[46]—page 367.] The historical record is that, on April 13 A.D. 70, when Titus advanced in person at the head of six hundred cavalry to reconnoiter the city, not a man was to be seen; but as he rode incautiously near the wall, he was suddenly surrounded by a multitude that poured out from a gate behind him. Bareheaded and without a breastplate, he forced his way through the hosts with his horse and sword, amid a storm of darts that transfixed many of his followers, and, tho he escaped unharmed to the camp, the Jews could boast that the first act of the siege was Cæsar’s flight.
[47]—page 378.] What with faction within and assault from without, the wretchedness of Jerusalem at this time had become almost inconceivable. The historian graphically says:
“Soon there was literally a battle for life within the city. The weak and the starving had their last morsels of food snatched from them by the strong; and the strong were tortured and executed because their looks convicted them of having a concealed store. ‘Every kind feeling, love, respect, natural affection, was extinct through the all-absorbing want. Wives would snatch the last morsel from husbands, children from parents, mothers from children; they would intercept even their own milk from the lips of their pining babes.’ If we are allowed to doubt whether Josephus has exaggerated these horrors, we may be sure that his picture of the cruelties of his imperial patron is but too true. As the famine became more intolerable, so did the measures of Titus to force the people to surrender. Wretches who prowled outside the walls during the night, to pick up scraps of food, were scourged and crucified, sometimes to the number of five hundred at a time, and twisted into ludicrous postures by the wantonness of the soldiers; the soldiers bade those that desired peace to behold these examples of Roman mercy.”
[48]—page 387.] It is to the honor of Titus that he made earnest and repeated efforts to save the Temple as well as to prevent its desecration by the Jews themselves. After the destruction of Antonia and before his final assault upon the defenses of the Temple, he made a last experiment of clemency. According to the historian, many accepted his offer of mercy; and when the rest had fled to Zion and the Temple, he sent to Josephus to offer them free egress if they would come out and fight, rather than see the sanctuary polluted. His words, uttered in their own language, were beginning to make some impression, when his old enemy, John, sternly interrupted him, declaring that he feared not the taking of the city, for God would protect His own: and Josephus narrowly escaped capture. The captives just admitted to quarter, including many of the chief priests, next appeared before the Temple gate to entreat the zealots to save the house of God from ruin; but the merciless John, who had already butchered many of their relatives, answered with a shower of missiles, which—says Josephus—strewed the ground with bodies as thickly as the places where the slaves were thrown out unburied. Titus himself pleaded the inconsistency of filling with arms and blood the courts of the Holy Place, nay, even the Holy of Holies, which they had always guarded with jealousy. “I call on your gods,” said he, “I call on my whole army—I call on the Jews who are with me—I call on yourselves—to witness that I do not force you to this crime. Come forth, and fight in any other place, and no Roman shall violate your sacred edifice.” But the zealots, in their judicial blindness, rejected all offers of mercy, and waited for God to save the Temple by miracle.
[49]—page 409.] The historian records that the year preceding the final revolt (A.D. 65) was marked by the direst prodigies of impending war and of the desolation of the Temple. During a whole year, a comet shaped like a simitar hung over the city, and many an eye-witness testified to the appearance described by Milton:
“As when, to warn proud cities, war appears
Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush
To battle in the clouds; before each van
Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears,
Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms