, and of
the rest of his body, as also such skill had he in horsemanship. So this
man seized upon that his prey, as upon a precious treasure, and carried
him as his captive to Caesar; whereupon Titus admired the man that had
seized the other for his great strength, and ordered the man that was
caught to be punished [with death] for his attempt against the Roman
wall, but betook himself to the siege of the temple, and to pressing on
the raising of the banks.

9. In the mean time, the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had
been in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and creeping up to the
holy house itself, that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their
body which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper's spreading
further; for they set the north-west cloister, which was joined to the
tower of Antonia, on fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits
of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the forenamed
month, [Panemus or Tamuz,] the Romans set fire to the cloister that
joined to the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther. The
Jews, in like manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave
off what they were about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the
temple, even when it was in their power to have stopped the fire; nay,
they lay still while the temple was first set on fire, and deemed this
spreading of the fire to be for their own advantage. However, the armies
were still fighting one against another about the temple, and the war
was managed by continual sallies of particular parties against one
another.

10. Now there was at this time a man among the Jews, low of stature he
was, and of a despicable appearance; of no character either as to his
family, or in other respects: his flame was Jonathan. He went out at the
high priest John's monument, and uttered many other insolent things to
the Romans, a challenged the best of them all to a single combat. But
many of those that stood there in the army huffed him, and many of them
[as they might well be] were afraid of him. Some of them also reasoned
thus, and that justly enough: that it was not fit to fight with a man
that desired to die, because those that utterly despaired of deliverance
had, besides other passions, a violence in attacking men that could not
be opposed, and had no regard to God himself; and that to hazard oneself
with a