams many dovecotes of tame pigeons. But indeed

it is not possible to describe the palace adequately, and the memory of it brings its own torment, recalling all that was consumed by the fire of the rebels; for it was not the Romans who burned these buildings but, as we said before, the conspirators within, at the start of the revolt — the fire began at the Antonia, then spread to the palace and consumed the roofs of the three towers. The temple, as I have said, stood on a strong hill,

and at first the summit of the hill scarcely sufficed for the temple and the altar, for the ground all around was steep and precipitous. King Solomon, who built the temple, walled up the eastern side, and a single portico was set upon the fill; on the other sides the temple stood exposed. In the ages

that followed, as the people continually added fill, the hill was leveled and widened. They also broke through the northern wall and gained as much ground as the whole enclosure of the later temple would come to occupy. Walling the hill about from its base on three sides, and completing a work greater than had been hoped, for which long ages were spent and all the sacred treasures too, which the

tribute sent to God from every part of the world had filled — they built around both the upper enclosures and the lower temple. Its lowest part was walled up from a depth of three hundred cubits, and in some places more; not all the depth of the foundations was visible, for they filled in the ravines to a great extent, wanting to level the narrow streets of the city. The stones were forty cubits

in the building — for the abundance of money and the people's zeal made the undertakings greater than words can express, and what had seemed impossible to hope for was in the end accomplished through persistence and time. Worthy of such foundations, too, were the works raised above them: the porticoes were all double, their columns twenty-five cubits high, monolithic, of the whitest

marble, roofed over with cedar paneling. Their natural richness, their smoothness, and their harmony offered a remarkable sight, though none of them was further adorned on the outside with painting or carving. The streets were thirty cubits wide, and the whole circuit of the porticoes measured six stadia, including the Antonia. The open courtyard was entirely paved

with variegated stone. Passing through this toward the second temple, one came to a stone balustrade, three cubits high, very gracefully worked; on it stood pillars at equal intervals proclaiming the law of purity, some in Greek letters, some in Latin, that no foreigner should pass within the sanctuary — for the second temple was called the Holy Place. Fourteen steps

led up to it from the first court, and above it was square and enclosed by its own wall. Its outer height, though forty cubits, was hidden by the steps; its inner height was twenty-five cubits, since being built on a higher elevation, not all of it was visible from inside, being masked by the hill. After the fourteen steps came a level space

ten cubits wide before the wall, entirely flat. From there other stairways of five steps led up to the gates, of which eight faced north and south, four on each side, and two faced east, of necessity; for since a separate area for the women's worship had been partitioned off on that side, a second gate was required there, cut directly opposite the first.

And from the other quarters there was one gate to the south and one to the north, through which entrance was made into the women's court; for through the others women were not permitted to pass, nor even through their own gate could they cross the partition. This area was open equally to the native women and to those of their people coming from abroad, for worship. The western side had

no gate at all, the wall there being unbroken. The porticoes between the gates, running from the wall inward before the treasury chambers, were carried on very fine and large columns; they were single, and except in size fell short in nothing of those below. Of the gates, nine were

covered all over with gold and silver, the doorposts and lintels alike, but one, outside the sanctuary itself, was of Corinthian bronze, and far surpassed in value the gold- and silver-plated ones. Each gateway had two doors, each door thirty cubits high and fifteen cubits wide. Beyond the entrances,

widening further inward, there were on each side chambers thirty cubits square, tower-like in width and length, rising above forty cubits in height; each was held up by two columns twelve cubits in circumference. All the other gates were of the same size, but the one above the Corinthian gate, opening from the women's court on the eastern side opposite the gate of the sanctuary, was far larger; for its rise was fifty

cubits, its doors forty cubits, and its ornamentation more lavish, with a thick overlay of silver and gold. It was Alexander, the father of Tiberius, who paid for the plating of the nine gates. Fifteen steps led up to the greater gate from the women's partition, since the steps at the other gates were shorter by five. The temple itself, standing in the middle, the holy sanctuary, was reached by twelve steps, and

its front was equal in height and width, a hundred cubits each way, though behind it was narrower by forty cubits; for in front, like shoulders, it projected twenty cubits on each side. Its first gate was seventy cubits high and twenty-five cubits wide, and had no doors at all, displaying the unbounded, unenclosed expanse of the sky; its façades were entirely gilded,

and through it the first chamber was visible in its entirety from outside, being very large, and everything around the inner gate, gleaming with gold, struck the eyes of those who looked on it. The temple within being two stories, only the first chamber stood open before them, rising continuously to a height of ninety cubits, extending fifty cubits in length, and twenty in width.

a curtain of equal length hung before it, a Babylonian tapestry embroidered with blue, fine linen, scarlet, and purple, a marvel of workmanship whose blending of materials was not without meaning: it seemed to be an image of the universe. The scarlet appeared to signify fire, the linen the earth, the blue the air, and the purple the sea—the first two by their color, the linen and the purple by their origin, since the one is produced by the earth and the other by the sea. On this curtain the whole vista of the heavens was worked, except for the signs of the zodiac.

Passing inside, one came to the level part of the sanctuary. Its height was sixty cubits and its length the same, its breadth twenty cubits. This space of sixty cubits was again divided: the first section, cut off at forty cubits, contained the three most admired and celebrated objects in the world—the lampstand, the table, and the altar of incense. The seven lamps represented the planets, for that is how many branches were divided off from the lampstand; the twelve loaves on the table represented the circle of the zodiac and the year; and the altar of incense, through its thirteen spices gathered from the sea, from uninhabited land, and from inhabited land, signified that all things are of God and for God.

The innermost part measured twenty cubits and was likewise separated from the outer section by a curtain. Nothing whatsoever stood inside it; it was inaccessible, undefiled, and unseen by anyone, and it was called the Holy of Holies. Along the sides of the lower sanctuary ran many chambers, three stories high, communicating with one another, with entrances into them from the gate on either side. The upper section had no such chambers, since it was narrower there; it rose to a height of forty cubits and was plainer than the story below. Adding these forty to the sixty of the ground level gives a total height of one hundred cubits.

Its outer face left nothing that could astonish either the mind or the eyes. Covered on every side with massive plates of gold, it flashed back at the first rays of the rising sun a fire so intense that it forced those who tried to look at it to turn away, as though from the sun's own beams. To strangers approaching from a distance it looked like a mountain covered in snow, for where it was not gilded it was of the purest white. On its summit stood sharpened golden spikes, so that no bird could perch there and defile it. Some of the stones used in it were forty-five cubits long, five in height, and six in breadth.

In front of it stood the altar, fifteen cubits high, and fifty cubits square, with horn-shaped projections at its corners. A gently rising ramp led up to it from the south. It was built without the use of iron, and iron never touched it. A handsome balustrade of stone, about a cubit high, ran around both the sanctuary and the altar, separating the people on the outside from the priests. Those with a discharge and lepers were barred from the city altogether; women in their monthly courses were barred from the temple, though even when clean they were not permitted to pass beyond the boundary just mentioned. Men who had not fully purified themselves were kept from the inner court, and among the priests too, those who were not in a state of purity were excluded.

Those of priestly descent who, because of some bodily blemish, could not perform the services still had access, along with the unblemished, to the area within the balustrade and received their share of the offerings by right of birth, though they wore ordinary dress, since only the officiating priest put on the sacred garments. The unblemished priests, when they went up to the altar and the sanctuary itself, wore linen and abstained above all from wine, for fear of transgressing in some part of the service out of drunkenness. The high priest went up with them, though not always—only on Sabbaths, new moons, and any ancestral feast or general festival celebrated during the year.

When he officiated he covered his thighs down to his private parts with a waistcloth, put on a linen tunic beneath, and over it a robe reaching to the feet, of blue, round in shape and fringed. From the fringes hung golden bells alternating with pomegranates, the bells signifying thunder and the pomegranates lightning. The sash that fastened the robe at the chest was worked with a pattern of five bands in gold, purple, scarlet, linen, and blue—the same materials, we noted, that were woven together in the temple's curtains. Over these he wore also a breastplate of mixed material, in which gold predominated, shaped like the breastplate of a cuirass.

Two golden clasps in the form of small shields fastened it, set with two large and beautiful sardonyx stones, on which were engraved the names of the tribes of the nation. On the other side were fixed twelve more stones, arranged three to a row in four rows: sardius, topaz, and emerald; carbuncle, jasper, and sapphire; agate, amethyst, and ligure; onyx, beryl, and chrysolite—and on each of these, again, was engraved the name of one of the tribes.

His head was covered by a linen turban wound about with blue, and around this ran another crown, of gold, bearing in relief the sacred letters—these are four vowels. He did not wear this full array all the time, but put on a plainer one except when he entered the inner sanctuary, which he did alone, once a year, on the day when it is the custom for all to fast before God.

We shall speak again, in more detail, of the city, the temple, and the customs and laws connected with it, for no small account remains to be given of them.

The Antonia stood at the corner of two porticoes of the outer temple court, the western and the northern, and was built upon a rock fifty cubits high, sheer on every side. It was the work of King Herod, in which above all he displayed the greatness of his natural genius. First, from its base the rock was covered over with smooth slabs, both for beauty and so that anyone attempting to climb up or down would slip. Then, in front of the tower's structure, ran a wall three cubits high, and within this the whole mass of the Antonia rose to a height of forty cubits.

Inside, it had the space and arrangement of a palace, for it was divided into every kind of room and use—colonnades, baths, and broad courtyards for troops—so that by having everything necessary it seemed a city, and by its luxury a palace. Being tower-shaped in its overall form, it was set off at each corner by four further towers, three of them fifty cubits high, while the one at the southeast corner rose to seventy cubits, so that from it the whole temple could be seen. Where it joined the temple's porticoes it had stairways down on both sides, by which the guards descended, for a Roman cohort was always stationed there, and at the festivals they took up positions around the porticoes, under arms, to watch the people and prevent any uprising.

For the temple was a fortress guarding the city, and the Antonia guarded the temple; in the Antonia was posted the guard for all three. The upper city, in turn, had its own fortress in Herod's palace. The hill called Bezetha was separated, as I said, from the Antonia, and being the highest of all the hills, it was joined to part of the new city; it alone overshadowed the temple from the north. On the city and its walls it will be enough, for the present, to have said this much, having promised to describe each in more detail later.

The fighting and factious element in the city was, around Simon, ten thousand strong, apart from the Idumaeans, with fifty officers commanding the ten thousand, and Simon in supreme command of the whole. The Idumaeans who joined him numbered about five thousand and had ten leaders of their own, of whom Jacob son of Sosas and Simon son of Cathla were reckoned the foremost. John, who had seized the temple, had six thousand armed men under twenty officers; and joining him at that time too were the Zealots, who had ceased their internal quarrel, two thousand four hundred of them, under their previous commander Eleazar and Simon son of Arinus.

While these two factions warred with each other, as we have said, the populace was the prize fought over by each, and whatever part of the people took no share in their crimes was plundered by both. Simon held the upper city and the great wall as far as the Kidron, and of the old wall the part running from the pool of Siloam eastward down to the palace of Monobazus—the king of the Adiabenes beyond the Euphrates. He also held the spring and the Acra, that is, the lower city, as far as the palace of Helena, mother of Monobazus. John held the temple and the area around it for some distance, together with Ophlas and the ravine called the Kidron.

The ground between these two holdings they had set ablaze in their war against each other and abandoned; for even with the Romans encamped against the walls, the internal strife did not rest. After a brief lull following their first sortie against the besiegers, the sickness broke out again, and once more they separated and fought among themselves, doing everything the besiegers could have wished. Indeed they suffered nothing worse at the hands of the Romans than what they inflicted on one another, and after this the city experienced no new kind of suffering; rather, before its fall it had already met with a harsher fate at its own hands, and those who captured it accomplished something greater still.

For I say that it was the sedition that destroyed the city, and the Romans who destroyed the sedition, which was far stronger than its walls. What is grim in this belongs, in fairness, to its own people; what is just, one might reasonably credit to the Romans. Let each reader judge as he is inclined. While matters inside stood thus, Titus, riding around outside with a picked body of cavalry, surveyed where he might best assault the walls. He was at a loss on every side, for the ravines made approach impossible in one direction, and on the other the first wall appeared too strong for his engines; so he decided to attack near the monument of John the high priest.

There the outer wall was lower, and the second did not join it, since the builders had neglected to fortify that stretch as the new city was not thickly settled there; from that point access was easy, by which he intended to take the upper city and, through the Antonia, the temple as well. While he was going about this reconnaissance, one of his friends, named Nicanor, was shot in the left shoulder. He had come close, along with Josephus, and was attempting to negotiate peace terms with the men on the wall, for he was not unknown to them. Learning through this incident their true disposition, Caesar—seeing that they would not spare even those who approached them offering safety—was provoked to press the siege, and at the same time ordered his legions to devastate the country before the city and gathered timber to raise the earthworks.

He divided the army in three for the works and stationed in the midst of the earthworks the javelin-men and archers, and in front of these the quick-firers, catapults, and stone-throwing engines, so as to keep off enemy sorties against the work and to check those trying to hinder it from the wall. As the trees were cut down, the suburbs were quickly stripped bare, and while the timber was being brought together for the earthworks and the whole army was pressing on with the work, matters on the Jewish side were no less active. The populace, engaged in plunder and murder, took heart at this time, for they supposed they would get some respite once their masters were distracted by the enemy outside, and that they themselves would exact justice from the guilty parties if the Romans should prevail.

John, though those around him were eager to move against the enemy outside, held back for fear of Simon. Simon, however, was not idle, for he was nearer to the siege works, and he set up on the wall the engines he had earlier taken from Cestius and those captured along with the garrison of the Antonia. But most of his men found these of no use for lack of skill in handling them; only a few, taught by deserters, put the engines to poor use, while with slings and bows they struck at the men building the earthworks and, sallying out in formations, closed with them. The workmen were sheltered from missiles by wicker screens stretched above the entrenchments, and from the sorties by the engines set against those who charged out—engines of remarkable design fitted to all the legions, but especially formidable in the tenth, whose quick-firers were more powerful and whose stone-throwers larger, able to overturn not only the sorties but the defenders on the wall as well.

The stones hurled weighed a talent and traveled two furlongs or more, and their impact was irresistible not only to those first struck but to those far behind them as well. At first the Jews kept watch for the stone, for it was white, so that it could be detected not only by its whir but seen by its brightness as well. Watchmen therefore sat on the towers and gave warning, whenever the engine was released and the stone came flying, calling out in their native tongue, "The son is coming!" and the men in its path would part and throw themselves down beforehand, so that by taking this precaution the stone often passed through harmlessly. In response the Romans thought to blacken it, for then, no longer seen in time, it found its mark and destroyed many at a single throw.

Yet even under this punishment they did not let the Romans raise their earthworks unmolested, but used every device and daring, by night and by day, to hinder them. When the works were finished, the engineers measured with lead weight and cord the distance to the wall, throwing the line down from the earthworks, since there was no other way to measure it while under fire from above; finding the siege towers able to reach, they brought them up. Titus, moving the artillery closer so that it would not keep the battering rams from the wall, ordered the assault to begin. As a tremendous crash resounded from three directions at once and suddenly filled the city, a cry went up from those within, and equal terror fell upon the rebels.

Seeing that the danger now threatened them both alike, the two factions decided to make common cause in defending the city. As their leaders shouted to one another that everything they were doing served the enemy's interests, and that even if God did not grant them lasting harmony, at least for the present they ought to set aside their rivalry and unite against the Romans, Simon proclaimed an amnesty allowing the men from the temple to come over to the wall, and John, though distrustful, allowed it as well. Setting their hatred and their private quarrels behind them under this amnesty, they became a single body. Surrounding the wall, they hurled a mass of fire down on the siege engines and kept up an unbroken barrage against the men working the battering rams, while the boldest of them dashed out in companies and tore at the wicker screens protecting the machines, falling on the crews inside them; skill counted for little in this, but daring achieved a great deal. Titus himself constantly came to the aid of his hard-pressed men, stationing cavalry and archers on either side of the engines; he kept off those bringing up fire, drove back the men shooting from the towers, and kept the battering rams working. Even so the wall would not yield to their blows, except that the ram of the Fifteenth Legion managed to dislodge the corner of one tower. The wall itself remained intact, since it did not immediately share the tower's fate — the tower projected well beyond the line and could not easily bring down any part of the circuit wall with it.

After a brief pause in their sorties, the Jews watched for a moment when the Romans, worn out, had scattered to their work and their camps to rest, since weariness and fear seemed to be driving them back. Then they dashed out by the Hippicus tower through a hidden gate, all of them setting fire to the works and pressing on toward the Roman fortifications themselves. At the sound of their shouting, the nearest Romans rallied quickly and those farther off came running. Jewish daring outran Roman discipline, and having routed the first men they met, they pressed on against those who were gathering to oppose them. A fierce battle broke out around the machines, one side struggling to set them ablaze, the other to stop them; the shouting on both sides was a formless roar, and many of those fighting in the front ranks fell. The Jews had the advantage in sheer recklessness, and the fire was already catching the works — everything, engines included, would have been in danger of burning up, had not the picked troops from Alexandria stood their ground, many of them proving braver than anyone expected, distinguishing themselves in this battle beyond even some of the more famous soldiers. At last Caesar himself, taking the strongest of his cavalry, charged into the enemy. He cut down twelve of their front fighters with his own hand, and when the rest of the mass gave way at the sight of their fall, he pursued and drove them all back into the city, rescuing the works from the fire. It happened in this battle that one of the Jews was taken alive; Titus ordered him crucified before the wall, hoping the sight might frighten the rest into submission. After the retreat, John, the commander of the Idumeans, was killed as he stood before the wall talking with a soldier he knew — one of the Arab allies shot him through the chest with an arrow, and he died on the spot, leaving the Idumeans in deep mourning and the rebels in grief, for he had been outstanding both in combat and in judgment.

The following night an unexpected panic fell upon the Romans as well. Titus had ordered three towers, each fifty cubits high, built so that from their platforms, stationed on each of the earthworks, he could drive back the defenders on the wall; but one of these towers happened to collapse on its own in the middle of the night. The tremendous crash that rose from it struck fear into the army, and thinking the enemy was attacking them, they all rushed to arms. Confusion and uproar spread through the legions, and since no one could say what had happened, the men, in growing alarm, scattered in different directions; with no enemy in sight, they frightened one another, and in their haste each man anxiously asked his neighbor for the watchword, as though the Jews had already broken into the camps. They were seized by a panic like men surrounded on every side, until Titus, learning what had happened, had the news passed to everyone, and only then did the disorder gradually die down. As for the Jews, though they held out stubbornly against everything else, the towers did them great harm: from their heights the lighter engines, along with javelin-men, archers, and slingers, kept up a barrage against them, and the defenders, because of the height, could not reach them in return. The towers themselves could not easily be pulled down, being too heavy, nor set on fire, being sheathed in iron. The defenders, forced back out of range, could no longer prevent the battering rams from striking home, and these, hammering away without pause, gradually made progress. Once the wall began giving way under the ram the Jews themselves called Nico — because it conquered everything — the defenders, already worn out from long fighting and from keeping watch through the nights far from the city, and moreover judging, out of laziness and poor planning generally, that this wall no longer mattered since two more lay behind it, lost heart, and most of them withdrew. When the Romans mounted the breach Nico had made, abandoning their posts, all of them fled to the second wall. Those who had gone over the wall opened the gates and let the whole army in. So the Romans took the first wall on the fifteenth day of the siege, the seventh of the month Artemisius, and demolished a large part of it, along with the northern section of the city, which Cestius had also destroyed before them. Titus then moved his camp inside, to the place called the Assyrian Camp, occupying the entire space up to the Kidron valley, keeping just out of range of the second wall, and began his assault at once.

The Jews divided their forces and defended the wall stubbornly: John's men fought from the Antonia fortress, the northern portico of the temple, and the area in front of the tombs of King Alexander, while Simon's forces held the stretch by the tomb of John the high priest, barricading it as far as the gate through which the water was brought in to the Hippicus tower. They repeatedly dashed out from the gates to fight hand to hand, and though driven back from the wall in these clashes — being untrained compared to Roman skill — they held their own in the fighting along the wall itself. Roman experience combined with strength carried the day against them, while Jewish daring was fed by fear and by their natural endurance under hardship. There was still hope of survival on both sides — for the Romans, hope of a quick victory. Weariness touched neither side: assaults, wall fighting, and company sorties went on continually through the whole day, and no form of combat was left untried. Night barely gave them rest before dawn resumed it; sleepless for both sides, the nights were harder than the days, since each feared — the Romans, that the wall would fall at any moment; the Jews, that the Romans would fall upon their camps. Both sides spent the night under arms and were ready for battle at first light. Among the Jews there was rivalry over who would risk himself first to win favor with the commanders, and above all there was reverence and fear of Simon, so that each of his subordinates obeyed him so completely that, had he ordered it, a man would have been ready to take his own life. The Romans, for their part, were spurred to courage by habitual victory, unfamiliarity with defeat, constant campaigning, unbroken training, and the sheer scale of their empire — and above all by Titus, who was always present everywhere with everyone. To show cowardice with Caesar looking on and fighting alongside them seemed shameful, and for the man who fought well there stood the very witness who would also reward him; already it counted as a gain simply to be recognized by Caesar as brave. For this reason many proved, through their eagerness, better than their own strength alone would have predicted.

During these days, when the Jews had drawn up in a strong company before the wall and the two sides were still exchanging javelins at a distance, a certain Longinus, one of the cavalrymen, leapt out from the Roman ranks and plunged into the middle of the Jewish formation. As they scattered before his charge, he killed two of their bravest — striking one in the face as he came to meet him, and, pulling out the spear from the first man, running the other through the side as he turned to flee — then dashed back to his own side from the midst of the enemy, unwounded. He became famous for this feat of courage, and many became eager rivals of his valor. The Jews, careless of their own suffering, thought only of inflicting harm, and death seemed lightest to them if it came together with the killing of an enemy. Titus, on the other hand, cared no less for the safety of his soldiers than for victory, calling reckless impulse mere madness, and holding that the only true courage was that joined with foresight, in which the man who acts suffers no harm; he ordered his men to show their manhood without needless risk to themselves.

Titus himself then brought the battering ram up against the middle tower of the north wall, where a certain trickster among the Jews named Castor was lying in ambush with ten companions, the rest having fled because of the archers. These men crouched behind the parapets for a while, keeping quiet, but when the tower began to give way they rose up, and Castor, stretching out his hands as though begging for mercy, called out to Caesar, pleading in a piteous voice for them to be spared. Titus, believing him out of simple good faith and hoping the Jews were now ready to repent, halted the ram's blows and forbade his archers to shoot the suppliants, ordering them to ask Castor what he wanted. When Castor said he wished to come down under a pledge of safety, Titus replied that he was glad at his good sense, and would be glad if all the rest now felt the same way and were ready to give their pledge to the city. Of the ten men, five joined Castor in pretending to plead for mercy, while the rest shouted that they would never submit to slavery as Romans when they could die free. As they argued at length among themselves, the assault stalled; meanwhile Castor sent word to Simon that he was deliberately delaying, saying that he himself was mocking the Roman command for no small stretch of time. Even as he sent this message he could be seen openly urging on those who refused, calling them to come over to the right side. They, as though in outrage, drew their swords over the parapet and, striking their own breastplates, fell down as though they had cut their own throats. Astonishment seized Titus and those with him at the men's apparent courage, and being unable to see clearly from below what had actually happened, they admired their boldness and pitied their supposed suffering. Just then someone shot Castor with an arrow near the nose; he at once pulled it out and showed it to Titus, complaining that he was being treated unjustly. Angry at the archer, Caesar sent Josephus, who was standing nearby, to give Castor his right hand as a pledge. But Josephus said he would not go himself, since men who begged like this had nothing sound in mind, and he restrained those of his friends who were eager to go. A deserter named Aeneas, however, said he would go himself. When Castor called out that someone should also come to receive the money he was carrying with him, Aeneas ran up all the more eagerly, spreading out the fold of his cloak. Castor then picked up a stone and hurled it at him; Aeneas dodged and it missed him, but it wounded another soldier who had come forward. When Caesar realized the deception, he judged that showing mercy in war only did harm — since a harder attitude was less likely to fall victim to such trickery — and, angry at having been mocked, pressed the battering ram's blows against the tower all the harder. As the tower began to give way, Castor and his men set it on fire, and leaping through the flames into a hidden vault beneath it, they won a further reputation for courage among the Romans, who took it that they had thrown themselves into the fire.

Caesar took this wall on the fifth day after the first, and when the Jews fled from it he passed through with a thousand armed men and his own picked troops, entering by the quarter where the wool-market, the coppersmiths, and the clothes-market of the New City stood, where the narrow streets ran obliquely toward the wall. Now if Titus had either at once demolished more of the wall, or, entering under the law of war, ravaged what he had taken, I think no harm would have mixed with his victory. But as it was, hoping to win the Jews over by restraint when he could have done them damage by refusing to hold back, and wanting an easy way to retreat, he did not widen the breach he had made — for he did not expect that those he intended to treat kindly would plot against him. So when he entered, he allowed no one to be killed among those he captured, nor the houses to be burned; instead, he offered the rebels, if they wished to keep fighting, a safe way out without harming the common people, and promised the people that their property would be preserved — for it mattered to him above all to save the city for himself, and the temple for the city. The common people were ready to accept what he had long been urging on them, but to the fighting men his generosity looked like weakness, and they supposed that Titus was offering these terms only because he was unable to take the rest of the city. Threatening the townspeople with death if any of them so much as mentioned surrender, and cutting down anyone who spoke a word of peace, they attacked the Romans who had entered as well — some meeting them in the narrow streets, others from the houses, others still dashing out through the upper gates beyond the wall. Alarmed at this, the guards on the wall leapt down from the towers and withdrew to the camps. There was an uproar: those inside the city, surrounded on every side by the enemy, and those outside, fearful for the men left behind. As the Jews kept growing in numbers and gained great advantage from their knowledge of the streets, they wounded many and drove the Romans back by sheer pressure. The Romans, for the most part, had no choice but to hold their ground, since the narrowness of the wall's opening made it impossible for them to flee all together, and it seems all who had entered would have been cut down had Titus not come to their aid. Stationing archers at the tops of the narrow streets and taking his own stand at the point of thickest fighting, he held back the enemy with a barrage of missiles, and with him stood Domitius Sabinus, a brave man who also distinguished himself in this engagement.

Caesar himself remained there, shooting continuously and keeping the Jews from advancing, until all his soldiers had withdrawn. Thus the Romans, having taken the second wall, were driven out of it again; the fighting men throughout the city grew bolder in spirit and were elated at their success, confident that the Romans would never again dare to enter the city, and that if they did, they themselves would not be defeated. For God had darkened their judgment because of their lawless deeds, and they could not see how much greater the Roman strength now was than the force they had just driven out, nor the famine creeping up on them — though for the moment there was still food to be had from the public miseries and, as it were, the city's own blood to drink. Want had long since begun to grip the decent citizens, and many were perishing for lack of provisions.

and neither would the Romans dare to force their way in again, nor would they themselves, if the Romans did, be beaten back — so they supposed. For God had darkened their minds because of their crimes, and they could not see how much greater the strength the Romans still had was than the strength that had been driven off, nor could they see the famine creeping up on them. For the time being there was still food to be had from the public misery, and the city's blood to drink; but want had long since been pressing on the decent, and through scarcity of provisions many were breaking down.

The destruction of the common people the insurgents took as a relief to themselves; for they judged that only those deserved to survive who did not seek peace and had chosen to live in defiance of the Romans, and they were glad to see the opposing multitude wasting away like so much foreign rabble. Such was their disposition toward those within. Against the Romans, who tried once more to force an entry, they blocked the way, barricading the breach and defending the broken wall with their own bodies,

and for three days they held out stubbornly. But on the fourth day, when Titus pressed the attack with vigor, they could not bear it and fled, as they had before. He, master of the wall again, at once demolished the whole northern stretch of it, and posting garrisons in the towers along the southern section, turned his mind to attacking the third wall.

Having decided to relax the siege for a little while and give the insurgents a period for deliberation — in case, after the fall of the second wall, they should relent, or in case fear of famine should move them, since, he reasoned, their plunder could not sustain them much longer — he put the respite to good use. For when the day came on which the soldiers' rations were due to be distributed, he ordered the officers to draw up the army in full view of the enemy and pay out the money to each man.

And they, as was customary, uncovered the armor that had until then been kept hidden in its cases and marched forward fully armed, the cavalry leading their horses in all their finery. For a great distance the ground before the city gleamed with silver and gold, and nothing in that spectacle was more delightful to their own side or more terrifying to the enemy. For the whole ancient wall was crowded with people gazing, and the northern quarter of the temple as well; the houses too were seen packed with those leaning out to look, and there was no part of the city that was not covered with the crowd.

A dreadful consternation fell even on the boldest, as they saw the whole force gathered in one place and the splendor of the arms and the discipline of the men. And I think the insurgents would have been won over by that sight, had they not despaired of pardon from the Romans on account of the enormity of the wrongs they had done the people. Since punishment awaited them if they stopped, they judged death in war far preferable. And fate had its way, that the guiltless should perish along with the guilty, and the city along with the faction.

For four days, then, the Romans continued bringing up rations, legion by legion; but on the fifth, when nothing peaceable came from the Jews, Titus divided his forces in two and began building earthworks against the Antonia and against John's monument, intending by the one to seize the upper city, and by the other the temple by way of the Antonia — for without taking that fort, holding the city itself would not be safe. At each of the two points two mounds were raised, one for each legion.

Those working near the monument were harassed by sallies of the Idumaeans and Simon's armed men; those before the Antonia by John's men and the crowd of zealots. These had the advantage not only in hand-to-hand fighting, since they struck from higher ground, but by now had also learned to use the engines — daily practice had gradually bred skill in them. They had three hundred quick-firers and forty stone-throwers, with which they made the building of the earthworks a hard business for the Romans.

Titus, knowing that the city's survival or destruction rested on himself, pressed the siege hard, yet did not neglect to urge the Jews toward a change of heart, mixing persuasion with force. Often, recognizing that argument accomplishes more than weapons, he called on them himself to save themselves by surrendering a city already as good as taken, and he sent Josephus down to speak with them in their ancestral tongue, thinking they might yield to a man of their own people.

Josephus went around the wall, taking care to stay out of range of missiles while still within earshot, and pleaded with them at length to spare themselves and the people, to spare their homeland and the temple, and not to show themselves more indifferent to these things than foreigners were. "The Romans," he said, "who have no share in them, respect the sanctities of their enemies and to this hour have held back their hands; but you, who were raised among these things, will, even if the city is saved, be the very ones left set on its destruction.

You see with your own eyes that your stronger walls have fallen, and that what is left, the wall of those already conquered, is weaker still; and you know that Roman power is irresistible, and that servitude to them is nothing you have not already tasted. If indeed it is a fine thing to fight for freedom, that fight ought to have come at the beginning; but once one has submitted and yielded for so long a time, then to try to shake off the yoke is the act of men in love with a miserable death, not of lovers of freedom. One may rightly scorn masters who are inferior, not those to whom everything is already subject. What is there the Romans have not conquered, except perhaps something useless because of heat or cold? Fortune has passed over to them from every side, and God, who carries dominion around from nation to nation, is now over Italy.

There is a law, too, fixed among beasts as among men, most powerful of all: to yield to the stronger, and to let mastery rest with those who hold the edge in arms. It was for this reason that your ancestors, superior though they were in soul and in body and in every other resource, yielded to the Romans — which they would never have endured, had they not known that God was with them.

And you — trusting in what do you hold out, when the greater part of the city is already taken, and those within, even if the walls still stand, are in a state worse than capture? For the Romans are not ignorant of the famine in the city, which is even now destroying the common people and before long will destroy the fighting men too. Even if the Romans should stop the siege and not fall upon the city sword in hand, you have within you a war that cannot be fought off, one that feeds on you every hour — unless you can also take up arms against hunger and fight alone and master your own suffering."

He added that it was a fine thing, before irreparable disaster, to change course and turn toward safety while it was still possible; for the Romans would bear them no grudge for what had happened, unless they persisted stubbornly to the end. By nature the victor is merciful in the hour of triumph, and sets advantage above anger. What served the Romans' advantage, he said, was neither an empty city nor a desolate land; that was why Caesar even now wished to offer them his right hand. For he would never save anyone by taking the city by force, least of all men who would not listen to persuasion even in their extremity. That the third wall would fall quickly was guaranteed by the walls already taken; and even if the fortification proved unbreakable, famine would fight on the Romans' side against them.

As Josephus was urging this from the wall, many jeered at him, many cursed him, and some threw missiles. When he found that open counsel did not persuade them, he turned to the history of their own people, crying out: "Cowards, forgetful of your own allies, do you make war on the Romans with weapons and hands? Whom else have we ever defeated in that way? When has God, who created us, not avenged the Jews when they were wronged? Will you not stop and see from where you launch this fight, and how great an ally you have defiled? Will you not remember the miraculous deeds of your fathers, and how great wars this holy place once put down for us? I myself shudder to speak of the works of God before unworthy ears; yet hear them still, so that you may know you are at war not only with the Romans but with God himself.

"Necho, king of Egypt at that time — the same man was also called Pharaoh — came down with a vast force and seized Sarah, the queen, mother of our race. What then did her husband Abraham, our forefather, do? Did he avenge the outrage with weapons, though he had three hundred and eighteen captains under him, and under each of them a force beyond counting? Or did he not rather judge them a mere desert without God's presence, and, raising pure hands toward this very ground you have now defiled, enlist him as an ally none could conquer? Before a single evening had passed, the queen was sent back to her husband unstained, while the Egyptian, bowing before ground you have bloodied with kindred murder and trembling at visions in the night, fled, showering the God-beloved Hebrews with silver and gold.

"Shall I speak of our fathers' migration into Egypt? For four hundred years, tyrannized and subjected to foreign kings, though it was in their power to defend themselves with weapons and their own hands, they entrusted themselves instead to God. Who does not know how Egypt was filled with every kind of beast and ruined by every disease, its land barren, its Nile failing, the ten plagues one after another, and how because of all this our fathers were sent on their way under guard, unbloodied, unharmed,

whom God led forth as his own attendants? And when the sacred ark was seized by the Syrians, did not Philistia groan, and Dagon the idol, and every nation of those who had seized it groaned as well, their inward parts rotting and, through them, their very bowels falling away along with their food, until with the same hands that had plundered it they carried it back, propitiating the holy thing with the sound of cymbals and drums and every sort of offering? It was God who commanded these things for our fathers, because, laying aside their hands and their weapons, they entrusted him to judge the matter.

"When Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, dragging all Asia behind him, encamped around this very city, did it fall by human hands? Were not the hands that should have wielded weapons instead still, occupied in prayer, while an angel of God in a single night destroyed that immense army, so that the Assyrian, rising the next day, found a hundred and eighty-five thousand corpses, and fled with the survivors, unarmed and unpursued by the Hebrews? You know too of the captivity in Babylon, where our people, exiled for seventy years, did not shake themselves free into liberty until Cyrus granted it as a gift to God; escorted forth by him, they restored once more the worship of their ally.

"To speak generally, there is nothing our fathers ever achieved by weapons, and nothing they failed to achieve when they left the matter to God instead. Staying in their place, they conquered, as it seemed good to their judge; fighting, they always stumbled. Take the time the king of the Babylonians besieged this very city: our king Zedekiah, engaging him against the prophecies of Jeremiah,

was himself taken captive, and saw the city, along with the temple, razed to the ground — and yet how much more moderate was that king than your leaders now, and his people than yours! When Jeremiah cried aloud that they were hateful to God because of their offenses against him, and would be taken unless they surrendered the city, neither the king nor the people put him to death for it. But you — to say nothing of what goes on within your own walls, for I could not adequately describe your lawlessness — you curse and stone me for urging you toward safety, provoked by the mere mention of your sins, unable even to bear hearing of deeds you commit with your own hands every day.

"Or take the time when Antiochus, called Epiphanes, sat before this city, having committed many outrages against the divine — our ancestors then went out with weapons, and were themselves cut down in the battle, the city was plundered by the enemy, and the sanctuary lay desolate for three years and six months. And why need I say more? Who enlisted the Romans against this nation, if not the impiety of its own people? Where did our servitude begin, if not in the discord of our ancestors, when the madness of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and their rivalry with each other, brought Pompey against the city, and God subjected to the Romans a people unworthy of freedom? Besieged for three months, they surrendered themselves, though they had not sinned against the sanctuary and the laws as you have, and though they had far greater resources for war.

"And you know the end of Antigonus, son of Aristobulus, in whose reign God once more drove the sinning people to capture: Herod, son of Antipater, brought Sossius, and Sossius brought a Roman army, and, surrounded, they were besieged for six months, until, paying the penalty for their sins, they were taken and the city was plundered by the enemy. So it has never been given to this nation to prevail by arms; war and capture go together for it always. For those who dwell on holy ground must, I think, leave everything to God's judgment and despise recourse to human hands only when they have first won over the judge above.

"As for you — what of the things the lawgiver blessed have you done? What of the things he cursed have you left undone? How much more impious are you than those who fell so much sooner? You have not merely disgraced yourselves with hidden sins — theft, I mean, and treachery and adultery — you compete in open plunder and murder, and invent strange new paths of wickedness; and the temple has become the receptacle for it all, and hands of your own kindred have defiled that divine place, which even the Romans venerated from afar, setting aside many of their own customs out of respect for your law. And after this do you expect the ally you have wronged to help you? You are indeed righteous suppliants, calling on your helper with clean hands!

"With hands like yours our king once made supplication against the Assyrian, when God laid low that great army in a single night. Do the Romans act as the Assyrian did, that you should hope for a like deliverance? He, having taken money from our king on condition that he would not sack the city, came down in violation of his oaths to burn the temple; the Romans ask only the customary tribute our fathers paid to theirs. Once they receive it, they neither sack the city nor touch the sanctuaries, but grant you everything else — the free enjoyment of your families and your possessions — and they preserve your sacred laws. It is madness, then, to expect God's help for men who are

...as clearly as he had against the unjust.

And he knows how to defend at once, whenever there is need: he crushed the Assyrians on the very first night they camped against us. So if he had judged our people worthy of freedom, or the Romans worthy of punishment, he would have struck at once, just as he did the Assyrians — when Pompey laid hands on our nation, when Sossius marched up after him, when Vespasian was ravaging Galilee, and now last of all, when Titus was approaching the city.

And yet Pompey the Great and Sossius, far from suffering any harm, took the city by force, and Vespasian rose to kingship out of his war against us. For Titus even the springs run more abundantly, though they had dried up for you before: you know that before his arrival the Siloam failed, and all the springs outside the city, so that water had to be bought by the jar; but now they flow so plentifully for your enemies that they suffice not only for them and their animals, but even for their gardens.

Indeed you have already experienced this same portent once before, at the earlier capture of the city, when the Babylonian I mentioned marched against us and, taking the city, burned it and the temple — though I think none of those who committed impiety then did so on the scale you have. So I believe that the divine has fled from the sanctuary and now stands beside those you are fighting.

Yet a good man will flee a shameless household and hate those in it — and do you still believe that God stays beside your own crimes, he who sees all hidden things and hears what is kept silent? But what is kept silent among you, or what is hidden? What has not become plain even to your enemies? You parade your lawlessness in public and vie with one another day by day over who can become worse, making a display of injustice as though it were virtue.

Even so, a path to safety still remains, if you are willing, and the divine is easily reconciled to those who confess and repent. O men of iron, throw down your weapons! Take pity, even now, on a fatherland already crumbling into ruin. Turn and look at the beauty you are betraying — what a city, what a temple, the gifts of how many nations! Does anyone lead a torch against these things? Does anyone wish these to exist no longer? And what is worthier of being saved than these, you who are unmoved and harder than stones?

And if you cannot look on these things with honest eyes, at least pity your own families — let each of you picture his children, his wife, his parents, whom before long famine or war will consume.

I know that my own mother shares this danger, and my wife, and a family not without distinction, a house once illustrious — and perhaps you think I counsel you for their sake. Kill them, then! Take my blood as the price of your own salvation! I too am ready to die, if after me you will come to your senses.

While Josephus was crying out these things in tears, the rebels neither yielded nor judged a change of course safe — but the common people were moved toward desertion.

Some sold their possessions for next to nothing; others swallowed their gold coins — the most valuable of their treasures — so as not to be caught by the brigands, and then deserted to the Romans, and once they had passed the gold, they had ample means for whatever they needed. For Titus let most of them go free into the countryside, wherever each wished, and this very fact drew them all the more to desertion, since they would be spared the miseries within the city and would not become slaves to the Romans.

But John and Simon's men watched for people leaving even more closely than for the Romans entering, and anyone who gave the mere shadow of suspicion was killed on the spot. For the wealthy, even staying was as good as death, since a man could be put to death on the pretext of desertion, for the sake of his property.

As the famine grew, the recklessness of the rebels grew with it, and both horrors flared up worse each day. Grain was nowhere to be seen openly; they would burst into houses and search them, and if they found any, they tortured the occupants for having denied having it, and if they found none, they tortured them for having hidden it all the more carefully.

The proof of whether the wretched had food or not was their bodies: those who still held themselves together were assumed to have plenty, while those already wasting away were passed over, since it seemed pointless to kill people who were about to die of starvation anyway.

Many secretly traded their whole estates for a single measure of grain — of wheat, if they happened to be wealthier, or of barley, if poorer — then shut themselves up in the innermost recesses of their houses; some, in the extremity of their want, ate the grain unprocessed, while others baked it as necessity and fear dictated.

Nowhere was a table set; instead, people snatched the food half-cooked from the fire and devoured it. The meal was pitiable and the sight of it worthy of tears, as the stronger took more than their share and the weak wept.

Famine overpowers every other suffering, but nothing does it destroy so completely as shame; what would otherwise deserve respect is despised under its power. Wives snatched food from their husbands, children from their fathers, and — most pitiable of all — mothers from their own infants' mouths, and even as their dearest wasted away in their arms, they showed no mercy in stripping from them the very drops of life.

Even so, eating this way did not go unnoticed; the rebels were posted everywhere, ready to seize even this. Whenever they saw a house shut up, they took it as a sign that those inside were taking food, and at once they broke down the doors and burst in, all but squeezing the morsels back up out of people's throats.

Old men were beaten as they clung to their food, and women were dragged by the hair as they tried to conceal what was in their hands. There was no pity for gray hair or for infants; they would lift children clean off the ground, still clinging to their scraps of bread, and dash them to the floor.

Toward those who had gotten ahead of their raid and swallowed down what would have been seized, they turned crueler still, as though wronged. They devised terrible methods of torture in their search for food: stuffing bitter vetch into the private passages of the wretched, driving sharp stakes up through their bowels — a man suffered things horrible even to hear of, merely to confess to one loaf of bread, or to reveal a single handful of hidden barley-meal.

Yet the torturers themselves were not hungry — that at least would have made the cruelty less monstrous, being done from necessity — rather, they were exercising their own recklessness, and stocking up provisions for the days ahead.

As for those who crept out at night past the Roman guard-posts to gather wild greens and grass, the rebels would waylay them just when they thought they had already escaped the enemy, and snatch away what they had brought back. And though these people often begged them, invoking the dread name of God, to share some part of what they had risked their lives to gather, they would not give up so much as a scrap; a man was fortunate merely not to be killed on top of being robbed.

Such was what the lowly suffered at the hands of the guardsmen; but those of rank and wealth were brought before the tyrants themselves. Some of these were destroyed on false charges of plotting, others on the charge of betraying the city to the Romans; the readiest device of all was a suborned informer who claimed they had resolved to desert.

A man stripped bare by Simon would be sent up to John, and a man plundered by John would be handed over in turn to Simon; they toasted each other, so to speak, with the blood of the citizens, and divided between them the corpses of the wretched.

Over dominance, there was rivalry between the two; but in impiety, there was perfect harmony. Whichever of them failed to share the fruits of another's ruin with his rival was thought simply mean, and whichever was denied his share grieved over the loss, as though cheated of some good — the loss, that is, of a share in cruelty.

It is impossible to go through their lawlessness point by point; to put it briefly, no other city has ever suffered such things, and no generation since the beginning of time has been more fertile in wickedness. In the end they even disowned the very race of the Hebrews, so as to seem less impious toward foreigners, and confessed themselves to be what in truth they were — slaves, a rabble, the bastard refuse of the nation.

It was they themselves who overthrew the city; they forced the unwilling Romans to be credited with a grim achievement, and all but dragged the fire, in its slowness, onto the temple. Indeed, watching it burn from the upper city, they felt no grief and shed no tears — it was among the Romans that these feelings were found. But of this we shall speak later, in its proper place, with the facts to prove it.

Meanwhile Titus's earthworks were advancing, although his soldiers were suffering heavy losses from the wall; he also sent a detachment of cavalry with orders to lie in ambush for those who went out through the ravines to gather food.

Among these foragers were some fighting men no longer sustained by plunder, but for the most part they were poor people from the populace, kept from deserting by fear for their families; they had no hope of escaping the rebels' notice if they fled with wives and children, and they could not bear to leave them behind to be slaughtered by the brigands on their account. Hunger made them bold enough to go out, but the only outcome left to them, once they had eluded their own countrymen, was to be captured by the enemy.

When caught, they resisted out of necessity, and once a fight had begun it seemed too late to beg for mercy. So, after being scourged and subjected to every torment short of death, they were crucified opposite the wall.

To Titus this suffering appeared pitiable, since as many as five hundred were being captured each day, sometimes more; yet he saw that it was not safe to release those taken by force, and that guarding so many would itself require a garrison of guards. All the same, he did not stop it — mainly, I think, in the hope that the sight of it might induce the people to surrender, on the understanding that if they did not, they would suffer the same fate.

Out of anger and hatred, the soldiers nailed up those they caught, one in this posture and another in that, for mockery's sake, and so great was their number that space ran out for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies.

So far were the rebels from being moved by this suffering that they turned it, quite to the contrary, into a device against the rest of the populace. Dragging the relatives of deserters up onto the wall, along with any of the common people inclined to trust in surrender, they displayed to them what befell those who fled to the Romans, calling the captured men suppliants, not prisoners.

This held back many of those who had been inclined to desert, until the truth became known; though there were some who fled all the more quickly precisely because they took it for certain punishment, considering death at the enemy's hands a relief compared with famine.

Titus also ordered many of those captured to have their hands cut off, and then sent them back in, so that they would not be taken for deserters and would be believed on account of their misfortune — urging Simon and John to stop, at this point, and not force him to destroy the city, but rather, through a last-minute change of heart, to save their own lives, and so great a homeland, and a temple shared with no other people.

Going around the earthworks, he at the same time urged on the workers, as one who would soon back up his words with deeds.

In response, they blasphemed him from the wall, and his father too, shouting that they scorned death — for they had nobly chosen it over slavery — and that they would do the Romans all the harm they could as long as they had breath; that they cared nothing for a fatherland which, as he himself said, was doomed to perish, and that the world was a finer temple for God than this one, once it too had perished.

Yet even this temple, they said, would be saved by the one who dwelt in it, and having him as their ally, they would mock every threat that lagged behind its fulfillment in action; for the outcome belonged to God. Such were the things they shouted, mingled with abuse.

Meanwhile Antiochus Epiphanes also arrived, with a considerable body of other heavy infantry as well as, around himself, a unit called "the Macedonians" — all of an age, tall, just past boyhood, armed and trained in the Macedonian manner, from which they took their name, though most of them fell short of that lineage.

For it happened that the king of Commagene was, before he tasted a reversal of fortune, the most fortunate of all the kings under Roman rule; but he too demonstrated in his old age that no man should be called blessed before death.

But his son, present there at the height of his powers at that time, said he was amazed that the Romans should hesitate at all to approach the wall; he was himself something of a warrior, reckless by nature, and so formidable in strength that his daring fell short of disaster only by a narrow margin.

When Titus smiled and said that the labor of it was open to all, Antiochus, just as he was, charged toward the wall with his Macedonians.

He himself, thanks to his strength and skill, guarded against the Jewish missiles by shooting arrows at them; but all his young men except a few were cut down, for out of shame at their boast they kept fighting on, determined not to be outdone. In the end many withdrew wounded, reflecting that even true Macedonians, if they meant to conquer, needed the fortune of Alexander.

For the Romans, who had begun on the twelfth of the month Artemisius, the earthworks were finished only with difficulty on the twenty-ninth, after seventeen days of continuous labor. Four enormous ramps were raised: one, against the Antonia, was thrown up by the fifth legion in the middle of the pool called Struthius; the other was raised by the twelfth legion, about twenty cubits away from it.

The tenth legion's work was at a considerable distance from these, on the northern side, near the pool called Amygdalon; and the fifteenth legion's ramp stood about thirty cubits from that one, by the monument of the high priest.

As the ramps were now being brought forward, John, tunneling from inside as far as the earthworks at the Antonia, propped up the mines with timbers and so suspended the ramps above them; he then brought in wood smeared with pitch and bitumen and set it alight.

When the props burned through, the tunnel collapsed all at once, and with a tremendous crash the earthworks caved in upon it. At first, along with the dust, thick smoke rose up, since the fire was being smothered by the falling debris; but once the timber pressing down on it had been consumed, a clear flame burst out.

The Romans were struck with shock at the suddenness of it, and with dismay at the ingenuity behind it; just when they thought themselves on the verge of victory, this event chilled their hope for the future as well, since fighting the fire seemed useless — even if it were put out, the earthworks had already been swallowed up.

Two days later, Simon's men attacked the other earthworks as well; for the Romans, having brought up their siege engines there, were now battering the wall.

A certain Tephtheus from the city of Garis in Galilee, and Magassaros, a servant of the royal household of Mariamme, together with a certain man of Adiabene, son of Nabataeus, called by that name from his fortune and his lameness (agiras meaning "lame"), seized torches and dashed forward ahead of the rest, against the siege engines.

Of these men none showed themselves either bolder or more formidable in the whole course of the war than these who came out of the city; for they rushed at the enemy's ranks as though running to greet friends rather than charging a hostile mass, neither hesitating nor drawing back, but leaping straight through the midst of their foes and setting fire to the siege engines. Though struck by missiles and pressed back with swords from every side, they would not be driven from the danger until they had seized hold of the fire consuming the machines.

As the flame now rose, the Romans came running up from their camps to help, while the Jews from the wall hindered them, grappling with those who tried to put the fire out and sparing none of their own bodies in the struggle. Some men were dragging the siege engines out of the fire even as the wicker screens above them were already burning, while the Jews, reaching through the very flames, seized hold of the red-hot iron rams and would not let them go. The fire spread from these to the earthworks themselves and overtook the defenders before they could react. At this point the Romans, surrounded by the flame and despairing of saving their works, withdrew to their camps, while the Jews pressed after them, their numbers ever growing as reinforcements came out from within, and, emboldened by their success, gave free rein to their fury, advancing all the way to the Roman fortifications and there closing with the guards.

There is a picket that stands in relief before the camp, and there is a fearsome Roman law that condemns to death whoever abandons his post for any reason whatsoever. These men, choosing a death with honor over one with disgrace, stood their ground, and by their example many of those who had turned to flee were shamed into turning back. Meanwhile the arrow-throwers had been set up along the wall and were holding back the crowd still pouring out of the city, men who gave no thought at all to their own safety or protection; for the Jews closed with whomever they met and, hurling themselves recklessly onto the enemy's spearpoints, struck down their foes with their own bodies. Yet they prevailed by their daring far more than by any real advantage in strength, just as the Romans yielded more to their boldness than to the harm they were actually taking. By now Titus had arrived from the Antonia, where he had gone apart to survey ground for further earthworks, and after sharply rebuking his soldiers for endangering their own fortifications when they already held the walls of the enemy, and for themselves enduring, as it were, the fate of the besieged by loosing the Jews upon themselves as if from a prison, he himself went round with a picked force to attack the enemy's flank. The Jews, struck now from the front and turning to face him too, held firm nonetheless.

Once the battle lines had mingled together, dust overwhelmed the eyes and the shouting overwhelmed the ears, and neither side could any longer tell friend from foe. The Jews held their ground no longer so much by strength as by despair of any other safety, while the Romans were spurred on by shame before their reputation and their arms, and by Caesar himself risking danger in the front line; so that, in my judgment, the excess of their fury would even have driven them to sweep away the whole Jewish force, had the Jews not anticipated the turning of the battle and withdrawn into the city in time. With the earthworks destroyed, the Romans were in despair, having lost in a single hour the fruit of long and heavy labor, and many, considering their familiar siege engines gone, gave up hope of ever taking the city.

Titus took counsel with his officers. The more impetuous urged bringing the whole force to bear at once and attempting the wall by main force; for until now, they argued, the fighting had been only in scattered clashes with the Jews, but if the troops advanced in a single mass the Jews would not be able to withstand even the assault, since they would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of missiles. Those inclined to greater caution advised either building the earthworks again, or else, forgoing that, simply sitting down before the city and closely guarding both its exits and the bringing-in of supplies, so as to abandon the city to famine and avoid hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy altogether; for men in despair, they said, are unconquerable, since for them it is a matter of prayer to fall by the sword, while apart from that a still crueler fate awaits them regardless.

Titus himself judged it beneath him to remain wholly idle with so great a force at his disposal, yet thought it pointless to fight men who would in any case destroy one another; and he pointed out that building earthworks was made difficult by the scarcity of timber, while guarding the exits was harder still, since surrounding so vast and difficult a city with his army was no easy matter and was besides risky against sudden sorties. And even were the open routes guarded, the Jews, driven by necessity and aided by their familiarity with the ground, would contrive hidden paths; and if any provisions were smuggled in even secretly, it would only prolong the siege. He feared, moreover, that the length of time involved might diminish the glory of his eventual success; for while time can accomplish anything, it is speed that wins renown. If, then, he wished to combine speed with safety, he must wall in the entire city; only in this way could every exit be blocked, and the Jews, despairing utterly of any deliverance, would either surrender the city

or, weakened by famine, be overpowered with ease; for he himself, he said, would not remain inactive in the meantime either, but would set about the earthworks again, using less exposed methods this time. And if to anyone the undertaking seemed too vast and difficult to accomplish, he should consider that it is not fitting for Romans to attempt anything on a small scale, and that no great achievement comes easily to anyone without toil. Having persuaded his officers with these arguments, he ordered the forces to be distributed for the work.

A kind of superhuman zeal seized the soldiers, and as they divided the circuit of the wall among themselves, rivalry arose not only between the legions but between the individual units within them, and each soldier strove to win the favor of his squad-leader, the squad-leader that of his centurion, the centurion in turn was eager to please his tribune, the ambition of the tribunes reached toward the legates, and Caesar himself presided over the rivalry of the legates; for he went about in person, several times each day, inspecting the work. Beginning from the camp of the Assyrians, where he himself was quartered, he carried the wall down toward the lower New City, then from there through the Kidron valley up to the Mount of Olives; turning south from there, he encompassed the mountain as far as the rock called the Dovecotes and the hill next to it that overlooks the ravine by Siloam,

and from there, bending westward, he descended into the valley of the spring. From there, climbing up past the tomb of the high priest Ananus and taking in the hill where Pompey had once encamped, he turned toward the north, and, advancing as far as a village called the House of the Chickpea-Sellers, and beyond it the tomb of Herod, he brought the line round to the east until it joined his own camp, where it had begun.

The wall thus built came to thirty-nine furlongs in length, and thirteen forts were built along its outer face, whose combined circuits added up to ten more furlongs. The whole was completed in three days, so that a work that should by rights have taken months was finished at a speed that strained belief. Having enclosed the city with this wall and stationed troops in the forts, Titus himself went round inspecting the first watch of the night, entrusted the second to Alexander, and the third fell to the legionary commanders. The guards cast lots for their turns of sleep, and throughout the whole night men made their rounds along the intervals between the forts.

For the Jews, with every avenue closed off, all hope of deliverance was now cut off, and the famine, deepening its hold, devoured the population household by household and family by family. The rooftops were filled with women and infants wasting away, the alleys with the corpses of the old; children and young men, swollen with hunger, wandered the marketplaces like ghosts and collapsed wherever the affliction overtook them. Those still able could not bury their own relatives, and even the strong shrank from the task, both because of the sheer number of the dead and because of the uncertainty of their own fate;

for many died even as they were burying others, and many made their way to the burial grounds before their appointed hour had come. There was no wailing amid these calamities, nor any lamentation, for the famine stifled all such feeling; with dry eyes and grinning mouths those in the agony of death looked on at those who had gone ahead of them into rest, and a deep silence enveloped the city, and a night heavy with death.

And yet more terrible than these horrors were the bandits. Breaking into houses to plunder the dead, they stripped the coverings from the bodies and went out laughing, testing the edges of their swords on the corpses; some of those thrown out they even ran through while still alive, just to try the blade. Those who begged to be granted a sword and a hand to end their suffering they left, in scorn, to the famine instead, and each of the dying, fixing his eyes on the Temple as he expired, looked his last upon it, leaving the rebels alive behind him.

At first the rebels ordered the dead to be buried at public expense, unable to bear the stench; but afterward, when this proved beyond their means, they simply threw the bodies from the walls into the ravines. When Titus, going round these ravines, saw them choked with the dead and a deep, rotting ooze seeping out from the decaying bodies, he groaned aloud, and, raising his hands, called God to witness that this was not his doing.

Such, then, was the state of affairs within the city. As for the Romans, since none of the rebels any longer sallied out—for by now despair and famine were gripping them as well—they passed the time in good spirits, having an abundance of grain and other provisions brought from Syria and the neighboring provinces. Many stood near the wall displaying quantities of food, and by their own satisfaction inflamed the hunger of the enemy all the more. But since the sufferings of the rebels bent them not at all, Titus, pitying the remnant of the people and eager to save at least those who were left, set about building earthworks once more, though timber was now hard to procure for him;

for all the timber around the city had already been cut down in the earlier operations, so the soldiers had to bring in fresh supplies from a distance of ninety furlongs. And it was only against the Antonia now that earthworks were raised, in four sections, each far larger than the earlier ones. Caesar went round the legions, urging on the work and showing the rebels that he already held them in his grasp. But it seems that for these men alone all capacity for remorse had perished,

for they had separated their souls from their bodies and treated both as if they belonged to someone else; no suffering could soften their spirit, nor did any pain touch their flesh, these men who tore at the corpses of the people like dogs and filled the prisons with the sick. Simon, for instance, did not spare even Matthias, the very man through whom he had gained control of the city, but had him put to torture before killing him. This Matthias was the son of Boethus, one of the chief priests,

a man especially trusted and honored by the people; when the populace was being abused by the Zealots, whom by then John had joined, he persuaded the people to let Simon in to help them, entering into no prior agreement with him and expecting nothing base from him. But when Simon came in and made himself master of the city, he counted the very man who had championed his cause an enemy just like all the rest, as though the deed

had sprung from mere simplicity of mind. Brought before him now and accused of favoring the Romans, Simon condemned him to death, without even granting him a hearing, along with three of his sons—his fourth son had managed to slip away beforehand to Titus. Matthias begged to be killed before his children, asking this one favor in return for having opened the city gate to Simon, but Simon ordered him killed last of all. So the father was slaughtered in full view of his slain sons,

led forward directly opposite the Romans; for it was in this way that Simon ordered Ananus, son of Bagadates, the most brutal of his bodyguards, to carry it out, mocking Matthias with the taunt of whether those Romans he had chosen to go over to would come to help him now. He forbade, moreover, that the bodies be buried. After these, a priest named Ananias, son of Masbalus, one of the notables, and Aristeus the secretary of the council, a man of Emmaus, and with them fifteen

other prominent men of the people were put to death. Josephus's father they shut up under guard, and they proclaimed that no one in the city should either speak with him or gather together with anyone else, for fear of treachery, and they killed on the spot, without any inquiry, those who so much as joined in mourning together. Seeing this, a certain Judas son of Judas, one of Simon's officers, entrusted by him with the guard of a tower, moved partly, perhaps,

by pity for those being so cruelly destroyed, but still more by concern for his own safety, called together the ten men he trusted most among those under his command and said, "How long shall we go on enduring these evils? What hope of safety do we have if we remain loyal to a villain? Is not famine already upon us, the Romans very nearly within our walls, and Simon faithless even toward his own benefactors? Is there not already the fear of punishment from him,

while a Roman pledge of good faith stands firm? Come, then, let us hand over the wall and save ourselves and the city. Simon will suffer nothing dreadful if, despairing of himself, he surrenders sooner rather than later." When ten of his men had been won over by this argument, toward dawn he sent the rest of those under him off in various directions, so that none of what had been planned would be discovered, while he himself, about the third hour, called out to the Romans from the tower.

Some of the Romans scorned the offer, some disbelieved it, and most held back, expecting to take the city without risk before long anyway. And while Titus was on his way toward the wall with a body of armed men, Simon, learning of the plot in time, swiftly seized the tower first, arrested the men, and, in full view of the Romans, put them to death before the wall,

mutilating the bodies before throwing them down. Meanwhile Josephus, going about as he did without ever ceasing his appeals, was struck on the head by a stone and fell at once, stunned. The Jews made a rush out to seize the fallen body, and he would soon have been dragged into the city had Caesar not quickly sent men to shield him. While these were fighting, Josephus was carried off, barely conscious of what was happening around him, and

the rebels, believing they had killed the man they most wished dead, cried out for joy. Word of it spread through the city, and despair gripped the people left behind, who were now convinced that the man because of whom they had dared to think of deserting was truly gone. When Josephus's mother heard in prison that her son was dead, she told the guards from Jotapata that she had believed this all along, since she had gained nothing even from his being alive;

but privately, lamenting to her handmaids, she said that this was the fruit she had reaped from bearing a fine son—not even to be able to bury him, the very man from whom she had expected to be buried herself. Yet neither did this false report grieve her for long, nor did it warm the hearts of the rebels for long either; for Josephus quickly recovered from the blow, and, coming forward, cried out that before long he would make them pay for the wound,

and once more called on the people to keep faith with the Romans. His appearance struck courage into the people and dismay into the rebels alike. As for the deserters, some leapt down quickly from the wall out of sheer necessity, while others went out as if to fight, armed with stones, and then fled over to the Romans. But a fate crueler than what they had left behind awaited these men, and

they found the Roman abundance a swifter road to ruin than the famine within had been; for they arrived swollen from deprivation, as if dropsical, and then, gorging their shrunken bodies all at once, burst apart—all except those who, from experience, husbanded their appetites and fed their bodies, unaccustomed as they were to nourishment, only gradually. And even those who survived in this way soon fell prey to a different affliction; for among the

He kept inviting the people, once more, to trust him. At the sight of him courage fell upon the people, and terror upon the rebels.

Of the deserters, some, driven by necessity, leapt quickly from the wall; others went forward as if to fight, hurling stones, and then fled to the Romans. But a fate harsher than the one within followed them there, and they found the surfeit among the Romans a swifter road to ruin than the famine at home. For they arrived swollen from want, as if dropsical, and then, gorging their empty bodies all at once, burst apart — all but those who, through experience, rationed their appetites and gave their bodies, unused to it, food little by little. Yet even those who survived in this way met with a second blow: one of the deserters among the Syrians was caught picking gold coins out of the filth of his own bowels. For the deserters had taken to swallowing coins before they came out, since the rebels searched everyone, and there was a great quantity of gold in the city; a coin that had fetched twelve Attic drachmas before now fetched twenty-five. But once this device was exposed through one man, a rumor spread through the camps that the deserters were arriving full of gold, and the horde of Arabs and the Syrians cut open the suppliants and searched their bellies. I do not think any calamity befell the Jews more terrible than this one: in a single night close to two thousand were ripped open.

When Titus learned of this lawlessness, he came close to surrounding the guilty men with cavalry and cutting them down with javelins, and would have done so had not so vast a number been implicated, far more than could be punished. He called together the commanders of the allies and of the legions — for some of his own soldiers too were charged in the affair — and told them he was angry at both parties alike: that some of the men serving with him should do such things for the sake of uncertain gain, with no shame even for their own weapons, worked as they were in silver and gold; and that the Arabs and Syrians, indulging their passions at will in a war not their own, should then charge the Romans with the guilt of their butchery and their hatred of the Jews, when even now some of his own soldiers were sharing in the ill repute of it. To these he threatened death, should anyone be found daring the same thing again, and he ordered the men of the legions to search out any under suspicion and bring them before him.

But love of money, it seems, held every punishment in contempt, and the desire for gain is planted deep and fierce in men, and no passion rivals greed. Or rather, such things elsewhere have their measure and yield to fear; but here it was God who had condemned the whole people, and who was turning every path to safety into a path to destruction. At any rate, what Caesar had forbidden under threat of death was still ventured against the deserters in secret: before they could be seen by all, the barbarians ran ahead of them and cut them down, watching all the while lest any Roman catch sight of it, then slit them open and drew the vile profit out of their entrails. It was found on few, and hope alone destroyed the many. This calamity did at least bring many of the deserters back inside.

John, once the people had nothing left to plunder, turned to sacrilege. He melted down many of the dedicated offerings of the temple, and many of the vessels needed for the sacred services — mixing bowls, platters, and tables — nor did he spare even the wine-vessels sent by Augustus and his wife. For while the emperors of Rome had always honored and adorned the temple, this Jew now tore down even what foreigners had given it.

He told those around him that men must make free use of sacred things on behalf of the sacred, without fear, and that those who fought for the temple should be fed from it. For this reason he emptied out the sacred oil and the wine which the priests kept in store for the whole burnt offerings, kept there in the inner sanctuary, and distributed it among the people, who anointed themselves with it and drank it without a shudder.

I would not hold back from saying what my feelings compel me to say. I believe that had the Romans delayed in coming against these wretches, either the city would have been swallowed by a chasm, or drowned by a flood, or struck by the thunderbolts that fell on Sodom; for it produced a generation far more godless than those who suffered such fates. Through the madness of these men the whole people perished together.

Why should I recount the calamities one by one? In those days a man named Mannaeus, son of Lazarus, fled to Titus and reported that through a single gate entrusted to his charge, one hundred fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty corpses had been carried out, from the day Titus had encamped before them, the fourteenth of the month Xanthicus, to the new moon of Panemus. This was the number of the poor alone; he himself did not stand watch there of his own will, but was paid by the public to keep the count, out of necessity. The rest of the dead their families buried, and burial meant only carrying the body out of the city and casting it down. After him, many notable men who deserted reported that in all six hundred thousand of the poor had been thrown out through the gates, and that the number of the rest was beyond counting. When they no longer had the strength to carry the poor out, they said, the bodies were heaped up in the largest houses and the houses shut up. A measure of grain, they said, sold for a talent; and later, once the city had been walled all around and it was no longer even possible to gather weeds, some were driven by need to such extremes that they searched the sewers and old cattle dung and ate the refuse found there, and what had once not even been bearable to look at now became food. The Romans, hearing this, were moved to pity, but the rebels, even seeing it with their own eyes, felt no repentance, and endured it, waiting until it should reach them too; for they had been blinded already by the ruin that stood over both the city and themselves.

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