way, Castor, the Jew, and his companions, set the tower on fire and leapt into the flame, into a concealed vault that was under it; which being unknown to the Romans, they admired the courage of those men who could thus precipitate themselves into the very fire.

Now Cæsar took this wall also, on the fifth day after he had possessed himself of the first; and entered it with a thousand armed men, the flower of his legions. If he had, as is common according to the laws of war, demolished the wall, or even greatly enlarged the breach when he entered it, he would have secured a safe retreat for his men in case of need; but being desirous to preserve the city for his own sake, and the temple for the sake of the city, he neither slew the people, nor destroyed their effects; but direc ted his soldiers to fight only with the zealots and the seditious, and to spare the citizens alive. The zealots, however, construing the humanity of Titus into a symptom of weakness, threatened to put the people to death if they dared so much as to utter the word surrender; and slaying those who talked of peace, they attacked the Romans.

Some they en

who had entered within the wall. countered in the narrow streets, and some they fought from their houses, while others, making a sally from their upper gates, assaulted the Romans who were beyond the wall, who leaping down from their towers, retired to their several camps.

The Romans, within the walls, being thus encompassed on every side, made a great noise; for the Jews increased perpetually, and they, being acquainted with the streets and lanes of the city, fought at a great advantage over the enemy; who, on account of the breach of the wall being so narrow, could not extricate themselves from their dangerous situation. It is probable they would have been all cut to pieces by the Jews, had not Titus sent the archers to stand at the upper end of these narrow lanes, and do execution upon the enemy; while he himself stood amid the thickest multitude, and with Domitius Sabinus continued to direct the darts against them, till he had covered the retreat of his men from the city.

When the Romans were thus driven out, after they had possessed the second wall, the Jews

were so elated with their success, that they imagined Titus would never approach the city again. For God had blinded their eyes on account of their transgressions, so that they neither considered the strength and numbers of the Roman forces, nor yet that a famine was creeping in upon the city, for hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries, and drank the blood of the citizens.

But poverty had seized upon many of the better part of the inhabitants, and many had already died for want of the necessaries of life. These the seditious saw perish without regret, considering a diminution of the people as a relief to themselves. With such feelings, they covered themselves with their armour, and made a wall of their own bodies, at the breach where the wall had been cast down; and thus valiantly defended themselves for three days against all the attacks of Titus, until the fourth day, when unable longer to support the vehemence of the Romans, they suffered Titus to re-possess the wall; who, demolishing it entirely, put a garrison into the towers on the south quarter of the city, and made preparations for assaulting the third wall.

CHAP. VIII.

"They shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and they shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied; they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm."

Trrus being now desirous of bringing the Jews to terms of peace, abated the operations of war for a little, that the seditious might have time for consideration, being in hopes that the destruction of their second wall, and the approach of famine, would soften and subdue their obstinate resistance.

To second this design, and to intimidate the enemy, Titus set his army in battle array, not with the intention of fighting, but to distribute the subsistence money to the troops, which was due at this time. So, according to the custom

And

of the Romans, the soldiers opened the cases wherein they kept their arms, and marched out with their breast-plates, the horsemen leading their horses in their splendid trappings and all the way shone with the gorgeousness and splendour of the troops. The walls and houses were covered with spectators who came out to view this superb army; while consternation seized upon the Jews when they saw them all assembled in one place, and observed the fineness of their arms, and the order of their men, surely if the crimes which the seditious had committed had not led them to despair of forgiveness, they would have trembled at that sight, and finished the strife; but believing, as they did, that torments and death awaited them in every case, they thought it better to die in defence of the city, than to capitulate. Fate also, or rather divine Providence, had ordained that the innocent and the guilty were to perish together, and that the city and the seditious were to be consumed in one common destruction.

Four days were thus occupied by the Romans in distributing the pay to the legions. On the