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ssss1. Let us take the opportunity of stating our opinion that Josephus’s testimony may generally be relied upon. It was for a long time the fashion to hold up his exaggerations to ridicule. Thus, when he spoke of the height of the wall as being such as to make the head reel, travellers remembered the fifty feet of wall or so at the present day and laughed. But Captain Warren has found that the wall was in parts as much as 200 feet high. Surely a man may be excused for feeling giddy at looking down a depth of 200 feet. Whenever Josephus speaks from personal knowledge, he appears to us to be accurate and trustworthy. There is nothing on which he could speak with greater authority, which would sooner have been discovered, than a misstatement as regards the Roman army.

ssss1. Milman gives a list of the losses of the Jews in this war compiled from the numbers given by Josephus. It amounts to more than three millions. Deductions must, of course, be made.

ssss1. No argument ought to be founded on the supposed numbers of the legions. The number generally composing a legion in the time of the Empire was 6000, and before the Empire, was 4000. But at Pharsalia Cæsar’s legions were only 2000 each, while Pompey’s were 7000.