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[348]
A RESOLUTION was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little
while, and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration, and to
see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a
little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a famine,
because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be sufficient for
them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to compass his own
designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when he must distribute
subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he gave orders that the
commanders should put the army into battle-array, in the face of the enemy,
and then give every one of the soldiers their pay. So the soldiers, according
to custom, opened the cases wherein their arms before lay covered, and
marched with their breastplates on, as did the horsemen lead their horses
in their fine trappings. Then did the places that were before the city
shine very splendidly for a great way; nor was there any thing so grateful
to Titus's own men, or so terrible to the enemy, as that sight. For the
whole old wall, and the north side of the temple, were full of spectators,
and one might see the houses full of such as looked at them; nor was there
any part of the city which was not covered over with their multitudes;
nay, a very great consternation seized upon the hardiest of the Jews themselves,
when they saw all the army in the same place, together with the fineness
of their arms, and the good order of their men. And I cannot but think
that the seditious would have changed their minds at that sight, unless
the crimes they had committed against the people had been so horrid, that
they despaired of forgiveness from the Romans; but as they believed death
with torments must be their punishment, if they did not go on in the defense
of the city, they thought it much better to die in war. Fate also prevailed
so far over them, that the innocent were to perish with the guilty, and
the city was to be destroyed with the seditious that were in it.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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