The proposition was accepted. Josephus himself drew among the rest; but as Providence ordered it, his lot was the last but one. When the general was surrounded by the bloody corpses of his fierce companions, he succeeded in persuading the only one of them who survived not to complete the horrible work of destruction. He and the man surrendered to the Romans, and received mercy from [Vespasian].
But even the horrors of Jotapata were light compared to those of the [siege of Jerusalem]! At the feast of the Passover, at the season when the city was most crowded with worshippers—at the season when the Messiah had been slain—the Roman army, under the conduct of [Titus], invested Jerusalem 70 a.d. A wall was thrown up around it; there was no means of escape for the multitudes within, except that of accepting the proffered mercy of Titus: that mercy was fiercely rejected.
THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.
As though the miseries of such a war were not sufficient, the city was rent by internal dissensions. Eleazar, at the head of a body of fierce bigots, garrisoned the temple of Jerusalem; John of Gischala, an unprincipled ruffian, swept the streets with his bands of robbers; and Simon, a savage tyrant, filled the lower parts of the city with blood. These three parties attacked each other with the fury of ravening wolves, and only united in ferocious sallies against the common enemy. In the madness of their rage in this intestine strife, the Jews actually set fire to the houses which contained their own stores of provisions, and thus added to all other horrors that of the extremity of famine. Multitudes perished by hunger; and happiest were those who were first relieved by death from their horrible torments. Girdles and shoes were eagerly devoured; leather from the shields was torn off and gnawed; robbers burst into the houses where wretched families were dying of hunger, and tortured the poor wretches to force them to discover where a morsel of food might lie concealed. Many of the famished sufferers who endeavoured to escape from the city were seized by the Romans, and crucified in such numbers that wood could scarcely be found for the crosses; while if any in the beleaguered town were suspected of wishing to quit it, they were murdered by the furious Zealots. The sound of war in Jerusalem was heard by day and by night; the streets were slippery with gore; no one there attempted to bury the heaps of corpses. It is said that 1,100,000 of the people perished in this horrible siege.
One by one the three walls which encompassed the city were taken by assault; as the circle grew narrower and narrower, the misery within grew more dreadful. Unnatural horrors were perpetrated. Not only would parents tear the last morsel of food from their famishing babes, but, fearful to relate, a mother was known even to feed upon her own offspring! Let a veil be drawn over such awful scenes. Fearfully was the prediction of the Messiah at this time accomplished—“There shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world, no, nor ever shall be!”
The Lord had foretold that false prophets should arise and deceive many, and that fearful sights and great signs should be from heaven; and these words were literally fulfilled. The miserable Jews desperately grasped at the hope of a coming Messiah, and eagerly listened to deceivers, who only lured them to ruin. A wonder in the sky, resembling a fiery sword, hung over the devoted city; appearances as of chariots and assembling armies in the clouds terrified the astonished beholders; and one night the priests in the temple were alarmed by a quaking of the earth, accompanied by a strange sound, and a voice which uttered the mysterious words, “Let us depart!”
TITUS LEADING ON HIS TROOPS.