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The other banks against the west wall were not more fortunate. For Simon’s soldiers, with torches in their hands, rushed out suddenly when the engines were beginning to shake the walls. They seized the iron of the engines, which was red hot, and despite this held them till the wood was consumed. The Romans retreated: the guards, who would not desert their post, fell in numbers, and Titus found his whole army wavering under the attacks of a half-starved and haggard mob, whose courage arose from despair. And the engines had all been burned, the labour of three weeks gone. Titus held a council to decide what should next be done. It was resolved, on his own suggestion, that a wall of circumvallation should be raised round the city, and that a strict blockade, cutting off all communication with the country, should be established, until starvation should force a surrender.

The wall, which was probably little more than a breastwork, though strong and solid, was completed, together with thirteen external redoubts, in three days,^[13] every soldier giving his labour. No attempt seems to have been made by the Jews to prevent or hinder the work. Probably they were too weak to attempt any more sorties. A strict watch was set by the Romans—up to this time the blockade does not seem to have been complete—and no one was allowed to approach the wall. And now the last feeble resource of the Jews, the furtive gathering of roots under the city walls, was denied them; and the sufferings of the besieged became too great for any historian to relate. Titus himself, stoic though he was, and resolute to succeed in spite of any suffering, called God to witness, with tears in his eyes, that this was not his doing.