pernicious
against themselves; and when they had resolved upon any thing, they
executed it without mercy, and omitted no method of torment or of
barbarity. Nay, John abused the sacred materials, [5] and employed
them in the construction of his engines of war; for the people and the
priests had formerly determined to support the temple, and raise the
holy house twenty cubits higher; for king Agrippa had at a very great
expense, and with very great pains, brought thither such materials as
were proper for that purpose, being pieces of timber very well worth
seeing, both for their straightness and their largeness; but the war
coming on, and interrupting the work, John had them cut, and prepared
for the building him towers, he finding them long enough to oppose from
them those his adversaries that thought him from the temple that was
above him. He also had them brought and erected behind the inner court
over against the west end of the cloisters, where alone he could erect
them; whereas the other sides of that court had so many steps as would
not let them come nigh enough the cloisters.

6. Thus did John hope to be too hard for his enemies by these engines
constructed by his impiety; but God himself demonstrated that his pains
would prove of no use to him, by bringing the Romans upon him, before
he had reared any of his towers; for Titus, when he had gotten together
part of his forces about him, and had ordered the rest to meet him at
Jerusalem, marched out of Cesarea. He had with him those three legions
that had accompanied his father when he laid Judea waste, together with
that twelfth legion which had been formerly beaten with Cestius; which
legion, as it was otherwise remarkable for its valor, so did it march
on now with greater alacrity to avenge themselves on the Jews, as
remembering what they had formerly suffered from them. Of these legions
he ordered the fifth to meet him, by going through Emmaus, and the tenth
to go up by Jericho; he also moved himself, together with the rest;
besides whom, marched those auxiliaries that came from the kings, being
now more in number than before, together with a considerable number that
came to his assistance from Syria. Those also that had been selected out
of these four legions, and sent with Mucianus to Italy, had their places
filled up out of these soldiers that came out of Egypt with Titus; who
were two thousand men, chosen out of the armies at Alexandria. There
followed him a