And the Jews, though emaciated by hunger, reeling and fainting for weakness, were yet full of courage and resource. While Titus was spending seventeen days of arduous labour in getting ready his new banks against the Temple, the Jews were busy burrowing beneath his feet; and when the rams had been mounted and already were beginning to play, a subterranean rumbling was heard, and the works of weeks fell suddenly to the ground.
“The Romans had much ado to finish their banks after labouring hard for seventeen days continually. There were now four great banks raised, one of which was at the tower of Antonia; this was raised by the 5th Legion, over against the middle of that pool which was called Struthius. Another was cast up by the 12th Legion, at the distance of about twenty cubits from the other. But the labours of the 10th legion, which lay a great way off these, were on the north quarter, and at the pool called Amygdalon; as was that of the 15th legion, about thirty cubits from it, and at the high priest’s monument. And now, when the engines were brought, John had from within undermined the space that was over-against the tower of Antonia, as far as the banks themselves, and had supported the ground over the mine with beams laid across one another, whereby the Roman works stood upon an uncertain foundation. Then did he order such materials to be brought in as were daubed over with pitch and bitumen, and set them on fire; and as the cross beams that supported the banks were burning, the ditch yielded on the sudden, and the banks were shaken down, and fell into the ditch with a prodigious noise. Now at the first there arose a very thick smoke and dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank; but as the suffocated materials were now gradually consumed, a flame brake out; on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon the Romans, and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and indeed, this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they had already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to come. They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains to extinguish the fire, since, if it were extinguished, the banks were swallowed up already [and become useless] to them.”
The other banks against the west wall were not more fortunate. For Simon’s soldiers, with torches in their hands, rushed out suddenly when the engines were beginning to shake the walls. They seized the iron of the engines, which was red hot, and despite this held them till the wood was consumed. The Romans retreated: the guards, who would not desert their post, fell in numbers, and Titus found his whole army wavering under the attacks of a half-starved and haggard mob, whose courage arose from despair. And the engines had all been burned, the labour of three weeks gone. Titus held a council to decide what should next be done. It was resolved, on his own suggestion, that a wall of circumvallation should be raised round the city, and that a strict blockade, cutting off all communication with the country, should be established, until starvation should force a surrender.
The wall, which was probably little more than a breastwork, though strong and solid, was completed, together with thirteen external redoubts, in three days,[[13]] every soldier giving his labour. No attempt seems to have been made by the Jews to prevent or hinder the work. Probably they were too weak to attempt any more sorties. A strict watch was set by the Romans—up to this time the blockade does not seem to have been complete—and no one was allowed to approach the wall. And now the last feeble resource of the Jews, the furtive gathering of roots under the city walls, was denied them; and the sufferings of the besieged became too great for any historian to relate. Titus himself, stoic though he was, and resolute to succeed in spite of any suffering, called God to witness, with tears in his eyes, that this was not his doing.
[13]. This alone is sufficient to prove the extent of Titus’s army. An army of thirty thousand would be utterly unable to accomplish such a work in three days.
Even the obstinacy of the Jews gave way under these sufferings, and more than one attempt was made to introduce the Romans. Matthias opened a communication with the enemy. He was detected, and, with three sons, was executed. One Judas, the son of Judas, who was in command of a tower in the Upper City, concerted with ten of his men, and invited the Romans to come up and take the tower. Had Titus at once ordered a troop to mount, the Upper City might have been easily taken. But he had been too often deceived by feints, and hesitated. The plot was discovered, and Judas, with his ten fellows, was hurled over the ramparts at the feet of the Romans.
It was then that Josephus, whom of all men the besieged hated, was wounded in the head, but not seriously, by a stone. The Jews made a tremendous acclamation at seeing this, and sallied forth for a sortie, in the excess of their joy. Josephus, senseless, was taken up and conveyed away, but the next day reappeared and once more offered the clemency of Titus to those who would come out. The hatred which his countrymen bore to Josephus, as to an apostate, natural enough, shows remarkably the love of justice which in all times has distinguished the Jew. His father and mother were in the city. They were not, till late in the siege, interfered with in any way: and his father was set in prison at last, more, apparently, to vex his son than with any idea of doing him an injury.[[14]]
The miserable state of the city drove hundreds to desert. They came down from the walls, or they made a pretended sortie and passed over to the Romans; but here a worse fate accompanied them, in spite of Josephus’s promises, for Josephus had not reckoned on the expectation that the Jews, famishing and mad for food, would, as proved the case, cause their own death by over-eating at first. And a more terrible danger awaited them. It was rumoured about that the deserters swallowed their gold before leaving the city, and the auxiliaries in the Roman camp, Arabians and Syrians, seized the suppliants, and fairly cut them open to find the gold. And though Titus was incensed when he heard of it, and prohibited it strictly, he could not wholly stop the practice, and the knowledge of this cruelty getting into the city stopped many who would otherwise have escaped: they remained to die. One of those who kept the register of burials and paid the bearers of the dead, told Josephus that out of his gate alone 115,880 bodies had been thrown since the siege began, and many citizens, whose word could be depended on, estimated the number who had died at 600,000.
[14]. Josephus narrates how his mother wept at the false report of his death, and quotes with complacency her lamentation that she had brought so distinguished a man into the world for so early a death.
Banks, meanwhile, were gradually rising against the fortress of Antonia. The Romans had swept the country clear of trees for ninety furlongs round to find timber for their construction: they took twenty-one days to complete, and were four in number. The besieged no longer made the same resistance. Their courage, says Josephus, was no longer Jewish, “for they failed in what is peculiar to our nation, in boldness, violence of assault, and running upon the enemy all together ... but they now went out in a more languid manner than before ... and they reproached one another for cowardice, and so retired without doing anything.” The attacks of the enemy were, however, courageously defended. For a whole day the Romans endeavoured with rams to shake the wall, and with crows and picks to undermine its foundations. Darkness made them withdraw, and during the night the wall, which had been grievously shaken, fell of its own accord.