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1. Now when Titus was come into this [upper] city, he admired not
only some other places of strength in it, but particularly those
strong towers which the tyrants in their mad conduct had
relinquished; for when he saw their solid altitude, and the
largeness of their several stones, and the exactness of their
joints, as also how great was their breadth, and how extensive
their length, he expressed himself after the manner following:
"We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it
was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these
fortifications; for what could the hands of men or any machines
do towards overthrowing these towers?" At which time he had many
such discourses to his friends; he also let such go free as had
been bound by the tyrants, and were left in the prisons. To
conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the city, and
overthrew its walls, he left these towers as a monument of his
good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled him
to take what could not otherwise have been taken by him.
2. And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with
killing men, and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still
remaining alive, Caesar gave orders that they should kill none
but those that were in arms, and opposed them, but should take
the rest alive. But, together with those whom they had orders to
slay, they slew the aged and the infirm; but for those that were
in their flourishing age, and who might be useful to them, they
drove them together into the temple, and shut them up within the
walls of the court of the women; over which Caesar set one of his
freed-men, as also Fronto, one of his own friends; which last was
to determine every one's fate, according to his merits. So this
Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who
were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out
the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the
triumph; and as for the rest of the multitude that were above
seventeen years old, he put them into bonds, and sent them to the
Egyptian mines Titus also sent a great number into the
provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed
upon their theatres, by the sword and by the wild beasts; but
those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for
slaves. Now during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing
these men, there perished, for want of food, eleven thousand;
some of whom did not taste any food, through the hatred their
guards bore to them; and others would not take in any when it was
given them. The multitude also was so very great, that they were
in want even of corn for their sustenance.
3. Now the number of those that were carried captive during
this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was
the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven
hundred thousand, the greater part of whom were indeed of the
same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging
to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to
the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an
army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a straitness
among them, that there came a pestilential destruction upon them,
and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more
suddenly. And that this city could contain so many people in it,
is manifest by that number of them which was taken under Cestius,
who being desirous of informing Nero of the power of the city,
who otherwise was disposed to contemn that nation, entreated the
high priests, if the thing were possible, to take the number of
their whole multitude. So these high priests, upon the coming of
that feast which is called the Passover, when they slay their
sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the eleventh, but so that a
company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice, (for
it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves,) and
many of us are twenty in a company, found the number of
sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred;
which, upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast
together, amounts to two millions seven hundred thousand and two
hundred persons that were pure and holy; for as to those that
have the leprosy, or the gonorrhea, or women that have their
monthly courses, or such as are otherwise polluted, it is not
lawful for them to be partakers of this sacrifice; nor indeed for
any foreigners neither, who come hither to worship.
4. Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote
places, but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in
prison, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was
crowded with inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude of those
that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either
men or God ever brought upon the world; for, to speak only of
what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of them, some they
carried captives, and others they made a search for under ground,
and when they found where they were, they broke up the ground and
slew all they met with. There were also found slain there above
two thousand persons, partly by their own hands, and partly by
one another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then the
ill savor of the dead bodies was most offensive to those that
lighted upon them, insomuch that some were obliged to get away
immediately, while others were so greedy of gain, that they would
go in among the dead bodies that lay on heaps, and tread upon
them; for a great deal of treasure was found in these caverns,
and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to be esteemed
lawful. Many also of those that had been put in prison by the
tyrants were now brought out; for they did not leave off their
barbarous cruelty at the very last: yet did God avenge himself
upon them both, in a manner agreeable to justice. As for John, he
wanted food, together with his brethren, in these caverns, and
begged that the Romans would now give him their right hand for
his security, which he had often proudly rejected before; but for
Simon, he struggled hard with the distress he was in, fill he was
forced to surrender himself, as we shall relate hereafter; so he
was reserved for the triumph, and to be then slain; as was John
condemned to perpetual imprisonment. And now the Romans set fire
to the extreme parts of the city, and burnt them down, and
entirely demolished its walls.
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