ail them, nor did the Jews want prudence to oppose them; for the
Romans, although they saw their own men thrown down, and in a miserable
condition, yet were they vehemently bent against those that poured
the oil upon them; while every one reproached the man before him as a
coward, and one that hindered him from exerting himself; and while the
Jews made use of another stratagem to prevent their ascent, and poured
boiling fenugreek upon the boards, in order to make them slip and fall
down; by which means neither could those that were coming up, nor
those that were going down, stand on their feet; but some of them fell
backward upon the machines on which they ascended, and were trodden
upon; many of them fell down upon the bank they had raised, and when
they were fallen upon it were slain by the Jews; for when the Romans
could not keep their feet, the Jews being freed from fighting hand to
hand, had leisure to throw their darts at them. So the general called
off those soldiers in the evening that had suffered so sorely, of whom
the number of the slain was not a few, while that of the wounded was
still greater; but of the people of Jotapata no more than six men were
killed, although more than three hundred were carried off wounded. This
fight happened on the twentieth day of the month Desius [Sivan]. 30.
Hereupon Vespasian comforted his army on occasion of what happened, and
as he found them angry indeed, but rather wanting somewhat to do than
any further exhortations, he gave orders to raise the banks still
higher, and to erect three towers, each fifty feet high, and that they
should cover them with plates of iron on every side, that they might
be both firm by their weight, and not easily liable to be set on fire.
These towers he set upon the banks, and placed upon them such as could
shoot darts and arrows, with the lighter engines for throwing stones and
darts also; and besides these, he set upon them the stoutest men among
the slingers, who not being to be seen by reason of the height they
stood upon, and the battlements that protected them, might throw their
weapons at those that were upon the wall, and were easily seen by them.
Hereupon the Jews, not being easily able to escape those darts that were
thrown down upon their heads, nor to avenge themselves on those whom
they could not see, and perceiving that the height of the towers was so
great, that a dart which they threw with their hand could hardly reach
it, and that