ations. So these people died with this
intention, that they would not leave so much as one soul among them all
alive to be subject to the Romans. Yet was there an ancient woman,
and another who was of kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in
prudence and learning, with five children, who had concealed themselves
in caverns under ground, and had carried water thither for their drink,
and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of
one another. Those others were nine hundred and sixty in number, the
women and children being withal included in that computation. This
calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of the month
Xanthicus [Nisan].

2. Now for the Romans, they expected that they should be fought in the
morning, when, accordingly, they put on their armor, and laid bridges of
planks upon their ladders from their banks, to make an assault upon the
fortress, which they did; but saw nobody as an enemy, but a terrible
solitude on every side, with a fire within the place, as well as a
perfect silence. So they were at a loss to guess at what had happened.
At length they made a shout, as if it had been at a blow given by the
battering ram, to try whether they could bring any one out that was
within; the women heard this noise, and came out of their under-ground
cavern, and informed the Romans what had been done, as it was done; and
the second of them clearly described all both what was said and what
was done, and this manner of it; yet did they not easily give their
attention to such a desperate undertaking, and did not believe it could
be as they said; they also attempted to put the fire out, and quickly
cutting themselves a way through it, they came within the palace, and so
met with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the
fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than
wonder at the courage of their resolution, and the immovable contempt of
death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through
with such an action as that was.

CHAPTER 10.

That Many Of The Sicarii Fled To Alexandria Also And What
Dangers They Were In There; On Which Account That Temple
Which Had Formerly Been Built By Onias The High Priest Was
Destroyed.

1. When Masada was thus taken, the general left a garrison in the
fortress to keep it, and he himself went away to Cesarea; for there were
now no enemies left in the country,