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1. And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him
to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a
ready passage for his army to come up; while he himself had
Josephus brought to him, (for he had been informed that on that
very day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus, [Tamuz,]
the sacrifice called "the Daily Sacrifice" had failed, and had
not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it, and that
the people were grievously troubled at it,) and commanded him to
say the same things to John that he had said before, that if he
had any malicious inclination for fighting, he might come out
with as many of his men as he pleased, in order to fight, without
the danger of destroying either his city or temple; but that he
desired he would not defile the temple, nor thereby offend
against God. That he might, if he pleased, offer the sacrifices
which were now discontinuned by any of the Jews whom he should
pitch upon. Upon this Josephus stood in such a place where he
might be heard, not by John only, but by many more, and then
declared to them what Caesar had given him in charge, and this in
the Hebrew language. So he earnestly prayed them to spare
their own city, and to prevent that fire which was just ready to
seize upon the temple, and to offer their usual sacrifices to God
therein. At these words of his a great sadness and silence were
observed among the people. But the tyrant himself cast many
reproaches upon Josephus, with imprecations besides; and at last
added this withal, that he did never fear the taking of the city,
because it was God's own city. In answer to which Josephus said
thus with a loud voice: "To be sure thou hast kept this city
wonderfully pure for God's sake; the temple also continues
entirely unpolluted! Nor hast thou been guilty of ally impiety
against him for whose assistance thou hopest! He still receives
his accustomed sacrifices! Vile wretch that thou art! if any one
should deprive thee of thy daily food, thou wouldst esteem him to
be an enemy to thee; but thou hopest to have that God for thy
supporter in this war whom thou hast deprived of his everlasting
worship; and thou imputest those sins to the Romans, who to this
very time take care to have our laws observed, and almost compel
these sacrifices to be still offered to God, which have by thy
means been intermitted! Who is there that can avoid groans and
lamentations at the amazing change that is made in this city?
since very foreigners and enemies do now correct that impiety
which thou hast occasioned; while thou, who art a Jew, and wast
educated in our laws, art become a greater enemy to them than the
others. But still, John, it is never dishonorable to repent, and
amend what hath been done amiss, even at the last extremity. Thou
hast an instance before thee in Jechoniah, the king of the
Jews, if thou hast a mind to save the city, who, when the king of
Babylon made war against him, did of his own accord go out of
this city before it was taken, and did undergo a voluntary
captivity with his family, that the sanctuary might not be
delivered up to the enemy, and that he might not see the house of
God set on fire; on which account he is celebrated among all the
Jews, in their sacred memorials, and his memory is become
immortal, and will be conveyed fresh down to our posterity
through all ages. This, John, is an excellent example in such a
time of danger, and I dare venture to promise that the Romans
shall still forgive thee. And take notice that I, who make this
exhortation to thee, am one of thine own nation; I, who am a Jew,
do make this promise to thee. And it will become thee to consider
who I am that give thee this counsel, and whence I am derived;
for while I am alive I shall never be in such slavery, as to
forego my own kindred, or forget the laws of our forefathers.
Thou hast indignation at me again, and makest a clamor at me, and
reproachest me; indeed I cannot deny but I am worthy of worse
treatment than all this amounts to, because, in opposition to
fate, I make this kind invitation to thee, and endeavor to force
deliverance upon those whom God hath condemned. And who is there
that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets
contain in them, - and particularly that oracle which is just now
going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold
that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the
slaughter of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and
the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen?
It is God, therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this
fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans,
and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your
pollutions."
2. As Josephus spoke these words, with groans and tears in his
eyes, his voice was intercepted by sobs. However, the Romans
could not but pity the affliction he was under, and wonder at his
conduct. But for John, and those that were with him, they were
but the more exasperated against the Romans on this account, and
were desirous to get Josephus also into their power: yet did that
discourse influence a great many of the better sort; and truly
some of them were so afraid of the guards set by the seditious,
that they tarried where they were, but still were satisfied that
both they and the city were doomed to destruction. Some also
there were who, watching a proper opportunity when they might
quietly get away, fled to the Romans, of whom were the high
priests Joseph and Jesus, and of the sons of high priests three,
whose father was Ishmael, who was beheaded in Cyrene, and four
sons of Matthias, as also one son of the other Matthias, who ran
away after his father's death, and whose father was slain by
Simon the son of Gioras, with three of his sons, as I have
already related; many also of the other nobility went over to the
Romans, together with the high priests. Now Caesar not only
received these men very kindly in other respects, but, knowing
they would not willingly live after the customs of other nations,
he sent them to Gophna, and desired them to remain there for the
present, and told them, that when he was gotten clear of this
war, he would restore each of them to their possessions again; so
they cheerfully retired to that small city which was allotted
them, without fear of any danger. But as they did not appear, the
seditious gave out again that these deserters were slain by the
Romans, which was done in order to deter the rest from running
away, by fear of the like treatment. This trick of theirs
succeeded now for a while, as did the like trick before; for the
rest were hereby deterred from deserting, by fear of the like
treatment.
3. However, when Titus had recalled those men from Gophna, he
gave orders that they should go round the wall, together with
Josephus, and show themselves to the people; upon which a great
many fled to the Romans. These men also got in a great number
together, and stood before the Romans, and besought the
seditious, with groans and tears in their eyes, in the first
place to receive the Romans entirely into the city, and save that
their own place of residence again; but that, if they would not
agree to such a proposal, they would at least depart out of the
temple, and save the holy house for their own use; for that the
Romans would not venture to set the sanctuary on fire but under
the most pressing necessity. Yet did the seditious still more and
more contradict them; and while they cast loud and bitter
reproaches upon these deserters, they also set their engines for
throwing of darts, and javelins, and stones upon the sacred gates
of the temple, at due distances from one another, insomuch that
all the space round about within the temple might be compared to
a burying-ground, so great was the number of the dead bodies
therein; as might the holy house itself be compared to a citadel.
Accordingly, these men rushed upon these holy places in their
armor, that were otherwise unapproachable, and that while their
hands were yet warm with the blood of their own people which they
had shed; nay, they proceeded to such great transgressions, that
the very same indignation which Jews would naturally have against
Romans, had they been guilty of such abuses against them, the
Romans now
had against Jews, for their impiety in regard to their own
religious customs. Nay, indeed, there were none of the Roman
soldiers who did not look with a sacred horror upon the holy
house, and adored it, and wished that the robbers would repent
before their miseries became incurable.
4. Now Titus was deeply affected with this state of things, and
reproached John and his party, and said to them, "Have not you,
vile wretches that you are, by our permission, put up this
partition-wall before your sanctuary? Have not you been allowed
to put up the pillars thereto belonging, at due distances, and on
it to engrave in Greek, and in your own letters, this
prohibition, that no foreigner should go beyond that wall.
Have not we given you leave to kill such as go beyond it, though
he were a Roman? And what do you do now, you pernicious villains?
Why do you trample upon dead bodies in this temple? and why do
you pollute this holy house with the blood of both foreigners and
Jews themselves? I appeal to the gods of my own country, and to
every god that ever had any regard to this place; (for I do not
suppose it to be now regarded by any of them;) I also appeal to
my own army, and to those Jews that are now with me, and even to
yourselves, that I do not force you to defile this your
sanctuary; and if you will but change the place whereon you will
fight, no Roman shall either come near your sanctuary, or offer
any affront to it; nay, I will endeavor to preserve you your holy
house, whether you will or not."
5. As Josephus explained these things from the mouth of Caesar,
both the robbers and the tyrant thought that these exhortations
proceeded from Titus's fear, and not from his good-will to them,
and grew insolent upon it. But when Titus saw that these men were
neither to be moved by commiseration towards themselves, nor had
any concern upon them to have the holy house spared, he proceeded
unwillingly to go on again with the war against them. He could
not indeed bring all his army against them, the place was so
narrow; but choosing thirty soldiers of the most valiant out of
every hundred, and committing a thousand to each tribune, and
making Cerealis their commander-in-chief, he gave orders that
they should attack the guards of the temple about the ninth hour
of that night. But as he was now in his armor, and preparing to
go down with them, his friends would not let him go, by reason of
the greatness of the danger, and what the commanders suggested to
them; for they said that he would do more by sitting above in the
tower of Antonia, as a dispenser of rewards to those soldiers
that signalized themselves in the fight, than by coming down and
hazarding his own person in the forefront of them; for that they
would all fight stoutly while Caesar looked upon them. With this
advice Caesar complied, and said that the only reason he had for
such compliance with the soldiers was this, that he might be
able to judge of their courageous actions, and that no valiant
soldier might lie concealed, and miss of his reward, and no
cowardly soldier might go unpunished; but that he might himself
be an eye-witness, and able to give evidence of all that was
done, who was to be the disposer of punishments and rewards to
them. So he sent the soldiers about their work at the hour
forementioned, while he went out himself to a higher place in the
tower of Antonia, whence he might see what was done, and there
waited with impatience to see the event.
6. However, the soldiers that were sent did not find the guards
of the temple asleep, as they hoped to have done; but were
obliged to fight with them immediately hand to hand, as they
rushed with violence upon them with a great shout. Now as soon as
the rest within the temple heard that shout of those that were
upon the watch, they ran out in troops upon them. Then did the
Romans receive the onset of those that came first upon them; but
those that followed them fell upon their own troops, and many of
them treated their own soldiers as if they had been enemies; for
the great confused noise that was made on both sides hindered
them from distinguishing one another's voices, as did the
darkness of the night hinder them from the like distinction by
the sight, besides that blindness which arose otherwise also from
the passion and the fear they were in at the same time; for which
reason it was all one to the soldiers who it was they struck at.
However, this ignorance did less harm to the Romans than to the
Jews, because they were joined together under their shields, and
made their sallies more regularly than the others did, and each
of them remembered their watch-word; while the Jews were
perpetually dispersed abroad, and made their attacks and retreats
at random, and so did frequently seem to one another to be
enemies; for every one of them received those of their own men
that came back in the dark as Romans, and made an assault upon
them; so that more of them were wounded by their own men than by
the enemy, till, upon the coming on of the day, the nature of the
right was discerned by the eye afterward. Then did they stand in
battle-array in distinct bodies, and cast their darts regularly,
and regularly defended themselves; nor did either side yield or
grow weary. The Romans contended with each other who should fight
the most strenuously, both single men and entire regiments, as
being under the eye of Titus; and every one concluded that this
day would begin his promotion if he fought bravely. What were the
great encouragements of the Jews to act vigorously were, their
fear for themselves and for the temple, and the presence of their
tyrant, who exhorted some, and beat and threatened others, to act
courageously. Now, it so happened, that this fight was for the
most part a stationary one, wherein the soldiers went on and came
back in a short time, and suddenly; for there was no long space
of ground for either of their flights or pursuits. But still
there was a tumultuous noise among the Romans from the tower of
Antonia, who loudly cried out upon all occasions to their own men
to press on courageously, when they were too hard for the Jews,
and to stay when they were retiring backward; so that here was a
kind of theater of war; for what was done in this fight could not
be concealed either from Titus, or from those that were about
him. At length it appeared that this fight, which began at the
ninth hour of the night, was not over till past the fifth hour of
the day; and that, in the same place where the battle began,
neither party could say they had made the other to retire; but
both the armies left the victory almost in uncertainty between
them; wherein those that signalized themselves on the Roman side
were a great many, but on the Jewish side, and of those that were
with Simon, Judas the son of Merto, and Simon the son of Josas;
of the Idumeans, James and Simon, the latter of whom was the son
of Cathlas, and James was the son of Sosas; of those that were
with John, Gyphtheus and Alexas; and of the zealots, Simon the
son of Jairus.
7. In the mean time, the rest of the Roman army had, in seven
days' time, overthrown [some] foundations of the tower of
Antonia, and had made a ready and broad way to the temple. Then
did the legions come near the first court, and began to
raise their banks. The one bank was over against the north-west
corner of the inner temple another was at that northern
edifice which was between the two gates; and of the other two,
one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the temple;
the other against its northern cloister. However, these works
were thus far advanced by the Romans, not without great pains and
difficulty, and particularly by being obliged to bring their
materials from the distance of a hundred furlongs. They had
further difficulties also upon them; sometimes by their
over-great security they were in that they should overcome the
Jewish snares laid for them, and by that boldness of the Jews
which their despair of escaping had inspired them withal; for
some of their horsemen, when they went out to gather wood or hay,
let their horses feed without having their bridles on during the
time of foraging; upon which horses the Jews sallied out in whole
bodies, and seized them. And when this was continually done, and
Caesar believed what the truth was, that the horses were stolen
more by the negligence of his own men than by the valor of the
Jews, he determined to use greater severity to oblige the rest to
take care of their horses; so he commanded that one of those
soldiers who had lost their horses should be capitally punished;
whereby he so terrified the rest, that they preserved their
horses for the time to come; for they did not any longer let them
go from them to feed by themselves, but, as if they had grown to
them, they went always along with them when they wanted
necessaries. Thus did the Romans still continue to make war
against the temple, and to raise their banks against it.
8. Now after one day had been interposed since the Romans
ascended the breach, many of the seditious were so pressed by the
famine, upon the present failure of their ravages, that they got
together, and made an attack on those Roman guards that were upon
the Mount of Olives, and this about the eleventh hour of the day,
as supposing, first, that they would not expect such an onset,
and, in the next place, that they were then taking care of their
bodies, and that therefore they should easily beat them. But the
Romans were apprized of their coming to attack them beforehand,
and, running together from the neighboring camps on the sudden,
prevented them from getting over their fortification, or forcing
the wall that was built about them. Upon this came on a sharp
fight, and here many great actions were performed on both sides;
while the Romans showed both their courage and their skill in
war, as did the Jews come on them with immoderate violence and
intolerable passion. The one part were urged on by shame, and the
other by necessity; for it seemed a very shameful thing to the
Romans to let the Jews go, now they were taken in a kind of net;
while the Jews had but one hope of saving themselves, and that
was in case they could by violence break through the Roman wall;
and one whose name was Pedanius, belonging to a party of
horsemen, when the Jews were already beaten and forced down into
the valley together, spurred his horse on their flank with great
vehemence, and caught up a certain young man belonging to the
enemy by his ankle, as he was running away; the man was, however,
of a robust body, and in his armor; so low did Pedanius bend
himself downward from his horse, even as he was galloping away,
and so great was the strength of his right hand, and of the rest
of his body, as also such skill had he in horsemanship. So this
man seized upon that his prey, as upon a precious treasure, and
carried him as his captive to Caesar; whereupon Titus admired the
man that had seized the other for his great strength, and ordered
the man that was caught to be punished [with death] for his
attempt against the Roman wall, but betook himself to the siege
of the temple, and to pressing on the raising of the banks.
9. In the mean time, the Jews were so distressed by the fights
they had been in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and
creeping up to the holy house itself, that they, as it were, cut
off those limbs of their body which were infected, in order to
prevent the distemper's spreading further; for they set the
north-west cloister, which was joined to the tower of Antonia, on
fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits of that
cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the
forenamed month, [Panemus or Tamuz,] the Romans set fire to the
cloister that joined to the other, when the fire went fifteen
cubits farther. The Jews, in like manner, cut off its roof; nor
did they entirely leave off what they were about till the tower
of Antonia was parted from the temple, even when it was in their
power to have stopped the fire; nay, they lay still while the
temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the
fire to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were
still fighting one against another about the temple, and the war
was managed by continual sallies of particular parties against
one another.
10. Now there was at this time a man among the Jews, low of
stature he was, and of a despicable appearance; of no character
either as to his family, or in other respects: his flame was
Jonathan. He went out at the high priest John's monument, and
uttered many other insolent things to the Romans, a challenged
the best of them all to a single combat.But many of those that
stood there in the army huffed him, and many of them (as they
might well be) were afraid of him. Some of them also reasoned
thus, and that justly enough: that it was not fit to fight with a
man that desired to die, because those that utterly despaired of
deliverance had, besides other passions, a violence in attacking
men that could not be opposed, and had no regard to God himself;
and that to hazard oneself with a person, whom, if you overcome,
you do no great matter, and by whom it is hazardous that you may
be taken prisoner, would be an instance, not of manly courage,
but of unmanly rashness. So there being nobody that came out to
accept the man's challenge, and the Jew cutting them with a great
number of reproaches, as cowards, (for he was a very haughty man
in himself, and a great despiser of the Romans,) one whose name
was Pudens, of the body of horsemen, out of his abomination of
the other's words, and of his impudence withal, and perhaps out
of an inconsiderate arrogance, on account of the other's lowness
of stature, ran out to him, and was too hard for him in other
respects, but was betrayed by his ill fortune; for he fell down,
and as he was down, Jonathan came running to him, and cut his
throat, and then, standing upon his dead body, he brandished his
sword, bloody as it was, and shook his shield with his left hand,
and made many acclamations to the Roman army, and exulted over
the dead man, and jested upon the Romans; till at length one
Priscus, a centurion, shot a dart at him as he was leaping and
playing the fool with himself, and thereby pierced him through;
upon which a shout was set up both by the Jews and the Romans,
though on different accounts. So Jonathan grew giddy by the pain
of his wounds, and fell down upon the body of his adversary, as a
plain instance how suddenly vengeance may come upon men that have
success in war, without any just deserving the same.
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