re once burnt down, they should never be able to
take it; for there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies
of the soldiers began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls
faint with so many instances of ill success; nay, the very calamities
themselves that were in the city proved a greater discouragement to the
Romans than those within the city; for they found the fighting men of
the Jews to be not at all mollified among such their sore afflictions,
while they had themselves perpetually less and less hopes of success,
and their banks were forced to yield to the stratagems of the enemy,
their engines to the firmness of their wall, and their closest fights
to the boldness of their attack; and, what was their greatest
discouragement of all, they found the Jews' courageous souls to be
superior to the multitude of the miseries they were under, by their
sedition, their famine, and the war itself; insomuch that they were
ready to imagine that the violence of their attacks was invincible,
and that the alacrity they showed would not be discouraged by their
calamities; for what would not those be able to bear if they should be
fortunate, who turned their very misfortunes to the improvement of their
valor! These considerations made the Romans to keep a stronger guard
about their banks than they formerly had done.

3. But now John and his party took care for securing themselves
afterward, even in case this wall should be thrown down, and fell to
their work before the battering rams were brought against them. Yet did
they not compass what they endeavored to do, but as they were gone out
with their torches, they came back under great discouragement before
they came near to the banks; and the reasons were these: that, in the
first place, their conduct did not seem to be unanimous, but they went
out in distinct parties, and at distinct intervals, and after a slow
manner, and timorously, and, to say all in a word, without a Jewish
courage; for they were now defective in what is peculiar to our nation,
that is, in boldness, in violence of assault, and in running upon the
enemy all together, and in persevering in what they go about, though
they do not at first succeed in it; but they now went out in a more
languid manner than usual, and at the same time found the Romans set in
array, and more courageous than ordinary, and that they guarded their
banks both with their bodies and their entire armor, and this to such
a de