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[220]
AND now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth
day of the month Lous [Ab]. Whereupon Titus gave orders that the battering
rams should be brought, and set over against the western edifice of the
inner temple; for before these were brought, the firmest of all the other
engines had battered the wall for six days together without ceasing, without
making any impression upon it; but the vast largeness and strong connexion
of the stones were superior to that engine, and to the other battering
rams also. Other Romans did indeed undermine the foundations of the northern
gate, and after a world of pains removed the outermost stones, yet was
the gate still upheld by the inner stones, and stood still unhurt; till
the workmen, despairing of all such attempts by engines and crows, brought
their ladders to the cloisters. Now the Jews did not interrupt them in
so doing; but when they were gotten up, they fell upon them, and fought
with them; some of them they thrust down, and threw them backwards headlong;
others of them they met and slew; they also beat many of those that went
down the ladders again, and slew them with their swords before they could
bring their shields to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw
down from above when they were full of armed men; a great slaughter was
made of the Jews also at the same time, while those that bare the ensigns
fought hard for them, as deeming it a terrible thing, and what would tend
to their great shame, if they permitted them to be stolen away. Yet did
the Jews at length get possession of these engines, and destroyed those
that had gone up the ladders, while the rest were so intimidated by what
those suffered who were slain, that they retired; although none of the
Romans died without having done good service before his death. Of the seditious,
those that had fought bravely in the former battles did the like now, as
besides them did Eleazar, the brother's son of Simon the tyrant. But when
Titus perceived that his endeavors to spare a foreign temple turned to
the damage of his soldiers, and then be killed, he gave order to set the
gates on fire.
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