ieged might easily
escape; he also set his men to guard the several parts of it; he also
pitched his camp in such an agreeable place as he had chosen for the
siege, and at which place the rock belonging to the fortress did make
the nearest approach to the neighboring mountain, which yet was a place
of difficulty for getting plenty of provisions; for it was not only food
that was to be brought from a great distance [to the army], and this
with a great deal of pain to those Jews who were appointed for that
purpose, but water was also to be brought to the camp, because the place
afforded no fountain that was near it. When therefore Silva had ordered
these affairs beforehand, he fell to besieging the place; which siege
was likely to stand in need of a great deal of skill and pains, by
reason of the strength of the fortress, the nature of which I will now
describe.

3. There was a rock, not small in circumference, and very high. It was
encompassed with valleys of such vast depth downward, that the eye could
not reach their bottoms; they were abrupt, and such as no animal could
walk upon, excepting at two places of the rock, where it subsides, in
order to afford a passage for ascent, though not without difficulty.
Now, of the ways that lead to it, one is that from the lake Asphaltiris,
towards the sun-rising, and another on the west, where the ascent is
easier: the one of these ways is called the Serpent, as resembling that
animal in its narrowness and its perpetual windings; for it is broken
off at the prominent precipices of the rock, and returns frequently into
itself, and lengthening again by little and little, hath much ado to
proceed forward; and he that would walk along it must first go on one
leg, and then on the other; there is also nothing but destruction, in
case your feet slip; for on each side there is a vastly deep chasm and
precipice, sufficient to quell the courage of every body by the terror
it infuses into the mind. When, therefore, a man hath gone along this
way for thirty furlongs, the rest is the top of the hill--not ending at
a small point, but is no other than a plain upon the highest part of the
mountain. Upon this top of the hill, Jonathan the high priest first of
all built a fortress, and called it Masada: after which the rebuilding
of this place employed the care of king Herod to a great degree; he
also built a wall round about the entire top of the hill, seven furlongs
long; it was composed of whit