This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[486]
And now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia, whither he was
gone to look out for a place for raising other banks, and reproached the
soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to be in danger, when they
had taken the wails of their enemies, and sustained the fortune of men
besieged, while the Jews were allowed to sally out against them, though
they were already in a sort of prison. He then went round about the enemy
with some chosen troops, and fell upon their flank himself; so the Jews,
who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to Titus, and
continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed one among another,
and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing one another,
and the noise that was made so far hindered them from hearing one another,
that neither side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews
did not flinch, though not so much from their real strength, as from their
despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of the
regard they had to glory, and to their reputation in war, and because Caesar
himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot but think
the Romans would in the conclusion have now taken even the whole multitude
of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these not prevented the
upshot of the battle, and retired into the city. However, seeing the banks
of the Romans were demolished, these Romans were very much east down upon
the loss of what had cost them so long pains, and this in one hour's time.
And many indeed despaired of taking the city with their usual engines of
war only.
1
1 TITUS THOUGHT FIT TO ENCOMPASS THE CITY ROUND WITH A WALL; AFTER WHICH THE FAMINE CONSUMED THE PEOPLE BY WHOLE HOUSES AND FAMILIES TOGETHER.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.