were the banks finished on the seventh day of the month Gorpieus
(Elul) in eighteen days' time, when the Romans brought their machines
against the wall. But for the seditious, some of them, as despairing of
saving the city, retired from the wall to the citadel. Others of them
went down into the subterranean vaults, though still a great many of
them defended themselves against those that brought the engines for the
battery; yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by their
strength; and, what was the principal thing of all, by going cheerfully
about their work, while the Jews were quite dejected and become weak.
Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and certain of the
towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams, those that
opposed themselves fled away, and such a terror fell upon the tyrants as
was much greater than the occasion required, for before the enemy got
over the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for flying
away. And now one might see these men, who had hitherto been so insolent
and arrogant in their wicked practices, to be cast down and to tremble,
insomuch that it would pity one's heart to observe the change that was
made in those vile persons.

Accordingly, they ran with great violence upon the Roman wall that
encompassed them, in order to force away those that guarded it, and to
break through it and get away. But when they saw that those who had
formerly been faithful to them had gone away--as indeed they were fled
whithersoever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee--as
also when those that came running before the rest told them that the
western wall was entirely overthrown, while others said the Romans were
gotten in, and others that they were near and looking out for them,
which were only the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their
sight, they fell upon their face and greatly lamented their own mad
conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed that they could not
flee away. And here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God
exercised upon these wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the
Romans, for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the
security they had in their own power, and came down from those very
towers of their own accord, wherein they could have never been taken by
force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine. And thus did the
Romans, when they had taken such great pains about weaker