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[9]
And now the banks were finished, they afforded a foundation for fear
both to the Romans and to the Jews; for the Jews expected that the city
would be taken, unless they could burn those banks, as did the Romans expect
that, if these were once burnt down, they should never be able to take
it; for there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies of the
soldiers began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls faint
with so many instances of ill success; nay, the very calamities themselves
that were in the city proved a greater discouragement to the Romans than
those within the city; for they found the fighting men of the Jews to be
not at all mollified among such their sore afflictions, while they had
themselves perpetually less and less hopes of success, and their banks
were forced to yield to the stratagems of the enemy, their engines to the
firmness of their wall, and their closest fights to the boldness of their
attack; and, what was their greatest discouragement of all, they found
the Jews' courageous souls to be superior to the multitude of the miseries
they were under, by their sedition, their famine, and the war itself; insomuch
that they were ready to imagine that the violence of their attacks was
invincible, and that the alacrity they showed would not be discouraged
by their calamities; for what would not those be able to bear if they should
be fortunate, who turned their very misfortunes to the improvement of their
valor! These considerations made the Romans to keep a stronger guard about
their banks than they formerly had done.
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