FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199  
>>  
and stood like a shadow, for ever watching the white walls of the besieged city. The Romans were now within the city. Only Zion and the Temple held against them. A wall built with the thoroughness of David, the ancient, and solidified by the mortising of Time, ran directly from Hippicus to the Tyropean Valley, joining the tremendous fortifications of Moriah and so cut off Zion from the advance of the army. Securely intrenched within that quarter and the Temple, Simon and John began the last resistance which should tax Roman endurance and Roman patience as it had not been taxed before. Titus no longer lagged. Famine had long since become a powerful ally and the honor of the Flavian house rested upon his immediate subjugation of the rebellious city. He no longer expected capitulation; yet he did not neglect to be prepared for it and to encourage it. Though the heart of the historian Josephus broke, he did not fail to serve his patron as mediator, though without hope. Titus himself, as from time to time the horror of his work impressed itself upon him, made overtures to the factionists, neglecting no art or inducement which should convince the seditious that their resistance was foolhardy, even mad. At such times, Nicanor's face became contemptuous and Carus himself frowned at the young general's attitude. But the spirit of a Roman and the traditions of a soldier even could not prevent the young man from weakening at times before the charnel pit in Tophet where countless thousands of vultures fattened with roaring of wings and hissing of combat. But under an ever-thickening veil of horrid airs, the struggle went on. The Roman Ides of July arrived. Titus had erected banks upon which his engines were raised to batter the walls of the Temple. From Titus' camp, the Romans on sick leave, the commissaries, those attached to the army who were not fighting-men, and old Momus, saw first, before the attack on the Temple began, a soft increasing dun-colored vapor rise between the Temple and Antonia. It issued from the cloister at the northwest which joined the Roman tower. As they watched, they saw that vapor grow into a pale but intensely luminous smoke, as if fine woods and burning metals were consumed together. In a moment the whole north-west section was embraced in a sublime pall of fire. John was burning away the connection between the Temple and the tower and was making the sacred edifice four-square. As so
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199  
>>  



Top keywords:

Temple

 

longer

 
resistance
 

burning

 
Romans
 

erected

 
engines
 

raised

 

arrived

 
batter

charnel

 

weakening

 
Tophet
 

prevent

 

spirit

 

attitude

 

traditions

 

soldier

 

countless

 
thousands

thickening

 
horrid
 

combat

 

fattened

 

vultures

 

roaring

 

hissing

 

struggle

 

moment

 

consumed


metals

 

luminous

 

section

 
sacred
 
making
 

edifice

 

square

 

connection

 

embraced

 

sublime


intensely
 

attack

 

increasing

 

attached

 

fighting

 
colored
 

watched

 

joined

 

northwest

 

cloister