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[271]
Then did Josephus take necessity for his counselor in this utmost
distress, (which necessity is very sagacious in invention when it is irritated
by despair,) and gave orders to pour scalding oil upon those whose shields
protected them. Whereupon they soon got it ready, being many that brought
it, and what they brought being a great quantity also, and poured it on
all sides upon the Romans, and threw down upon them their vessels as they
were still hissing from the heat of the fire: this so burnt the Romans,
that it dispersed that united band, who now tumbled clown from the wall
with horrid pains, for the oil did easily run down the whole body from
head to foot, under their entire armor, and fed upon their flesh like flame
itself, its fat and unctuous nature rendering it soon heated and slowly
cooled; and as the men were cooped up in their head-pieces and breastplates,
they could no way get free from this burning oil; they could only leap
and roll about in their pains, as they fell down from the bridges they
had laid. And as they thus were beaten back, and retired to their own party,
who still pressed them forward, they were easily wounded by those that
were behind them.
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