This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[317]
And now Titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower of the
north part of the wall, in which a certain crafty Jew, whose name was Castor,
lay in ambush, with ten others like himself, the rest being fled away by
reason of the archers. These men lay still for a while, as in great fear,
under their breastplates; but when the tower was shaken, they arose, and
Castor did then stretch out his hand, as a petitioner, and called for Caesar,
and by his voice moved his compassion, and begged of him to have mercy
upon them; and Titus, in the innocency of his heart, believing him to be
in earnest, and hoping that the Jews did now repent, stopped the working
of the battering ram, and forbade them to shoot at the petitioners, and
bid Castor say what he had a mind to say to him. He said that he would
come down, if he would give him his right hand for his security. To which
Titus replied, that he was well pleased with such his agreeable conduct,
and would be well pleased if all the Jews would be of his mind, and that
he was ready to give the like security to the city. Now five of the ten
dissembled with him, and pretended to beg for mercy, while the rest cried
out aloud that they would never be slaves to the Romans, while it was in
their power to die in a state of freedom. Now while these men were quarrelling
for a long while, the attack was delayed; Castor also sent to Simon, and
told him that they might take some time for consultation about what was
to be done, because he would elude the power of the Romans for a considerable
time. And at the same time that he sent thus to him, he appeared openly
to exhort those that were obstinate to accept of Titus's hand for their
security; but they seemed very angry at it, and brandished their naked
swords upon the breast-works, and struck themselves upon their breast,
and fell down as if they had been slain. Hereupon Titus, and those with
him, were amazed at the courage of the men; and as they were not able to
see exactly what was done, they admired at their great fortitude, and pitied
their calamity. During this interval, a certain person shot a dart at Castor,
and wounded him in his nose; whereupon he presently pulled out the dart,
and showed it to Titus, and complained that this was unfair treatment;
so Caesar reproved him that shot the dart, and sent Josephus, who then
stood by him, to give his right hand to Castor. But Josephus said that
he would not go to him, because these pretended petitioners meant nothing
that was good; he also restrained those friends of his who were zealous
to go to him. But still there was one Eneas, a deserter, who said he would
go to him. Castor also called to them, that somebody should come and receive
the money which he had with him; this made Eneas the more earnestly to
run to him with his bosom open. Then did Castor take up a great stone,
and threw it at him, which missed him, because he guarded himself against
it; but still it wounded another soldier that was coining to him. When
Caesar understood that this was a delusion, he perceived that mercy in
war is a pernicious thing, because such cunning tricks have less place
under the exercise of greater severity. So he caused the engine to work
more strongly than before, on account of his anger at the deceit put upon
him. But Castor and his companions set the tower on fire when it began
to give way, and leaped through the flame into a hidden vault that was
under it, which made the Romans further suppose that they were men of great
courage, as having cast themselves into the fire.
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.