de Jerusalem absolutely impregnable, save by
famine; but the authorities at Rome, knowing how turbulent were the
population of Jerusalem, and foreseeing that at some time they
might have to lay siege to the city, had forbidden its construction;
and the new wall had been hastily erected by the Jews, themselves,
after they had risen and defeated Cestius, four years before. This
wall inclosed a vast number of villas, with gardens and open spaces,
now thickly tenanted by the temporary habitations of the fugitives
and pilgrims.

The lower town, then, contained but little to tempt the cupidity of
Simon's troops. Its houses had, indeed, been ransacked over and
over again; and Simon reflected that, even should his men be
prevented from descending into it, it would matter but little
while, as it was separated from the upper town by the Tyropoeon
Valley, and the first wall, no rising there could be a formidable
danger to him. Still, it galled him to be resisted and, had it not
been that the Romans were close at hand, he would at once have
given his men orders to attack the strangers.

He stood for some minutes, stroking his beard, and then said:

"I will give you no answer, now. I will think over what you say,
till tomorrow, then we will talk again."

"I doubt not what your decision will be," John said. "You are a
brave man, Simon; and although you have done much harm to the Jews,
yet I know that you will defend Jerusalem, to the end, against the
Romans. You need feel no jealousy of me. I aspire to no leadership,
or power. I am here only to fight, and six hundred such men as mine
are not to be despised in the day of trial. Should the Romans march
away, baffled, before the walls, I, too, shall leave; and you, who
remain, can resume your mad struggles, if you will. But I think
that, in the presence of the enemy, all strife within the city
should cease; and that we should be as one man, in the face of the
Romans."

Simon looked with surprise, and some admiration, at the young man
who so boldly addressed him. Savage and cruel as he was, Simon was
a man of the greatest bravery. He had none of the duplicity and
treachery which characterized John of Gischala, but was
straightforward and, in his way, honest. As only his picture has
come down to us, as described by the pen of Josephus who, at the
time of his writing his history, had become thoroughly a Roman, and
who elevated Titus and his troops at the expense of his own
countrym