walls, get by
good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines, for
three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines
whatsoever.

So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they were ejected
out of them by God himself, and fled immediately to that valley which
was under Siloam, where they again recovered themselves out of the dread
they were in for a while, and ran violently against that part of the
Roman wall which lay on that side; but as their courage was too much
depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force, and their power
was now broken with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the
guards, and dispersing themselves at distances from each other, went
down into the subterranean caverns.

So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they both placed
their ensigns upon the towers and made joyful acclamations for the
victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much
lighter than its beginning, for when they had gotten upon the last wall,
without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be
true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an
unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the
lanes of the city with their swords drawn they slew those whom they
overtook without mercy, and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were
fled, and burned every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the
rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them they found
in them entire families of dead men; and the upper rooms full of
corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine. They stood in horror at
this sight, and went out without touching anything.

Although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that
manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but
they ran every one through whom they met, and obstructed the very lanes
with their 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
these men's blood. And truly so it happened, that though the slayers
left off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night;
and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus
[Elul] upon Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries
during this siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from
its first foundation, it would c