hat brake off about twenty cubits
of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the forenamed month
[Panemus or Tamuz], the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to
the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther. The Jews, in like
manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave off what they were
about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the Temple, even when it
was in their power to have stopped the fire--nay, they lay still while
the Temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the fire
to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were still fighting
one against another about the Temple, and the war was managed by
continual sallies of particular parties against one another.

Now of those that perished by famine in the city the number was
prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable, for if so
much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear a war was
commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a-fighting one with
another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports
of life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food,
but the robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest anyone
should have concealed food in his bosom and counterfeited dying; nay,
these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering
along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like
drunken men; they would also, in the great distress they were in, rush
into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day.
Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable that it obliged them to chew
everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals
would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length
abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to
their shields they pulled off and gnawed; the very wisps of old hay
became food to some; and some gathered up fibres and sold a very small
weight of them for four Attic [drachmas].

But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on
men in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to relate a
matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, either among the
Greeks or barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it and incredible when
heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I
mig