have preserved hitherto; and that therefore
they deserved to eat such food as this was. That, however, this horrid
action of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of
their very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city upon
the habitable earth to be seen by the sun, wherein mothers are thus fed,
although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat
of, since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us,
after they have undergone such miseries as these. And at the same time
that he said this, he reflected on the desperate condition these men
must be in; nor could he expect that such men could be recovered to
sobriety of mind, after they had endured those very sufferings, for the
avoiding whereof it only was probable they might have repented.

CHAPTER 4.

When The Banks Were Completed And The Battering Rams
Brought, And Could Do Nothing, Titus Gave Orders To Set Fire
To The Gates Of The Temple; In No Long Time After Which The
Holy House Itself Was Burnt Down, Even Against His Consent.

1. And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth
day of the month Lous [Ab]. Whereupon Titus gave orders that the
battering rams should be brought, and set over against the western
edifice of the inner temple; for before these were brought, the firmest
of all the other engines had battered the wall for six days together
without ceasing, without making any impression upon it; but the vast
largeness and strong connexion of the stones were superior to that
engine, and to the other battering rams also. Other Romans did indeed
undermine the foundations of the northern gate, and after a world of
pains removed the outermost stones, yet was the gate still upheld by the
inner stones, and stood still unhurt; till the workmen, despairing of
all such attempts by engines and crows, brought their ladders to the
cloisters. Now the Jews did not interrupt them in so doing; but when
they were gotten up, they fell upon them, and fought with them; some of
them they thrust down, and threw them backwards headlong; others of
them they met and slew; they also beat many of those that went down the
ladders again, and slew them with their swords before they could bring
their shields to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw down
from above when they were full of armed men; a great slaughter was made
of the Jews also at the same time, while tho