e the Jews would never let him be
quiet. So these Romans brought the several engines for galling an enemy
nearer to the walls, that they might reach such as were upon the wall,
and endeavored to frustrate their attempts; these threw stones and
javelins at them; in the like manner did the archers and slingers come
both together closer to the wall. This brought matters to such a pass
that none of the Jews durst mount the walls, and then it was that the
other Romans brought the battering ram that was cased with hurdles all
over, and in the tipper part was secured by skins that covered it, and
this both for the security of themselves and of the engine. Now, at the
very first stroke of this engine, the wall was shaken, and a terrible
clamor was raised by the people within the city, as if they were already
taken.

20. And now, when Josephus saw this ram still battering the same place,
and that the wall would quickly be thrown down by it, he resolved to
elude for a while the force of the engine. With this design he gave
orders to fill sacks with chaff, and to hang them down before that place
where they saw the ram always battering, that the stroke might be turned
aside, or that the place might feel less of the strokes by the yielding
nature of the chaff. This contrivance very much delayed the attempts
of the Romans, because, let them remove their engine to what part they
pleased, those that were above it removed their sacks, and placed them
over against the strokes it made, insomuch that the wall was no way
hurt, and this by diversion of the strokes, till the Romans made an
opposite contrivance of long poles, and by tying hooks at their ends,
cut off the sacks. Now when the battering ram thus recovered its force,
and the wall having been but newly built, was giving way, Josephus and
those about him had afterward immediate recourse to fire, to defend
themselves withal; whereupon they took what materials soever they had
that were but dry, and made a sally three ways, and set fire to the
machines, and the hurdles, and the banks of the Romans themselves; nor
did the Romans well know how to come to their assistance, being at once
under a consternation at the Jews' boldness, and being prevented by the
flames from coming to their assistance; for the materials being dry with
the bitumen and pitch that were among them, as was brimstone also, the
fire caught hold of every thing immediately, and what cost the Romans a
great deal of pains