s were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well
were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies,
and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves;
for many died as they were burying others, and many went to their
coffins before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations
made under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints;
but the famine confounded all natural passions; for those who were just
going to die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with
dry eyes and open mouths. A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly
night, had seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more
terrible than these miseries were themselves; for they brake open those
houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered
them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings of their bodies,
went out laughing, and tried the points of their swords in their dead
bodies; and, in order to prove what metal they were made of they thrust
some of those through that still lay alive upon the ground; but for
those that entreated them to lend them their right hand and their sword
to despatch them, they were too proud to grant their requests, and left
them to be consumed by the famine. Now every one of these died with
their eyes fixed upon the temple, and left the seditious alive behind
them. Now the seditious at first gave orders that the dead should be
buried out of the public treasury, as not enduring the stench of their
dead bodies. But afterwards, when they could not do that, they had them
cast down from the walls into the valleys beneath.

4. However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, saw
them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them,
he gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to
witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of
the city itself. But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the
seditious could now make sallies out of the city, because they were
themselves disconsolate, and the famine already touched them also. These
Romans besides had great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of
Syria, and out of the neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand
near to the wall of the city, and show the people what great quantities
of provisions they had, and so make the enemy more sensible of their
famine, by the great plenty, even