placed guards
on all the walls and gates, to prevent the starving people leaving
the city--although their true policy would have been to facilitate,
in every way, the escape of all save the fighting men; and thus to
husband what provisions still remained for the use of the defenders
of the city.

In the daytime, when the gates were open, people went out and
collected vegetables and herbs from the gardens between the walls
and the Roman posts; but on their return were pitilessly robbed by
the rough soldiers, who confiscated to their own use all that was
brought in. The efforts to escape formed a fresh pretext, to Simon
and John of Gischala, to plunder the wealthy inhabitants who, under
the charge of intending to fly to the Romans, were despoiled of all
they had, tortured and executed.

Titus soon changed his policy and, instead of allowing the
deserters to make their way through, seized them and those who went
out from the city to seek food, scourged, tortured, and crucified
them before the walls. Sometimes as many as five hundred were
crucified in a single day. This checked the desertion; and the
multitude, deeming it better to die of hunger than to be tortured
to death by the Romans, resigned themselves to the misery of
starvation.

For seventeen days, the Romans labored at their embankments, and
only one attack was made upon the walls. This was carried out by
the son of the King of Commagene, who had just joined the army with
a chosen band, armed and attired in the Macedonian fashion. As soon
as he arrived, he loudly expressed his surprise at the duration of
the siege. Titus, hearing this, told him that he was at perfect
liberty to assault the city, if he liked. This he and his men at
once did, and fought with great valor; but with no success
whatever, a great number of them being killed, and scarcely one
escaping uninjured.

For a fortnight, John had bestowed the half of his ration upon a
poor woman, whose child was sick; and who stood at the door of her
house, every morning, to wait his passing. One day, she begged him
to enter.

"I shall need no more food," she said. "Thanks to God, who sent you
to our aid, my child is recovered, and can now walk; and I intend
to fly, tonight, from this terrible place."

"But there is no escape," John said. "The soldiers allow none to
pass and, if you could pass through them, the Romans would slay
you."

"I can escape," the woman said, "and that is why I have called you