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WAR BOOK 5 FOOTNOTES

1 (return)

[ This appears to be the first time that the zealots ventured to pollute this most sacred court of the temple, which was the court of the priests, wherein the temple itself and the altar stood. So that the conjecture of those that would interpret that Zacharias, who was slain "between the temple and the altar" several months before, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4, as if he were slain there by these zealots, is groundless, as I have noted on that place already.]

2 (return)

[ The Levites.]

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[ This is an excellent reflection of Josephus, including his hopes of the restoration of the Jews upon their repentance, See Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 46, which is the grand "Hope of Israel," as Manasseh-ben-Israel, the famous Jewish Rabbi, styles it, in his small but remarkable treatise on that subject, of which the Jewish prophets are every where full. See the principal of those prophecies collected together at the end of the Essay on the Revelation, p. 822, etc.]

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[ This destruction of such a vast quantity of corn and other provisions, as was sufficient for many years was the direct occasion of that terrible famine, which consumed incredible numbers of Jews in Jerusalem during its siege. Nor probably could the Romans have taken this city, after all, had not these seditious Jews been so infatuated as thus madly to destroy, what Josephus here justly styles, "The nerves of their power."]

5 (return)

[ This timber, we see, was designed for the rebuilding those twenty additional cubits of the holy house above the hundred, which had fallen down some years before. See the note on Antiq. B. XV. ch. 11. sect. 3.]

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[ There being no gate on the west, and only on the west, side of the court of the priests, and so no steps there, this was the only side that the seditious, under this John of Gischala, could bring their engines close to the cloisters of that court end-ways, though upon the floor of the court of Israel. See the scheme of that temple, in the description of the temples hereto belonging.]

7 (return)

[ We may here note, that Titus is here called "a king," and "Caesar," by Josephus, even while he was no more than the emperor's son, and general of the Roman army, and his father Vespasian was still alive; just as the New Testament says "Archelaus reigned," or "was king," Matthew 2:22, though he was properly no more than ethnarch, as Josephus assures us, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 11. sect. 4; Of the War, B. II. ch. 6. sect. 3. Thus also the Jews called the Roman emperors "kings," though they never took that title to themselves: "We have no king but Caesar," John 19:15. "Submit to the king as supreme," 1 Peter 2:13, 17; which is also the language of the Apostolical Constitutions, II. II, 31; IV. 13; V. 19; VI. 2, 25; VII. 16; VIII. 2, 13; and elsewhere in the New Testament, Matthew 10:18; 17:25; 1 Timothy 2:2; and in Josephus also; though I suspect Josephus particularly esteemed Titus as joint king with his father ever since his divine dreams that declared them both such, B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9.]

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[ This situation of the Mount of Olives, on the east of Jerusalem, at about the distance of five or six furlongs, with the valley of Cedron interposed between that mountain and the city, are things well known both in the Old and New Testament, in Josephus elsewhere, and in all the descriptions of Palestine.]

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[ Here we see the true occasion of those vast numbers of Jews that were in Jerusalem during this siege by Titus, and perished therein; that the siege began at the feast of the passover, when such prodigious multitudes of Jews and proselytes of the gate were come from all parts of Judea, and from other countries, in order to celebrate that great festival. See the note B. VI. ch. 9. sect. 3. Tacitus himself informs us, that the number of men, women, and children in Jerusalem, when it was besieged by the Romans, as he had been informed. This information must have been taken from the Romans: for Josephus never recounts the numbers of those that were besieged, only he lets us know, that of the vulgar, carried dead out of the gates, and buried at the public charges, was the like number of 600,000, ch. viii. sect. 7. However, when Cestius Gallus came first to the siege, that sum in Tacitus is no way disagreeable to Josephus's history, though they were become much more numerous when Titus encompassed the city at the passover. As to the number that perished during this siege, Josephus assures us, as we shall see hereafter, they were 1,100,000, besides 97,000 captives. But Tacitus's history of the last part of this siege is not now extant; so we cannot compare his parallel numbers with those of Josephus.]

10 (return)

[ Perhaps, says Dr. Hudson, here was that gate, called the "Gate of the Corner," in 2 Chronicles 26:9. See ch. 4. sect. 2]

11 (return)

[ These dove-courts in Josephus, built by Herod the Great, are, in the opinion of Reland, the very same that are mentioned by the Talmudists, and named by them "Herod's dove courts." Nor is there any reason to suppose otherwise, since in both accounts they were expressly tame pigeons which were kept in them.]

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[ See the description of the temples hereto belonging, ch. 15. But note, that what Josephus here says of the original scantiness of this Mount Moriah, that it was quite too little for the temple, and that at first it held only one cloister or court of Solomon's building, and that the foundations were forced to be added long afterwards by degrees, to render it capable of the cloisters for the other courts, etc., is without all foundation in the Scriptures, and not at all confirmed by his exacter account in the Antiquities. All that is or can be true here is this, that when the court of the Gentiles was long afterward to be encompassed with cloisters, the southern foundation for these cloisters was found not to be large or firm enough, and was raised, and that additional foundation supported by great pillars and arches under ground, which Josephus speaks of elsewhere, Antiq. B. XV. ch. 11. sect. 3, and which Mr. Maundrel saw, and describes, p. 100, as extant under ground at this day.]

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[ What Josephus seems here to mean is this: that these pillars, supporting the cloisters in the second court, had their foundations or lowest parts as deep as the floor of the first or lowest court; but that so far of those lowest parts as were equal to the elevation of the upper floor above the lowest were, and must be, hidden on the inside by the ground or rock itself, on which that upper court was built; so that forty cubits visible below were reduced to twenty-five visible above, and implies the difference of their heights to be fifteen cubits. The main difficulty lies here, how fourteen or fifteen steps should give an ascent of fifteen cubits, half a cubit seeming sufficient for a single step. Possibly there were fourteen or fifteen steps at the partition wall, and fourteen or fifteen more thence into the court itself, which would bring the whole near to the just proportion. See sect. 3, infra. But I determine nothing.]

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[ These three guards that lay in the tower of Antonia must be those that guarded the city, the temple, and the tower of Antonia.]

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[ What should be the meaning of this signal or watchword, when the watchmen saw a stone coming from the engine, "The Stone Cometh," or what mistake there is in the reading, I cannot tell. The MSS., both Greek and Latin, all agree in this reading; and I cannot approve of any groundless conjectural alteration of the text from ro to lop, that not the son or a stone, but that the arrow or dart cometh; as hath been made by Dr. Hudson, and not corrected by Havercamp. Had Josephus written even his first edition of these books of the war in pure Hebrew, or had the Jews then used the pure Hebrew at Jerusalem, the Hebrew word for a son is so like that for a stone, ben and eben, that such a correction might have been more easily admitted. But Josephus wrote his former edition for the use of the Jews beyond Euphrates, and so in the Chaldee language, as he did this second edition in the Greek language; and bar was the Chaldee word for son, instead of the Hebrew ben, and was used not only in Chaldea, etc. but in Judea also, as the New Testament informs us. Dio lets us know that the very Romans at Rome pronounced the name of Simon the son of Giora, Bar Poras for Bar Gioras, as we learn from Xiphiline, p. 217. Reland takes notice, "that many will here look for a mystery, as though the meaning were, that the Son of God came now to take vengeance on the sins of the Jewish nation;" which is indeed the truth of the fact, but hardly what the Jews could now mean; unless possibly by way of derision of Christ's threatening so often made, that he would come at the head of the Roman army for their destruction. But even this interpretation has but a very small degree of probability. If I were to make an emendation by mere conjecture, I would read instead of, though the likeness be not so great as in lo; because that is the word used by Josephus just before, as has been already noted on this very occasion, while, an arrow or dart, is only a poetical word, and never used by Josephus elsewhere, and is indeed no way suitable to the occasion, this engine not throwing arrows or darts, but great stones, at this time.]

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[ Josephus supposes, in this his admirable speech to the Jews, that not Abraham only, but Pharaoh king of Egypt, prayed towards a temple at Jerusalem, or towards Jerusalem itself, in which were Mount Sion and Mount Moriah, on which the tabernacle and temple did afterwards stand; and this long before either the Jewish tabernacle or temple were built. Nor is the famous command given by God to Abraham, to go two or three days' journey, on purpose to offer up his son Isaac there, unfavorable to such a notion.]

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[ Note here, that Josephus, in this his same admirable speech, calls the Syrians, nay, even the Philistines, on the most south part of Syria, Assyrians; which Reland observes as what was common among the ancient writers. Note also, that Josephus might well put the Jews in mind, as he does here more than once, of their wonderful and truly miraculous deliverance from Sennacherib, king of Assyria, while the Roman army, and himself with them, were now encamped upon and beyond that very spot of ground where the Assyrian army lay seven hundred and eighty years before, and which retained the very name of the Camp of the Assyrians to that very day. See chap. 7. sect. 3, and chap. 12. sect. 2.]

18 (return)

[ This drying up of the Jerusalem fountain of Siloam when the Jews wanted it, and its flowing abundantly when the enemies of the Jews wanted it, and these both in the days of Zedekiah and of Titus, [and this last as a certain event well known by the Jews at that time, as Josephus here tells them openly to their faces,] are very remarkable instances of a Divine Providence for the punishment of the Jewish nation, when they were grown very wicked, at both those times of the destruction of Jerusalem.]

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[ Reland very properly takes notice here, how justly this judgment came upon the Jews, when they were crucified in such multitudes together, that the Romans wanted room for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies of these Jews, since they had brought this judgment on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.]

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[ Josephus, both here and before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4, esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of the lake Asphaltites, or under its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus also took the same notion from him, Hist. V. ch. 6. 7, which the great Reland takes to be the very truth, both in his note on this place, and in his Palestina, tom. I. p. 254-258; though I rather suppose part of that region of Pentapolis to be now under the waters of the south part of that sea, but perhaps not the whole country.]

BOOK VI

Containing The Interval Of About One Month. From The Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were Reduced To The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus.

CHAPTER 1

That The Miseries Still Grew Worse; And How The Romans Made An Assault Upon The Tower Of Antonia.

1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves, after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies out of the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array, who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves; but as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners, they seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner in that despair of deliverance they were already in. And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting together their materials, raised their banks in one and twenty days, after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about, as I have already related. And truly the very view itself of the country was a melancholy thing; for those places which were before adorned with trees and pleasant gardens were now become a desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down: nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change: for the war had laid all the signs of beauty quite waste: nor if any one that had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again; but though he were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it notwithstanding.

2. 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.

3. But now John and his party took care for securing themselves afterward, even in case this wall should be thrown down, and fell to their work before the battering rams were brought against them. Yet did they not compass what they endeavored to do, but as they were gone out with their torches, they came back under great discouragement before they came near to the banks; and the reasons were these: that, in the first place, their conduct did not seem to be unanimous, but they went out in distinct parties, and at distinct intervals, and after a slow manner, and timorously, and, to say all in a word, without a Jewish courage; for they were now defective in what is peculiar to our nation, that is, in boldness, in violence of assault, and in running upon the enemy all together, and in persevering in what they go about, though they do not at first succeed in it; but they now went out in a more languid manner than usual, and at the same time found the Romans set in array, and more courageous than ordinary, and that they guarded their banks both with their bodies and their entire armor, and this to such a degree on all sides, that they left no room for the fire to get among them, and that every one of their souls was in such good courage, that they would sooner die than desert their ranks; for besides their notion that all their hopes were cut off, in case these their works were once burnt, the soldiers were greatly ashamed that subtlety should quite be too hard for courage, madness for armor, multitude for skill, and Jews for Romans. The Romans had now also another advantage, in that their engines for sieges co-operated with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they were coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an impediment to him that was next to him, as did the danger of going farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for those that had run under the darts, some of them were terrified by the good order and closeness of the enemies' ranks before they came to a close fight, and others were pricked with their spears, and turned back again; at length they reproached one another for their cowardice, and retired without doing any thing. This attack was made upon the first day of the month Panemus [Tamuz.] So when the Jews were retreated, the Romans brought their engines, although they had all the while stones thrown at them from the tower of Antonia, and were assaulted by fire and sword, and by all sorts of darts, which necessity afforded the Jews to make use of; for although these had great dependence on their own wall, and a contempt of the Roman engines, yet did they endeavor to hinder the Romans from bringing them. Now these Romans struggled hard, on the contrary, to bring them, as deeming that this zeal of the Jews was in order to avoid any impression to be made on the tower of Antonia, because its wall was but weak, and its foundations rotten. However, that tower did not yield to the blows given it from the engines; yet did the Romans bear the impressions made by the enemies' darts which were perpetually cast at them, and did not give way to any of those dangers that came upon them from above, and so they brought their engines to bear. But then, as they were beneath the other, and were sadly wounded by the stones thrown down upon them, some of them threw their shields over their bodies, and partly with their hands, and partly with their bodies, and partly with crows, they undermined its foundations, and with great pains they removed four of its stones. Then night came upon both sides, and put an end to this struggle for the present; however, that night the wall was so shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used his stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the ground then gave way, and the wall fell down suddenly.

4. When this accident had unexpectedly happened, the minds of both parties were variously affected; for though one would expect that the Jews would be discouraged, because this fall of their wall was unexpected by them, and they had made no provision in that case, yet did they pull up their courage, because the tower of Antonia itself was still standing; as was the unexpected joy of the Romans at this fall of the wall soon quenched by the sight they had of another wall, which John and his party had built within it. However, the attack of this second wall appeared to be easier than that of the former, because it seemed a thing of greater facility to get up to it through the parts of the former wall that were now thrown down. This new wall appeared also to be much weaker than the tower of Antonia, and accordingly the Romans imagined that it had been erected so much on the sudden, that they should soon overthrow it: yet did not any body venture now to go up to this wall; for that such as first ventured so to do must certainly be killed.

5. And now Titus, upon consideration that the alacrity of soldiers in war is chiefly excited by hopes and by good words, and that exhortations and promises do frequently make men to forget the hazards they run, nay, sometimes to despise death itself, got together the most courageous part of his army, and tried what he could do with his men by these methods. "O fellow soldiers," said he, "to make an exhortation to men to do what hath no peril in it, is on that very account inglorious to such to whom that exhortation is made; and indeed so it is in him that makes the exhortation, an argument of his own cowardice also. I therefore think that such exhortations ought then only to be made use of when affairs are in a dangerous condition, and yet are worthy of being attempted by every one themselves; accordingly, I am fully of the same opinion with you, that it is a difficult task to go up this wall; but that it is proper for those that desire reputation for their valor to struggle with difficulties in such cases as will then appear, when I have particularly shown that it is a brave thing to die with glory, and that the courage here necessary shall not go unrewarded in those that first begin the attempt. And let my first argument to move you to it be taken from what probably some would think reasonable to dissuade you, I mean the constancy and patience of these Jews, even under their ill successes; for it is unbecoming you, who are Romans and my soldiers, who have in peace been taught how to make wars, and who have also been used to conquer in those wars, to be inferior to Jews, either in action of the hand, or in courage of the soul, and this especially when you are at the conclusion of your victory, and are assisted by God himself; for as to our misfortunes, they have been owing to the madness of the Jews, while their sufferings have been owing to your valor, and to the assistance God hath afforded you; for as to the seditions they have been in, and the famine they are under, and the siege they now endure, and the fall of their walls without our engines, what can they all be but demonstrations of God's anger against them, and of his assistance afforded us? It will not therefore be proper for you, either to show yourselves inferior to those to whom you are really superior, or to betray that Divine assistance which is afforded you. And, indeed, how can it be esteemed otherwise than a base and unworthy thing, that while the Jews, who need not be much ashamed if they be deserted, because they have long learned to be slaves to others, do yet despise death, that they may be so no longer; and do make sallies into the very midst of us frequently, not in hopes of conquering us, but merely for a demonstration of their courage; we, who have gotten possession of almost all the world that belongs to either land or sea, to whom it will be a great shame if we do not conquer them, do not once undertake any attempt against our enemies wherein there is much danger, but sit still idle, with such brave arms as we have, and only wait till the famine and fortune do our business themselves, and this when we have it in our power, with some small hazard, to gain all that we desire! For if we go up to this tower of Antonia, we gain the city; for if there should be any more occasion for fighting against those within the city, which I do not suppose there will, since we shall then be upon the top of the hill 1 and be upon our enemies before they can have taken breath, these advantages promise us no less than a certain and sudden victory. As for myself, I shall at present wave any commendation of those who die in war, 2 and omit to speak of the immortality of those men who are slain in the midst of their martial bravery; yet cannot I forbear to imprecate upon those who are of a contrary disposition, that they may die in time of peace, by some distemper or other, since their souls are condemned to the grave, together with their bodies. For what man of virtue is there who does not know, that those souls which are severed from their fleshly bodies in battles by the sword are received by the ether, that purest of elements, and joined to that company which are placed among the stars; that they become good demons, and propitious heroes, and show themselves as such to their posterity afterwards? while upon those souls that wear away in and with their distempered bodies comes a subterranean night to dissolve them to nothing, and a deep oblivion to take away all the remembrance of them, and this notwithstanding they be clean from all spots and defilements of this world; so that, in this ease, the soul at the same time comes to the utmost bounds of its life, and of its body, and of its memorial also. But since he hath determined that death is to come of necessity upon all men, a sword is a better instrument for that purpose than any disease whatsoever. Why is it not then a very mean thing for us not to yield up that to the public benefit which we must yield up to fate? And this discourse have I made, upon the supposition that those who at first attempt to go upon this wall must needs be killed in the attempt, though still men of true courage have a chance to escape even in the most hazardous undertakings. For, in the first place, that part of the former wall that is thrown down is easily to be ascended; and for the new-built wall, it is easily destroyed. Do you, therefore, many of you, pull up your courage, and set about this work, and do you mutually encourage and assist one another; and this your bravery will soon break the hearts of your enemies; and perhaps such a glorious undertaking as yours is may be accomplished without bloodshed. For although it be justly to be supposed that the Jews will try to hinder you at your first beginning to go up to them; yet when you have once concealed yourselves from them, and driven them away by force, they will not be able to sustain your efforts against them any longer, though but a few of you prevent them, and get over the wall. As for that person who first mounts the wall, I should blush for shame if I did not make him to be envied of others, by those rewards I would bestow upon him. If such a one escape with his life, he shall have the command of others that are now but his equals; although it be true also that the greatest rewards will accrue to such as die in the attempt." 3

6. Upon this speech of Titus, the rest of the multitude were afrighted at so great a danger. But there was one, whose name was Sabinus, a soldier that served among the cohorts, and a Syrian by birth, who appeared to be of very great fortitude, both in the actions he had done, and the courage of his soul he had shown; although any body would have thought, before he came to his work, that he was of such a weak constitution of body, that he was not fit to be a soldier; for his color was black, his flesh was lean and thin, and lay close together; but there was a certain heroic soul that dwelt in this small body, which body was indeed much too narrow for that peculiar courage which was in him. Accordingly he was the first that rose up, when he thus spake: "I readily surrender up myself to thee, O Caesar; I first ascend the wall, and I heartily wish that my fortune may follow my courage and my resolution And if some ill fortune grudge me the success of my undertaking, take notice that my ill success will not be unexpected, but that I choose death voluntarily for thy sake." When he had said this, and had spread out his shield over his head with his left hand, and had, with his right hand, drawn his sword, he marched up to the wall, just about the sixth hour of the day. There followed him eleven others, and no more, that resolved to imitate his bravery; but still this was the principal person of them all, and went first, as excited by a divine fury. Now those that guarded the wall shot at them from thence, and cast innumerable darts upon them from every side; they also rolled very large stones upon them, which overthrew some of those eleven that were with him. But as for Sabinus himself, he met the darts that were cast at him and though he was overwhelmed with them, yet did he not leave off the violence of his attack before he had gotten up on the top of the wall, and had put the enemy to flight. For as the Jews were astonished at his great strength, and the bravery of his soul, and as, withal, they imagined more of them had got upon the wall than really had, they were put to flight. And now one cannot but complain here of fortune, as still envious at virtue, and always hindering the performance of glorious achievements: this was the case of the man before us, when he had just obtained his purpose; for he then stumbled at a certain large stone, and fell down upon it headlong, with a very great noise. Upon which the Jews turned back, and when they saw him to be alone, and fallen down also, they threw darts at him from every side. However, he got upon his knee, and covered himself with his shield, and at the first defended himself against them, and wounded many of those that came near him; but he was soon forced to relax his right hand, by the multitude of the wounds that had been given him, till at length he was quite covered over with darts before he gave up the ghost. He was one who deserved a better fate, by reason of his bravery; but, as might be expected, he fell under so vast an attempt. As for the rest of his partners, the Jews dashed three of them to pieces with stones, and slew them as they were gotten up to the top of the wall; the other eight being wounded, were pulled down, and carried back to the camp. These things were done upon the third day of the month Panemus [Tamuz].