THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book V: Chapter 3
HOW THE SEDITION WAS AGAIN REVIVED
WITHIN JERUSALEM AND YET THE JEWS CONTRIVED SNARES FOR
THE ROMANS. HOW TITUS ALSO THREATENED HIS SOLDIERS FOR
THEIR UNGOVERNABLE RASHNESS.
1. AS now the war abroad ceased for a while, the
sedition within was revived; and on the feast of
unleavened bread, which was now come, it being the
fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] when
it is believed the Jews were first freed from the
Egyptians, Eleazar and his party opened the gates of
this [inmost court of the] temple, and admitted such
of the people as were desirous to worship God into it.
But John made use of this festival as a cloak for his
treacherous designs, and armed the most inconsiderable
of his own party, the greater part of whom were not
purified, with weapons concealed under their garments,
and sent them with great zeal into the temple, in
order to seize upon it; which armed men, when they
were gotten in, threw their garments away, and
presently appeared in their armor. Upon which there
was a very great disorder and disturbance about the
holy house; while the people, who had no concern in
the sedition, supposed that this assault was made
against all without distinction, as the zealots
thought it was made against themselves only. So these
left off guarding the gates any longer, and leaped
down from their battlements before they came to an
engagement, and fled away into the subterranean
caverns of the temple; while the people that stood
trembling at the altar, and about the holy house, were
rolled on heaps together, and trampled upon, and were
beaten both with wooden and with iron weapons without
mercy. Such also as had differences with others slew
many persons that were quiet, out of their own private
enmity and hatred, as if they were opposite to the
seditious; and all those that had formerly offended
any of these plotters were now known, and were now led
away to the slaughter; and when they had done
abundance of horrid mischief to the guiltless, they
granted a truce to the guilty, and let those go off
that came cut of the caverns. These followers of John
also did now seize upon this inner temple, and upon
all the warlike engines therein, and then ventured to
oppose Simon. And thus that sedition, which had been
divided into three factions, was now reduced to two.
2. But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to
the city than Scopus, placed as many of his choice
horsemen and footmen as he thought sufficient opposite
to the Jews, to prevent their sallying out upon them,
while he gave orders for the whole army to level the
distance, as far as the wall of the city. So they
threw down all the hedges and walls which the
inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of
trees, and cut down all the fruit trees that lay
between them and the wall of the city, and filled up
all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished
the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and
thereby made all the place level from Scopus to
Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool called
the Serpent's Pool.
3. Now at this very time the Jews contrived the
following stratagem against the Romans. The bolder
sort of the seditious went out at the towers, called
the Women's Towers, as if they had been ejected out of
the city by those who were for peace, and rambled
about as if they were afraid of being assaulted by the
Romans, and were in fear of one another; while those
that stood upon the wall, and seemed to be of the
people's side, cried out aloud for peace, and
entreated they might have security for their lives
given them, and called for the Romans, promising to
open the gates to them; and as they cried out after
that manner, they threw stones at their own people, as
though they would drive them away from the gates.
These also pretended that they were excluded by force,
and that they petitioned those that were within to let
them in; and rushing upon the Romans perpetually, with
violence, they then came back, and seemed to be in
great disorder. Now the Roman soldiers thought this
cunning stratagem of theirs was to be believed real,
and thinking they had the one party under their power,
and could punish them as they pleased, and hoping that
the other party would open their gates to them, set to
the execution of their designs accordingly. But for
Titus himself, he had this surprising conduct of the
Jews in suspicion; for whereas he had invited them to
come to terms of accommodation, by Josephus, but one
day before, he could then receive no civil answer from
them; so he ordered the soldiers to stay where they
were. However, some of them that were set in the front
of the works prevented him, and catching up their arms
ran to the gates; whereupon those that seemed to have
been ejected at the first retired; but as soon as the
soldiers were gotten between the towers on each side
of the gate, the Jews ran out and encompassed them
round, and fell upon them behind, while that multitude
which stood upon the wall threw a heap of stones and
darts of all kinds at them, insomuch that they slew a
considerable number, and wounded many more; for it was
not easy for the Romans to escape, by reason those
behind them pressed them forward; besides which, the
shame they were under for being mistaken, and the fear
they were in of their commanders, engaged them to
persevere in their mistake; wherefore they fought with
their spears a great while, and received many blows
from the Jews, though indeed they gave them as many
blows again, and at last repelled those that had
encompassed them about, while the Jews pursued them as
they retired, and followed them, and threw darts at
them as far as the monuments of queen Helena.
4. After this these Jews, without keeping any
decorum, grew insolent upon their good fortune, and
jested upon the Romans for being deluded by the trick
they bad put upon them, and making a noise with
beating their shields, leaped for gladness, and made
joyful exclamations; while these soldiers were
received with threatenings by their officers, and with
indignation by Caesar himself, [who spake to them
thus]: These Jews, who are only conducted by their
madness, do every thing with care and circumspection;
they contrive stratagems, and lay ambushes, and
fortune gives success to their stratagems, because
they are obedient, and preserve their goodwill and
fidelity to one another; while the Romans, to whom
fortune uses to be ever subservient, by reason of
their good order, and ready submission to their
commanders, have now had ill success by their contrary
behavior, and by not being able to restrain their
hands from action, they have been caught; and that
which is the most to their reproach, they have gone on
without their commanders, in the very presence of
Caesar. "Truly," says Titus, "the laws of war cannot
but groan heavily, as will my father also himself,
when he shall be informed of this wound that hath been
given us, since he who is grown old in wars did never
make so great a mistake. Our laws of war do also ever
inflict capital punishment on those that in the least
break into good order, while at this time they have
seen an entire army run into disorder. However, those
that have been so insolent shall be made immediately
sensible, that even they who conquer among the Romans
without orders for fighting are to be under disgrace."
When Titus had enlarged upon this matter before the
commanders, it appeared evident that he would execute
the law against all those that were concerned; so
these soldiers' minds sunk down in despair, as
expecting to be put to death, and that justly and
quickly. However, the other legions came round about
Titus, and entreated his favor to these their fellow
soldiers, and made supplication to him, that he would
pardon the rashness of a few, on account of the better
obedience of all the rest; and promised for them that
they should make amends for their present fault, by
their more virtuous behavior for the time to come.
5. So Caesar complied with their desires, and with
what prudence dictated to him also; for he esteemed it
fit to punish single persons by real executions, but
that the punishment of great multitudes should proceed
no further than reproofs; so he was reconciled to the
soldiers, but gave them a special charge to act more
wisely for the future; and he considered with himself
how he might be even with the Jews for their
stratagem. And now when the space between the Romans
and the wall had been leveled, which was done in four
days, and as he was desirous to bring the baggage of
the army, with the rest of the multitude that followed
him, safely to the camp, he set the strongest part of
his army over against that wall which lay on the north
quarter of the city, and over against the western part
of it, and made his army seven deep, with the foot-men
placed before them, and the horsemen behind them, each
of the last in three ranks, whilst the archers stood
in the midst in seven ranks. And now as the Jews were
prohibited, by so great a body of men, from making
sallies upon the Romans, both the beasts that bare the
burdens, and belonged to the three legions, and the
rest of the multitude, marched on without any fear.
But as for Titus himself, he was but about two
furlongs distant from the w
all, at that part of it
where was the corner and over against that tower which
was called Psephinus, at which tower the compass of
the wall belonging to the north bended, and extended
itself over against the west; but the other part of
the army fortified itself at the tower called Hippicus,
and was distant, in like manner, by two furlongs from
the city. However, the tenth legion continued in its
own place, upon the Mount of Olives.
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