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Sept. 8.

It took eighteen days to complete the siege-works. At last the banks were ready to receive the battering-rams, and these were placed in position. But little defence was made. Panic-stricken and cowering, the hapless Jews awaited the breach in the wall, and the incoming of the enemy. Simon and John, with what force they could collect, abandoned the towers, and rushed to attempt an escape over Titus’s wall of circumvallation at the south. It was hopeless. They were beaten back; the leaders hid themselves in the subterranean chambers with which Jerusalem was honeycombed, and the rest stood still to be killed. The Romans, pouring into the town, began by slaying all indiscriminately. Tiring of butchery they turned their thoughts to plunder; but the houses were filled with dead and putrefying corpses, so that they stood in horror at the sight, and went out without touching anything. “But although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in this manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive; and they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the streets with dead bodies, and made the whole city run with blood to such a degree, indeed, that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with their men’s blood.”