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bread and others roaring in their wounds, so that all manner of miseries oppressed the inhabitants, for he was thought a happy man that was dead before that day.
At this time Vespasian with his army was lying in Galilee, and from thence he went to Rome to receive the imperial crown, and left his son Titus with the half of his army to besiege Jerusalem, the other to tarry at Alexandra till further orders. That I shall do, dear father, for unto you it belongeth to command, and for me
to obey.
In the first year of the reign of Vespasian Titus muttered his army and found them sufficient for the siege of Jerusalem: he then Marched to Samaria and from thence to Atelona thirty furlongs from Jerusalem, where he pitched his camp, and the next day he brought his whole army to Jerusalem, a little before the feast of
unleavened bread, which was April the 14th, so that an infinite number of people that came to celebrate were all shut up in the city, which raised a famine ; oxens dung were sold at a dear rate, so was old leather, and some women for want boiled their children and eat them.
Now Titus approached the walls of the city, and pitched his camp about the river Pelepoina, raised a mount and with a battering ram broke into the city May the 7th, and afterwards he raised four other mounts, and made himself master of the 2d wall, and built twelve castles thereon so that none could pass in or out,
whereby the famine and pestilence raged within and the sword without the city, so that multitudes perished, for from April the 14th, to July, following, there were buried by the common charge of the city six hundred thousand carcasses, and multitudes thrown into empty houses and over the walls, who filled the ditches with
dead bodies, Titus intended to save the temple from fire, when some of the city was in flames, by setting a guard upon it, but the seditious who raised the fire flew every man of the guard, which Titus hearing brought his whole army thither. At that time a soldier of the seditious took a flaming fire brand, and cast it through
the golden window into the temple, and others set fire to the doors, and after the gold grew hot, the temple began to burn, and immediately the whole fabrick was in a flame, and the holy of holies was laid open to all there present.
This happened the second year of the reign of Vespasian; and the same month that it was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar. Titus drew his sword to save the holy place, but the flames rushed through all parts of the temple in a moment, so that none could save it: the
Jews seeing all go to destruction before their eye», they then threw themselves into the flames, saying, Why should we live longer:
