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[502]
These arguments prevailed with the commanders. So Titus gave orders
that the army should be distributed to their several shares of this work;
and indeed there now came upon the soldiers a certain divine fury, so that
they did not only part the whole wall that was to be built among them,
nor did only one legion strive with another, but the lesser divisions of
the army did the same; insomuch that each soldier was ambitious to please
his decurion, each decurion his centurion, each centurion his tribune,
and the ambition of the tribunes was to please their superior commanders,
while Caesar himself took notice of and rewarded the like contention in
those commanders; for he went round about the works many times every day,
and took a view of what was done. Titus began the wall from the camp of
the Assyrians, where his own camp was pitched, and drew it down to the
lower parts of Cenopolis; thence it went along the valley of Cedron, to
the Mount of Olives; it then bent towards the south, and encompassed the
mountain as far as the rock called Peristereon, and that other hill which
lies next it, and is over the valley which reaches to Siloam; whence it
bended again to the west, and went down to the valley of the Fountain,
beyond which it went up again at the monument of Ananus the high priest,
and encompassing that mountain where Pompey had formerly pitched his camp,
it returned back to the north side of the city, and was carried on as far
as a certain village called "The House of the Erebinthi;" after
which it encompassed Herod's monument, and there, on the east, was joined
to Titus's own camp, where it began. Now the length of this wall was forty
furlongs, one only abated. Now at this wall without were erected thirteen
places to keep garrison in, whose circumferences, put together, amounted
to ten furlongs; the whole was completed in three days; so that what would
naturally have required some months was done in so short an interval as
is incredible. When Titus had therefore encompassed the city with this
wall, and put garrisons into proper places, be went round the wall, at
the first watch of the night, and observed how the guard was kept; the
second watch he allotted to Alexander; the commanders of legions took the
third watch. They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the
watch in the night time, and who should go all night long round the spaces
that were interposed between the garrisons.
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