On the Destruction of Jerusalem

Contents

Reading pages: 1.0–1.13 · 1.14–1.24 · 1.25–1.30 · 1.31–1.36 · 1.37–1.39 · 1.40–1.41 · 1.42–1.43 · 1.44–1.46 · 2.1–2.8 · 2.9–2.11 · 2.12–2.18 · 3.1–3.8 · 3.9–3.16 · 3.17–3.23 · 3.24–4.3 · 4.4–4.14 · 4.15–4.25 · 4.26–5.1 · 5.2–5.10 · 5.11–5.15 · 5.16–5.19 · 5.20–5.23 · 5.24–5.31 · 5.32–5.42 · 5.43–5.52 · 5.53

1. 1.0The author explains that he continues Scripture's history of the Jews beyond the books of Kingdoms and Maccabees, correcting Josephus's unbelief and asking whether the rule of Judah failed before Christ.
2. 1.1From the Maccabean revolt to the reign of John Hyrcanus and the first king, Aristobulus, who imprisons his mother and brothers.
3. 1.2Hyrcanus's foresight is proved by Aristobulus's cruelty, which began with envious men slandering the brothers.
4. 1.3The slanderers mix truth with lies to overcome Aristobulus's trust in Antigonus.
5. 1.4At the Feast of Tabernacles Antigonus goes armed to the temple to pray for his sick brother, which gives his enemies their pretext.
6. 1.5Deceived by a forged message from the queen, Antigonus comes armed to the palace and is killed by Aristobulus's guards at Strato's Tower.
7. 1.6Judas the Essene's prophecy of Antigonus's death is fulfilled, and Aristobulus falls ill from remorse.
8. 1.7Aristobulus's vomited blood is spilled on the place of his brother's murder; he confesses his crime and dies after reigning about a year.
9. 1.8Alexander Jannaeus becomes king, fights Ptolemy Lathyrus, Theodorus, and the Arabs, and kills some fifty thousand of his own people in civil war.
10. 1.10Rebel Jews call in Demetrius, who defeats Alexander at Shechem but withdraws; Alexander then crucifies eight hundred rebels and kills their families before them.
11. 1.11Alexander feasts while the rebels die; he fails to stop Antiochus Dionysus, who is killed fighting the Arabs.
12. 1.12Aretas rules Damascus; Alexander's last campaigns and death; Queen Alexandra rules under the influence of the Pharisees, who take vengeance on Alexander's friends.
13. 1.13During Alexandra's last illness Aristobulus seizes power; after her death he defeats Hyrcanus, and the brothers make an agreement in the temple.
14. 1.14Antipater persuades Hyrcanus to flee to Aretas, whose army besieges Aristobulus until Scaurus, bribed by Aristobulus, orders them off.
15. 1.15Both brothers plead before Pompey; Aristobulus's defiance brings the Roman army against Judea, and Pompey marches from Jericho to Jerusalem.
16. 1.16The city opens its gates to Pompey; the temple holds out three months until it is stormed, while the priests continue the sacrifices to the end.
17. 1.17The priests die at their posts; Pompey enters the sanctuary but leaves its treasure untouched, makes Hyrcanus high priest, and takes Aristobulus's family to Rome.
18. 1.18Scaurus restores the cities taken by the Jews and campaigns against Petra; Antipater supplies his army and arranges Aretas's payoff.
19. 1.19Gabinius and Mark Antony defeat Alexander, son of Aristobulus, and Gabinius divides Judea into five councils governed by the nobles.
20. 1.20Aristobulus escapes from Rome, raises a revolt, is defeated and captured at Machaerus, and is sent back to Rome.
21. 1.21Gabinius's Egyptian campaign and the defeat of Alexander at Mount Tabor; Crassus robs the temple and dies in Parthia; Cassius enslaves thirty thousand Jews.
22. 1.22Antipater's family; in the civil war Caesar sends Aristobulus to Syria, where he is poisoned, and Pompey has his son Alexander beheaded.
23. 1.23Ptolemy of Chalcis kills his son and marries Antigonus's sister; Pompey is murdered in Egypt, and Antipater turns to Caesar.
24. 1.24Antipater rescues Mithridates of Pergamum's expedition to Egypt at Pelusium and in battle, and Caesar rewards him with Roman honors.
25. 1.25Antigonus accuses Antipater before Caesar; Antipater bares his wounds in reply, is made procurator of Judea, and appoints Phasael over Jerusalem and Herod over Galilee.
26. 1.26Herod kills the brigand Ezekias; envious courtiers have Hyrcanus summon him to trial; acquitted through Sextus Caesar's pressure, he marches on Jerusalem but is restrained by his father and brother.
27. 1.27Sextus Caesar and Julius Caesar are murdered; in the ensuing war Herod is given charge of Syria, which leads to Antipater's death.
28. 1.28Antipater is poisoned by Malichus, whom Herod has killed; Herod marries Mariamne; Jewish embassies accuse Herod and Phasael before Antony, who makes them tetrarchs.
29. 1.29The Parthians invade, capture Phasael and Hyrcanus, and make Antigonus king; Antigonus mutilates Hyrcanus, Phasael kills himself, and Herod flees through Arabia and Egypt to Rome.
30. 1.30The senate makes Herod king; he returns, relieves Masada, clears the Galilean cave-brigands, and after his brother Joseph's death defeats Antigonus's general Pappus.
31. 1.31Herod, with Sosius, takes Jerusalem after a siege of five months, keeps the Romans out of the sanctuary by paying them, and Antigonus is beheaded by Antony.
32. 1.32Cleopatra's greed and Antony's gifts to her; Herod's war with the Arabs, his defeat through Athenion's treachery, the earthquake, his speech to the troops, and his victory.
33. 1.33After Actium Herod goes to Octavian at Rhodes without his diadem and defends his loyalty to Antony.
34. 1.34Octavian confirms Herod as king, restores his territories, and adds cities and Cleopatra's Gallic guard.
35. 1.35Herod's buildings: the temple enclosure, the Antonia, his palaces, Sebaste, the temple to Augustus at Panium, and the city and harbor of Caesarea.
36. 1.36Herod puts away Doris to marry Mariamne, kills her grandfather Hyrcanus, and, fearing the people's love for her brother, the young high priest Aristobulus (Jonathan), resolves to kill him.
37. 1.37Aristobulus is drowned at Jericho; through the plotting of the women, Herod's secret order to Joseph to kill Mariamne is betrayed, and Herod has both Joseph and Mariamne killed, then grieves to the point of madness.
38. 1.38Mariamne's character; her sons Alexander and Aristobulus resent their father, Antipater turns Herod against them, and Augustus reconciles Herod and Alexander at Rome.
39. 1.39Herod's speech to the people naming his three sons Antipater, Alexander, and Aristobulus kings together and urging them to concord.
40. 1.40Antipater's intrigues, Glaphyra's pride, Pheroras's troubles, and the eunuchs' testimony bring Alexander into chains; Archelaus of Cappadocia saves him by feigning rage and turning Herod against Pheroras, then reconciling all.
41. 1.41After the reconciliation the Spartan Eurycles and other informers revive the charges; the sons are imprisoned, condemned unheard at Berytus, and the soldier Tiro, who protests, is killed with his son and the barber Trypho.
42. 1.42Alexander and Aristobulus are strangled; Herod arranges marriages to protect their children, but Antipater overturns them; Herod's many wives and children; Pheroras's estrangement and death.
43. 1.43Inquiry into Pheroras's death uncovers Antipater's plot to poison Herod, confirmed by Pheroras's wife after her attempted suicide; Mariamne the high priest's daughter is implicated and her son struck from the will.
44. 1.44Antipater's forged letters against his brothers are discovered; he returns from Rome unaware, and before Varus Herod accuses him and Antipater makes a long defense.
45. 1.45Nicolaus answers Antipater, who is condemned; Herod pulls down the golden eagle and burns its destroyers, sickens horribly, orders a massacre of nobles at his death, has Antipater killed, and dies five days later; Salome frees the prisoners.
46. 1.46Herod's will is read in the amphitheater at Jericho, the army acclaims Archelaus, and Herod is buried with great pomp at Herodium.
47. 2.1The Jews denounce Herod and oppose Archelaus before Augustus; Antipater, Salome's son, and Nicolaus argue the case, and Augustus makes Archelaus ethnarch and his brothers tetrarchs.
48. 2.2A false Alexander is exposed by Augustus; Archelaus is banished to Vienne, and his marriage to his brother's widow Glaphyra is condemned in her dream of Alexander, after which she dies.
49. 2.3Archelaus's dream of the nine ears and his exile; Judea becomes a province; Pilate brings images into Jerusalem; Agrippa is imprisoned by Tiberius.
50. 2.4The scandal of Paulina, deceived by Mundus disguised as Anubis in the temple of Isis at Rome, and Tiberius's punishment of the priests.
51. 2.5Pilate massacres Samaritans and crucifies Christ, which the author makes the cause of Jerusalem's ruin; Herod Antipas kills John the Baptist over Herodias and is exiled; Gaius and Agrippa I.
52. 2.6Nero's accession; under him Judea is overrun by brigands and the sicarii, who murder openly in Jerusalem, killing the high priest Jonathan.
53. 2.7The Egyptian false prophet gathers thousands on the Mount of Olives; after his defeat others call openly for revolt.
54. 2.8Strife at Caesarea between Jews and gentiles; the governors Felix, Festus, Albinus, and Florus, whose cruelty, even before Berenice, leads Agrippa II to address the people.
55. 2.9King Agrippa II's long speech urging the Jews not to make war on Rome, which rules the whole world; they agree to restore the porticoes and pay tribute, but reject obedience to Florus and drive Agrippa out.
56. 2.10The rebels seize Masada and stop sacrifices for foreigners; civil fighting in Jerusalem, the burning of the archives and the Antonia, the death of Menahem, and the massacre of the Roman garrison except Metilius.
57. 2.11Massacres of Jews and Syrians in the cities of Syria, and of fifty thousand Jews at Alexandria under Tiberius Alexander.
58. 2.12The author ascribes the Jews' sufferings to their crucifixion of Jesus, cites Josephus's testimony to Jesus, tells how John the Baptist died for rebuking Herod's marriage to Herodias, and begins to show that the high priesthood had departed from its lawful succession from Aaron.
59. 2.13A history of the high priesthood from Aaron to the fall of the temple, arguing that the lawful succession was broken, so that divine help deserted the Jews.
60. 2.14Cestius Gallus marches on Judea, destroys Chabulon and Joppa, spares Sepphoris, and is attacked at Gibeon on the sabbath.
61. 2.15Cestius besieges Jerusalem but suddenly withdraws, and his army is cut up in the retreat through Beth-horon.
62. 2.16Leading Jews desert to Cestius, who sends them to Nero to blame Florus; the people of Damascus prepare to massacre their Jews, keeping it secret from their own Judaizing wives.
63. 2.17Ten thousand Jews are killed at Damascus, following the example of Scythopolis, where thirteen thousand loyal Jews were treacherously massacred.
64. 2.18Simon son of Saul of Scythopolis, who had fought for the city against his fellow Jews, kills his family and himself when the Scythopolitans turn on the Jews.
65. 3.1Nero, performing on the stage in Achaia, appoints Vespasian to the Jewish war, which God arranged both to punish the Jews and to leave Nero defenseless; Nero then turns on the Christians.
66. 3.2At Rome Peter defeats Simon Magus in raising a dead youth and in Simon's attempted flight; Nero seeks Peter's death; Peter, leaving Rome, meets Christ at the gate (“Lord, where are you going?”), returns, and is crucified head downward, while Paul is beheaded.
67. 3.3Vespasian is appointed; the Jews choose their generals; Josephus organizes Galilee on the Roman model, survives a sedition at Taricheae, and recovers Tiberias by a ruse of empty boats.
68. 3.4Two Jewish attacks on Ascalon are crushed by Antonius; Niger escapes from a burning tower and reappears alive after three days.
69. 3.5Vespasian gathers his forces at Antioch, which the author describes (adding that it now ranks fourth after Constantinople), and receives Sepphoris into Roman protection.
70. 3.6A description of Upper and Lower Galilee, Peraea, Samaria, and Judea, with the author's spiritual reading of the land “flowing with milk and honey.”
71. 3.7Josephus fails to take Sepphoris, and the Roman garrison lays Galilee waste.
72. 3.8Titus brings the legions to Ptolemais; Vespasian destroys Gabara; Josephus withdraws to Tiberias and writes to Jerusalem for a decision on peace or war.
73. 3.9Josephus enters Jotapata; Vespasian besieges it, and five days of fighting follow at a city made almost impregnable by its cliffs.
74. 3.10Vespasian tries to force Jotapata by thirst, but Josephus hangs dripping garments on the walls to suggest plenty of water.
75. 3.11The Romans batter Jotapata with the ram; Josephus deadens it with sacks of chaff; Eleazar breaks its head with a great stone and dies in the act.
76. 3.12Vespasian is wounded in the heel; the stone-throwers do terrible damage; the defenders pour boiling oil on the Romans scaling the wall.
77. 3.13Trajan and Titus take Japha, whose people shut out their own fugitives; the author sees God's help withdrawn from the Jews.
78. 3.14The Samaritans gather on Mount Gerizim (the author recalls Jesus' words to the Samaritan woman), and Cerealis besieges them and kills eleven thousand six hundred.
79. 3.15Jotapata falls on the forty-eighth day; forty thousand die; Josephus hides in a pit with forty men and is offered terms by Vespasian through Nicanor.
80. 3.16The men in the pit urge Josephus to die rather than surrender, citing Moses, Aaron, Saul and Jonathan, and David, and threaten to kill him if he refuses.
81. 3.17Josephus's long reply against suicide: life is God's deposit, Scripture's saints awaited God's call, Saul is no model, and to kill oneself is against nature and law.
82. 3.18Josephus persuades his companions to die by lot, survives with one other, surrenders, and is spared at Titus's intercession.
83. 3.19Vespasian winters his army at Caesarea and Scythopolis, whose name and site the author explains.
84. 3.20The pirates of Joppa are wrecked by a storm off the harborless coast, and the Romans destroy the city a second time.
85. 3.21Jerusalem first mourns Josephus as dead, then hates him when it learns he is alive among the Romans, and is driven further into war.
86. 3.22Vespasian rests at Caesarea Philippi; at Tiberias the brigand Jesus attacks the envoy Valerian, but the elders obtain pardon for the city.
87. 3.23Vespasian moves against Taricheae on the lake of Gennesaret; Titus, facing a great multitude on the plain, prepares to address his horsemen.
88. 3.24Titus's speech to his horsemen, urging them to attack the larger Jewish force without waiting for reinforcements, citing Roman glory and the example of Manlius Torquatus's son.
89. 3.25Titus routs the Jews on the plain, enters Taricheae by riding through the lake, and spares the country people; Vespasian orders rafts to pursue those on the lake.
90. 3.26A description of the lake of Gennesaret, the sources of the Jordan, and the region of Gennesar, followed by the naval slaughter on the lake and the enslavement of the prisoners of Taricheae.
91. 4.1The Romans storm Gamala, but the collapsing houses kill many of them, and Vespasian himself barely withdraws from the city.
92. 4.2Vespasian consoles and rebukes his troops after the setback at Gamala, blaming their rash pursuit rather than any weakness or enemy valor.
93. 4.3Gamala falls after a tower is undermined; a sudden wind turns the defenders' missiles back on them, and the whole population perishes.
94. 4.4John of Gischala tricks Titus into a day's delay by appealing to the sabbath and escapes to Jerusalem; Gischala surrenders, and Mount Tabor falls.
95. 4.5The author turns to events at Jerusalem, explaining that the old law and worship were a shadow of the truth that God replaced with the new.
96. 4.6John reaches Jerusalem; the Zealots murder leading men, choose a rustic high priest by lot, seize the temple, and through John's treachery summon the Idumaeans.
97. 4.7The chief priests appeal from the wall to the Idumaeans to judge the case fairly, denying the charge of treason and blaming the Zealots for profaning the temple.
98. 4.8Simon, a leader of the Idumaeans, angrily rejects the priests' appeal and urges his men to free those besieged in the temple.
99. 4.9Under cover of a violent storm the Zealots let the Idumaeans into Jerusalem, and together they massacre the guards and many citizens.
100. 4.10The Zealots murder Zacharias after his acquittal by seventy judges, and kill Gorion and Niger of Peraea.
101. 4.11Vespasian refuses to march on Jerusalem, arguing that the Jews are destroying themselves and that delay, like Fabius Maximus's, can win more than battle.
102. 4.12Those who can pay escape to the Romans, while the poor are killed or choose to die at home.
103. 4.13John aims at sole rule in Jerusalem, while the sicarii plunder and kill throughout the countryside.
104. 4.14Gadara invites Vespasian and surrenders after the rebels kill Dolesus and flee; Placidus is sent after them.
105. 4.15Placidus routs the fugitives from Gadara and drives a vast multitude into the flooded Jordan, where most perish.
106. 4.16Hearing of revolt against Nero, Vespasian presses his campaign through Idumaea and Samaria to Jericho, whose plain and the Jordan valley are described.
107. 4.17The author describes Elisha's healing of the spring at Jericho and the fertility of the surrounding plain.
108. 4.18The author describes the Dead Sea, its bitumen and buoyancy, and the ruined land of Sodom as a sign of God's judgment on the wicked.
109. 4.19Vespasian's commanders take Gerasa and the strongholds around Jerusalem, while those inside the city can neither stay safely nor escape.
110. 4.20News arrives that Nero, deserted by his freedmen, has killed himself, a fitting end in the author's view for a matricide.
111. 4.21Vespasian sends Titus and Agrippa to Galba; on hearing of Galba's murder Titus returns, and Vespasian suspends the war.
112. 4.22Simon son of Gioras, driven out by Ananus, gathers a large robber army and defeats a sally from Jerusalem.
113. 4.23Through the treachery of James, Simon routs the Idumaeans, takes Hebron, ravages the country, and terrifies Jerusalem into returning his captured wife.
114. 4.24Otho is defeated by Vitellius's generals and kills himself; Vitellius marches on Rome.
115. 4.25Vespasian ravages Judea while John's followers indulge in effeminate vice and violence; the people let Simon into the city to oppose John, and both tyrants oppress them.
116. 4.26Resentful of Vitellius's elevation, Vespasian's soldiers force him to accept the empire, and he looks to secure Egypt and Alexandria.
117. 4.27The author describes Egypt, the Nile, and the difficult but safe harbor of Alexandria with its Pharos.
118. 4.28Vespasian secures Egypt, returns to Syria, and at Titus's urging has Josephus's chains broken rather than unfastened.
119. 4.29Vespasian sends Mucianus and Antonius against Vitellius; Caecina, sent by the sluggish Vitellius, urges his officers to go over to Vespasian.
120. 4.30Caecina's soldiers repent and bind him, but Antonius defeats them at Cremona and sends Caecina, freed and rewarded, to Vespasian.
121. 4.31Sabinus seizes the Capitol for Vespasian but is overwhelmed by Vitellius's Germans and killed; Domitian escapes and the temple burns.
122. 4.32Antonius takes Rome; Vitellius, drunk at his last meal, is dragged out and killed.
123. 4.33Domitian is made regent at Rome; Vespasian sends Titus from Alexandria, who marches by stages to Caesarea to resume the Jewish war.
124. 5.1Jerusalem is torn by three factions, Eleazar in the temple, John below him, and Simon in the city, whose fighting kills priests and worshipers and burns the city's grain.
125. 5.2The author laments Jerusalem's self-destruction, calls on Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David and Elisha, and attributes the city's ruin to its rejection and crucifixion of Christ.
126. 5.3Titus advances on Jerusalem and, reconnoitring with a few horsemen, is cut off by a sudden sally near the tomb of Helena.
127. 5.4Titus cuts his way out of the ambush unarmed and unharmed, then twice rallies his routed soldiers against Jewish sallies at the Mount of Olives.
128. 5.5At Passover John's armed men slip into the temple disguised as worshipers and seize it from Eleazar's faction.
129. 5.6A feigned offer of surrender draws Roman soldiers to the walls, where they are ambushed and pursued to the tomb of Helena.
130. 5.7Titus rebukes his soldiers for breaking ranks and nearly punishes them, but pardons them at their entreaty.
131. 5.8Titus has the ground before the city leveled, while inside the factions of Simon and John keep up their strife and the people suffer between them.
132. 5.9The author describes the founding of Jerusalem and the temple, interpreting the veil, the high priest's vestments, the sanctuary and its furnishings as figures of Christ, the Spirit and the Church.
133. 5.10Titus begins the siege near the tomb of John the high priest; the united factions sally out against the engines, and the Idumaean leader John is killed.
134. 5.11After a false alarm caused by a collapsing tower, the Romans breach and take the first wall of Jerusalem.
135. 5.12John and Simon divide the defense of the second wall; Longinus distinguishes himself, and Titus urges his soldiers to fight with prudence.
136. 5.13Castor feigns surrender to halt the Roman ram, then tries to kill Aeneas with a rock, and finally escapes by pretending to throw himself into the fire.
137. 5.14Titus takes the second wall after a setback, pauses to gather supplies, raises new earthworks, and sends Josephus to urge the Jews to surrender.
138. 5.15Josephus urges the defenders to surrender, arguing that God has given rule to Rome, that Israel's history shows servitude preferred to ruin, and that nature teaches the weaker to yield.
139. 5.16Josephus recounts how Israel's fathers won by prayer and obedience rather than arms, argues that God has turned from the Jews to the Romans, and pleads with the defenders to surrender.
140. 5.17Many of the people flee to the Romans after Josephus's speech, while the faction leaders kill those caught trying to leave.
141. 5.18Famine grips Jerusalem; the factions torture people for food, while the Romans crucify hundreds of those caught outside, and the rebels scorn Titus's offers.
142. 5.19The son of Antiochus of Commagene rashly attacks the wall and is repulsed; the author compares Alexander the Great's lucky escape and David's rescue by Abishai.
143. 5.20John undermines and burns the Roman earthworks, and a daring sally sets the engines on fire, until Titus arrives and drives the Jews back.
144. 5.21Titus encloses Jerusalem with a wall; famine fills the city with unburied dead, and Titus, seeing the corpses thrown into the ravines, calls God to witness that he is not to blame.
145. 5.22Simon executes the high priest Matthias with his sons in sight of the Romans; Matthias's long lament blames himself for admitting Simon, and Simon kills further leading men and a band of would-be traitors.
146. 5.23Josephus is struck by a stone while urging surrender, and his mother, believing him dead, laments on the wall.
147. 5.24Josephus laments his escape; many deserters die from eating too quickly, and Syrians and Arabs in the Roman camp cut open thousands of refugees looking for swallowed gold, which Titus forbids.
148. 5.25Deserters report hundreds of thousands of dead carried out of the gates; famine drives the people to eat dung, and the countryside around Jerusalem is stripped bare.
149. 5.26The Jews' last attack on the rebuilt earthworks fails; the Romans breach the wall only to find a new inner wall built by John, and Titus prepares to address his soldiers.
150. 5.27Titus urges his hesitant soldiers to storm John's new wall, citing Leonidas and Cato's legions and promising glory and rewards.
151. 5.28Sabinus, a slight Syrian soldier, leads eleven men up the rubble of the wall and dies fighting after slipping at the top.
152. 5.29A small Roman party seizes the Antonia by night; the Jews flee to the temple, where fierce hand-to-hand fighting follows in the forecourt.
153. 5.30The centurion Julianus single-handedly drives the Jews back into the temple, but slips on the paving in his nailed boots and is killed.
154. 5.31Titus, through Josephus, offers John safety if he will spare the temple; John refuses, and Josephus warns him that Daniel's prophecy of desolation is being fulfilled.
155. 5.32The author attributes John's obstinacy and the final, irreparable destruction of the temple to the Jews' crucifixion of Christ.
156. 5.33Some leading priests desert to Titus, who sends them to Gophna and then shows them at the walls to refute rumors of their death.
157. 5.34The rebels profane the sanctuary; Titus reproaches John for shedding blood where the inscriptions forbid even foreigners to enter, and promises to spare the temple if they leave it.
158. 5.35Titus, watching from the Antonia, sends Cerealis with picked men against the temple by night; the confused fighting lasts until midday without either side yielding.
159. 5.36The Romans level the Antonia to open a road to the temple; a starving sally against the Mount of Olives is repulsed, and Pedanius snatches up a fugitive from horseback.
160. 5.37A small Jew named Jonathan challenges the Romans to single combat and kills Pudens, but is shot by the centurion Priscus while exulting.
161. 5.38The Jews burn part of the porticoes themselves and lure Roman soldiers onto Solomon's portico, which they set on fire beneath them.
162. 5.39Longinus kills himself rather than surrender and Artorius saves himself by promising his estate to the comrade who catches him; the porticoes burn, and the famine drives the people to eat leather and old straw.
163. 5.40Mary of Peraea, robbed of everything by the factions, kills and roasts her infant son, and offers the remains to the rebels who come looking for food.
164. 5.41Horrified by Mary's deed, Titus declares himself innocent before heaven and, mocking the Jews' belief in their miraculous history, resolves to end the war quickly.
165. 5.42Titus has the silver-covered gates burned but wishes to spare the temple; a Roman soldier throws a burning brand into the sanctuary, and the temple catches fire on the anniversary of its burning by the Babylonians.
166. 5.43The fire reaches the sanctuary, which Titus enters and admires; the rebels burn what is left, and a false prophet leads many to their death by promising divine deliverance.
167. 5.44The author lists the portents that foretold the fall of Jerusalem, including the comet, the opening of the temple gate, the voice saying “Let us go hence,” and Jesus son of Ananias crying woe on the city, and he applies the prophecy of a world ruler to Christ.
168. 5.45The Romans sacrifice in the temple court and hail Titus as emperor; a boy tricks a guard to bring water to the priests, whom Titus later has executed.
169. 5.46Titus answers John and Simon's request for a parley with a long speech on Roman power and his own clemency, and refuses their demand to leave freely for the desert.
170. 5.47A Roman horseman escapes from Simon and is disgraced by Titus; the Romans take the lower city, and the Idumaeans and many others surrender.
171. 5.48The priest Jesus son of Thebuthi and the treasurer Phineas hand over the temple's sacred vessels, vestments and stores to the Romans.
172. 5.49The upper city falls; John surrenders and is imprisoned for life, Simon is caught emerging from the ruins and kept for execution after the triumph, and the dead and captives are counted.
173. 5.50The Alans break through the Caspian gates and ravage Media and Armenia, nearly capturing King Tiridates with a noose.
174. 5.51Titus celebrates his victory in the cities of Syria with the deaths of Jewish captives, and the Jews of Antioch, slandered by the apostate Antiochus, are saved by his coming.
175. 5.52Silva besieges Masada; the defenders' timber wall is burned when the wind turns, and the Romans wait for morning to storm the fortress.
176. 5.53Eleazar persuades the defenders of Masada to kill their families and themselves rather than surrender; 960 die, and only a woman and five children survive to tell the Romans.