y done, and Caesar
believed what the truth was, that the horses were stolen more by the
negligence of his own men than by the valor of the Jews, he determined
to use greater severity to oblige the rest to take care of their horses;
so he commanded that one of those soldiers who had lost their horses
should be capitally punished; whereby he so terrified the rest, that
they preserved their horses for the time to come; for they did not any
longer let them go from them to feed by themselves, but, as if they
had grown to them, they went always along with them when they wanted
necessaries. Thus did the Romans still continue to make war against the
temple, and to raise their banks against it.

8. Now after one day had been interposed since the Romans ascended the
breach, many of the seditious were so pressed by the famine, upon the
present failure of their ravages, that they got together, and made an
attack on those Roman guards that were upon the Mount of Olives, and
this about the eleventh hour of the day, as supposing, first, that they
would not expect such an onset, and, in the next place, that they were
then taking care of their bodies, and that therefore they should easily
beat them. But the Romans were apprized of their coming to attack them
beforehand, and, running together from the neighboring camps on the
sudden, prevented them from getting over their fortification, or forcing
the wall that was built about them. Upon this came on a sharp fight, and
here many great actions were performed on both sides; while the Romans
showed both their courage and their skill in war, as did the Jews come
on them with immoderate violence and intolerable passion. The one part
were urged on by shame, and the other by necessity; for it seemed a very
shameful thing to the Romans to let the Jews go, now they were taken in
a kind of net; while the Jews had but one hope of saving themselves, and
that was in case they could by violence break through the Roman wall;
and one whose name was Pedanius, belonging to a party of horsemen, when
the Jews were already beaten and forced down into the valley together,
spurred his horse on their flank with great vehemence, and caught up a
certain young man belonging to the enemy by his ankle, as he was running
away; the man was, however, of a robust body, and in his armor; so
low did Pedanius bend himself downward from his horse, even as he was
galloping away, and so great was the strength of his right hand