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As soon as the banks were sufficiently advanced the battering rams were mounted and the assault commenced. The Jews, terrified by the thunder of the rams against the city, annoyed, too, by the stones which came into the city from the ballistæ, joined their forces and tried a sortie from a secret gate near Hippicus. Their object was to destroy the machines by fire; and in this they well-nigh succeeded, fighting with a desperation and courage which no Roman troops had ever before experienced. Titus himself was in the conflict; he killed twelve Jews with his own hands; but the Romans would have given way had it not been for the reinforcement of some Alexandrian troops who came up at the right moment and drove back the Jews.

On the fifteenth day of the siege the biggest battering ram, “Nikon,” the Conqueror, effected a breach in the outer wall. The Jews, panic-stricken, forgot their wonted courage and took refuge within the second wall. Titus became therefore master of Bezetha, in the New Town; forming about a third of the city.