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[129]
As Josephus explained these things from the mouth of Caesar, both
the robbers and the tyrant thought that these exhortations proceeded from
Titus's fear, and not from his good-will to them, and grew insolent upon
it. But when Titus saw that these men were neither to be moved by commiseration
towards themselves, nor had any concern upon them to have the holy house
spared, he proceeded unwillingly to go on again with the war against them.
He could not indeed bring all his army against them, the place was so narrow;
but choosing thirty soldiers of the most valiant out of every hundred,
and committing a thousand to each tribune, and making Cerealis their commander-in-chief,
he gave orders that they should attack the guards of the temple about the
ninth hour of that night. But as he was now in his armor, and preparing
to go down with them, his friends would not let him go, by reason of the
greatness of the danger, and what the commanders suggested to them; for
they said that he would do more by sitting above in the tower of Antonia,
as a dispenser of rewards to those soldiers that signalized themselves
in the fight, than by coming down and hazarding his own person in the forefront
of them; for that they would all fight stoutly while Caesar looked upon
them. With this advice Caesar complied, and said that the only reason he
had for such compliance with the soldiers was this, that he might be able
to judge of their courageous actions, and that no valiant soldier might
lie concealed, and miss of his reward, and no cowardly soldier might go
unpunished; but that he might himself be an eye-witness, and able to give
evidence of all that was done, who was to be the disposer of punishments
and rewards to them. So he sent the soldiers about their work at the hour
forementioned, while he went out himself to a higher place in the tower
of Antonia, whence he might see what was done, and there waited with impatience
to see the event.
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