nted
emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate,
although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these
signals according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly
despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of
their city and their own destruction.

CHAPTER 6.

How The Romans Carried Their Ensigns To The Temple, And Made
Joyful Acclamations To Titus. The Speech That Titus Made To
The Jews When They Made Supplication For Mercy. What Reply
They Made Thereto; And How That Reply Moved Titus's
Indignation Against Them.

1. And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city,
and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings
round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple [24] and set them
over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to
them, and there did they make Titus imperator [25] with the greatest
acclamations of joy. And now all the soldiers had such vast quantities
of the spoils which they had gotten by plunder, that in Syria a pound
weight of gold was sold for half its former value. But as for those
priests that kept themselves still upon the wall of the holy house,[26]
there was a boy that, out of the thirst he was in, desired some of the
Roman guards to give him their right hands as a security for his life,
and confessed he was very thirsty. These guards commiserated his age,
and the distress he was in, and gave him their right hands accordingly.
So he came down himself, and drank some water, and filled the vessel
he had with him when he came to them with water, and then went off, and
fled away to his own friends; nor could any of those guards overtake
him; but still they reproached him for his perfidiousness. To which he
made this answer: "I have not broken the agreement; for the security I
had given me was not in order to my staying with you, but only in order
to my coming down safely, and taking up some water; both which things I
have performed, and thereupon think myself to have been faithful to my
engagement." Hereupon those whom the child had imposed upon admired at
his cunning, and that on account of his age. On the fifth day afterward,
the priests that were pined with the famine came down, and when they
were brought to Titus by the guards, they begged for their lives; but he
replied, that the time of pardon was over as to them, and that