ran with blood, and the
wall might have been ascended over by the bodies of the dead carcasses;
the mountains also contributed to increase the noise by their echoes;
nor was there on that night any thing of terror wanting that could
either affect the hearing or the sight: yet did a great part of those
that fought so hard for Jotapata fall manfully, as were a great part of
them wounded. However, the morning watch was come ere the wall yielded
to the machines employed against it, though it had been battered without
intermission. However, those within covered their bodies with their
armor, and raised works over against that part which was thrown down,
before those machines were laid by which the Romans were to ascend into
the city.

24. In the morning Vespasian got his army together, in order to take the
city [by storm], after a little recreation upon the hard pains they had
been at the night before; and as he was desirous to draw off those that
opposed him from the places where the wall had been thrown down, he made
the most courageous of the horsemen get off their horses, and placed
them in three ranks over against those ruins of the wall, but covered
with their armor on every side, and with poles in their hands, that
so these might begin their ascent as soon as the instruments for such
ascent were laid; behind them he placed the flower of the footmen; but
for the rest of the horse, he ordered them to extend themselves over
against the wall, upon the whole hilly country, in order to prevent any
from escaping out of the city when it should be taken; and behind these
he placed the archers round about, and commanded them to have their
darts ready to shoot. The same command he gave to the slingers, and to
those that managed the engines, and bid them to take up other ladders,
and have them ready to lay upon those parts of the wall which were yet
untouched, that the besieged might be engaged in trying to hinder their
ascent by them, and leave the guard of the parts that were thrown down,
while the rest of them should be overborne by the darts cast at them,
and might afford his men an entrance into the city.

25. But Josephus, understanding the meaning of Vespasian's contrivance,
set the old men, together with those that were tired out, at the sound
parts of the wall, as expecting no harm from those quarters, but set the
strongest of his men at the place where the wall was broken down, and
before them all six men by themselves