otters lie still,
when they could not throw at the Romans from a higher place; for they
then made sallies out of the city, like private robbers, by parties, and
pulled away the hurdles that covered the workmen, and killed them when
they were thus naked; and when those workmen gave way, these cast away
the earth that composed the bank, and burnt the wooden parts of it,
together with the hurdles, till at length Vespasian perceived that the
intervals there were between the works were of disadvantage to him;
for those spaces of ground afforded the Jews a place for assaulting the
Romans. So he united the hurdles, and at the same time joined one part
of the army to the other, which prevented the private excursions of the
Jews.

10. And when the bank was now raised, and brought nearer than ever to
the battlements that belonged to the walls, Josephus thought it would be
entirely wrong in him if he could make no contrivances in opposition
to theirs, and that might be for the city's preservation; so he got
together his workmen, and ordered them to build the wall higher; and
while they said that this was impossible to be done while so many darts
were thrown at them, he invented this sort of cover for them: He bid
them fix piles, and expand before them the raw hides of oxen newly
killed, that these hides by yielding and hollowing themselves when the
stones were thrown at them might receive them, for that the other darts
would slide off them, and the fire that was thrown would be quenched by
the moisture that was in them. And these he set before the workmen, and
under them these workmen went on with their works in safety, and raised
the wall higher, and that both by day and by night, fill it was twenty
cubits high. He also built a good number of towers upon the wall, and
fitted it to strong battlements. This greatly discouraged the Romans,
who in their own opinions were already gotten within the walls, while
they were now at once astonished at Josephus's contrivance, and at the
fortitude of the citizens that were in the city.

11. And now Vespasian was plainly irritated at the great subtlety of
this stratagem, and at the boldness of the citizens of Jotapata; for
taking heart again upon the building of this wall, they made fresh
sallies upon the Romans, and had every day conflicts with them by
parties, together with all such contrivances, as robbers make use of,
and with the plundering of all that came to hand, as also with the
set