ure to sally out to
endeavor to break through this living wall; which stood all day,
immovable, while the baggage animals--aided by a great crowd of
artisans and camp followers--moved the war engines, reserves, and
baggage of the army from Mount Scopus down to the new camp. Here
the Twelfth and Fifteenth Legions, under Titus himself, took up
their position. The Fifth Legion, under the command of Cerealis,
formed their camp on a knoll, a quarter of a mile from the Jaffa
Gate, and divided from it by the Valley of Hinnom which is, here,
of no great depth. It lay about a third of a mile south of the camp
of Titus. The Tenth Legion remained on the Mount of Olives. Their
camp had now been very strongly fortified, and was in a position to
repel any attack that might be made against it.

Now that his dispositions were complete, Titus determined to save
the city, if possible, from the horrors of siege. He therefore sent
Nicanor and Josephus, with a flag of truce, towards the walls to
offer them terms. No sooner had they come within bow shot than an
arrow was discharged from the wall, and struck Nicanor upon the
shoulder. The ambassador at once retired; and Titus, indignant
alike at the insult to his messengers, and the violation of the
flag of truce, immediately began to make preparations for the
siege.

Could the population of the city have been consulted, they would
have declared, by an immense majority of voices, for surrender; but
Simon and John of Gischala, whose men held the walls, were absolute
masters of the city; and the inhabitants were to pay now, as they
had paid in the past, for their cowardice in allowing themselves to
be tyrannized over by a body of men whom they outnumbered by ten to
one.

Titus, after a careful examination of the walls, determined to
attack at a spot between the Jaffa Gate and Psephinus. In former
times, all assaults of the enemy had been directed against the
north; and it was here, consequently, that the wall was strongest.
At its foot, too, a wide and deep fosse had been cut in the solid
rock: rendering it impossible for the assailants to advance to the
attack, until this was filled up. But, on the northwest, the walls
had not been made equally strong; nor had the fosse been continued
from Psephinus to the Jaffa Gate. It had no doubt been considered
that the projecting angle of the wall at Psephinus, and the
fortifications of the Palace of Herod, covered this portion of the
wall--which w