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[466]
Now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth day of
the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] so had they much ado to finish them by the
twenty-ninth day of the same month, after they had labored hard for seventeen
days continually. For there were now four great banks raised, one of which
was at the tower Antonia; this was raised by the fifth legion, over against
the middle of that pool which was called Struthius. Another was cast up
by the twelfth legion, at the distance of about twenty cubits from the
other. But the labors of the tenth legion, which lay a great way off these,
were on the north quarter, and at the pool called Amygdalon; as was that
of the fifteenth 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 plain 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].
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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