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But now the tyrant Simon, the son of Gioras, whom the people had
invited in, out of the hopes they had of his assistance in the great distresses
they were in, having in his power the upper city, and a great part of the
lower, did now make more vehement assaults upon John and his party, because
they were fought against from above also; yet was he beneath their situation
when he attacked them, as they were beneath the attacks of the others above
them. Whereby it came to pass that John did both receive and inflict great
damage, and that easily, as he was fought against on both sides; and the
same advantage that Eleazar and his party had over him, since he was beneath
them, the same advantage had he, by his higher situation, over Simon. On
which account he easily repelled the attacks that were made from beneath,
by the weapons thrown from their hands only; but was obliged to repel those
that threw their darts from the temple above him, by his engines of war;
for he had such engines as threw darts, and javelins, and stones, and that
in no small number, by which he did not only defend himself from such as
fought against him, but slew moreover many of the priests, as they were
about their sacred ministrations. For notwithstanding these men were mad
with all sorts of impiety, yet did they still admit those that desired
to offer their sacrifices, although they took care to search the people
of their own country beforehand, and both suspected and watched them; while
they were not so much afraid of strangers, who, although they had gotten
leave of them, how cruel soever they were, to come into that court, were
yet often destroyed by this sedition; for those darts that were thrown
by the engines came with that force, that they went over all the buildings,
and reached as far as the altar, and the temple itself, and fell upon the
priests, and those
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that were about the sacred offices; insomuch that many persons who came
thither with great zeal from the ends of the earth, to offer sacrifices
at this celebrated place, which was esteemed holy by all mankind, fell
down before their own sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which
was venerable among all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, with their own
blood; till the dead bodies of strangers were mingled together with those
of their own country, and those of profane persons with those of the priests,
and the blood of all sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy
courts themselves. And now, "O must wretched city, what misery so
great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify
thee from thy intestine hatred! 'For thou couldst be no longer a place
fit for God, nor couldst thou long continue in being, after thou hadst
been a sepulcher for the bodies of thy own people, and hadst made the holy
house itself a burying-place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayst thou
again grow better, if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of
that God who is the author of thy destruction." But I must restrain
myself from these passions by the rules of history, since this is not a
proper time for domestical lamentations, but for historical narrations;
I therefore return to the operations that follow in this sedition.
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