put some stop to them; while John's party, and
the multitude of Zealots with them, did the like to those that were
before the tower of Antonia.

These Jews were now too hard for the Romans, not only in direct
fighting, because they stood upon the higher ground, but because they
had now learned to use their own engines, for their continual use of
them one day after another did by degrees improve their skill about
them, for of one sort of engines for darts they had three hundred, and
forty for stones; by the means of which they made it more tedious for
the Romans to raise their banks. But then Titus, knowing that the city
would be either saved or destroyed for himself, did not only proceed
earnestly in the siege, but did not omit to have the Jews exhorted to
repentance; so he mixed good counsel with his works for the siege. And
being sensible that exhortations are frequently more effectual than
arms, he persuaded them to surrender the city, now in a manner already
taken, and thereby to save themselves, and sent Josephus to speak to
them in their own language, for he imagined they might yield to the
persuasion of a countryman of their own.

As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious would
neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to
alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had a great inclination
to desert to the Romans. Accordingly, some of them sold what they had,
and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by
them, for a very small matter, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that
they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped to
the Romans, went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully
for themselves, for Titus let a great number of them go away into the
country, whither they pleased. And the main reasons why they were so
ready to desert were these: That now they should be freed from those
miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet should not be in
slavery to the Romans. However John and Simon, with their factions, did
more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming in
of the Romans; and if any one did but afford the least shadow of
suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.

But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether they
stayed in the city or attempted to get out of it, for they were equally
destroyed in both cases, for every such perso