Titus looked at me in silence, and was evidently perplexed; then he returned to his chair, and having consulted with his companions, hesitatingly said:
“Prince, you know not what you have asked. I am bound, like others, by the Emperor’s commands, and they strictly are, that none of your countrymen, taken after the offer of peace, must live.”
“Hear this, God of Israel!” I cried; “King of Vengeance, hear and remember!”
“You are rash, prince,” said Titus gravely; “yet I can forgive your national temper. With others, even your venturing here might bring you into hazard. But the perfidy of your people makes truce and treaty impossible. They leave me no alternative. I lament the necessity. It is the desire of the illustrious Vespasian to reign in peace. But this is now at an end.”
He paused, and advancing toward me, offered his hand with the words: “I know that there are brave and high-minded men among your nation. I have been astonished at the valor, nay, I will call it the daring and heroic contempt of suffering and death, that this siege has already shown. I have been witness, too,” and he smiled, “of the prince of Naphtali’s prowess in the field, and I would most willingly have such among my friends.”
I waited for the conclusion.
The Offer of Titus
“Why not come among us,” he said; “give up a resistance that must end in ruin; abandon a cause that all the world sees to be desperate; save yourself from popular caprice, the violence of your rancorous factions, and the final fall of your city? Be Cæsar’s friend, and name what possession, power, or rank you will.”
The thought of deserting the cause of Jerusalem was profanation. I drew back and looked at the majestic Roman as if I saw the original tempter before me.
“Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man; I may in the next be an exile or a slave. I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the heart of man; I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the life of the noble victim that is now standing at the place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning, the cause of the City of Holiness.”