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[316]
AND now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city,
and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings
round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple 1
and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices
to them, and there did they make Titus imperator 2
with the greatest acclamations of joy. And now all the soldiers had such
vast quantities of the spoils which they had gotten by plunder, that in
Syria a pound weight of gold was sold for half its former value. But as
for those priests that kept themselves still upon the wall of the holy
house, 3
there was a boy that, out of the thirst he was in, desired some of the
Roman guards to give him their right hands as a security for his life,
and confessed he was very thirsty. These guards commiserated his age, and
the distress he was in, and gave him their right hands accordingly. So
he came down himself, and drank some water, and filled the vessel he had
with him when he came to them with water, and then went off, and fled away
to his own friends; nor could any of those guards overtake him; but still
they reproached him for his perfidiousness. To which he made this answer:
"I have not broken the agreement; for the security I had given me
was not in order to my staying with you, but only in order to my coming
down safely, and taking up some water; both which things I have performed,
and thereupon think myself to have been faithful to my engagement."
Hereupon those whom the child had imposed upon admired at his cunning,
and that on account of his age. On the fifth day afterward, the priests
that were pined with the famine came down, and when they were brought to
Titus by the guards, they begged for their lives; but he replied, that
the time of pardon was over as to them, and that this very holy house,
on whose account only they could justly hope to be preserved, was destroyed;
and that it was agreeable to their office that priests should perish with
the house itself to which they belonged. So he ordered them to be put to
death.
1 Take Havercamp's note here: "This (says he) is a remarkable place; and Tertullian truly says in his Apologetic, ch. 16. p. 162, that the entire religion of the Roman camp almost consisted in worshipping the ensigns, in swearing by the ensigns, and in preferring the ensigns before all the [other] gods." See what Havercamp says upon that place of Tertullian.
2 This declaring Titus imperator by the soldiers, upon such signal success, and the slaughter of such a vast number of enemies, was according to the usual practice of the Romans in like cases, as Reland assures us on this place.
3 The Jews of later times agree with Josephus, that there were hiding-places or secret chambers about the holy house, as Reland here informs us, where he thinks he has found these very walls described by them.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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