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[349]
Now as for the robberies which were committed, the king contrived
that ambushes should be so laid, that they might restrain their excursions;
and as for the want of provisions, he provided that they should be brought
to them from great distances. He was also too hard for the Jews, by the
Romans' skill in the art of war; although they were bold to the utmost
degree, now they durst not come to a plain battle with the Romans, which
was certain death; but through their mines under ground they would appear
in the midst of them on the sudden, and before they could batter down one
wall, they built them another in its stead; and to sum up all at once,
they did not show any want either of painstaking or of contrivances, as
having resolved to hold out to the very last. Indeed, though they had so
great an army lying round about them, they bore a siege of five months,
till some of Herod's chosen men ventured to get upon the wall, and fell
into the city, as did Sosius's centurions after them; and now they first
of all seized upon what was about the temple; and upon the pouring in of
the army, there was slaughter of vast multitudes every where, by reason
of the rage the Romans were in at the length of this siege, and by reason
that the Jews who were about Herod earnestly endeavored that none of their
adversaries might remain; so they were cut to pieces by great multitudes,
as they were crowded together in narrow streets, and in houses, or were
running away to the temple; nor was there any mercy showed either to infants,
or to the aged, or to the weaker sex; insomuch that although the king sent
about and desired them to spare the people, nobody could be persuaded to
withhold their right hand from slaughter, but they slew people of all ages,
like madmen. Then it was that Antigonus, without any regard to his former
or to his present fortune, came down from the citadel, and fell at Sosius's
feet, who without pitying him at all, upon the change of his condition,
laughed at him beyond measure, and called him Antigona. 1
Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him go free, but put him
into bonds, and kept him in custody.
1 That is, a woman, not, a man.
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