Many of the people are trying to flee to the Romans. — The sufferings of those who remained from the famine and the disasters resulting from it.

1. The rebels did not yield to Joseph's tearful appeals, for they did not think it safe for them to change their course, but there arose among the people a movement in favor of going over to the Romans. Some sold their property for a pittance - their jewelry, the gold coins earned for them were swallowed so that they would not be found by robbers, and fled to the Roman camp. When gold reappeared, they used it for their most necessary needs, since Titus had allowed most of them to settle anywhere in the country. This still more incited the besieged to flight, for in this way they were freed from internal shocks, without at the same time becoming slaves of the Romans. At the same time, the people of John and Simon tried to prevent the Jews from fleeing even more zealously than the Roman invasion, and they put to immediate death anyone on whom the shadow of suspicion fell.

2. It was dangerous, however, for the rich to remain in the city, for they were also accused of wanting to flee to the enemy, in order to execute them and take possession of their wealth. With the famine, the ferocity of the rebels increased, and every day both disasters became more terrible. When the products of life ceased to appear in the markets, the rebels invaded private homes and ransacked them. If they found anything, they beat the owners for not giving them up voluntarily; if they found nothing, they also tortured them, supposing that the provisions were carefully concealed by them. They determined the presence or absence of food in someone's possession by the appearance of the unfortunates: whoever still looked healthy, therefore, had a supply of food; the emaciated, on the contrary, were not disturbed by them, since there was no reason to kill those whose lives were already crippled by hunger. The rich secretly gave up all their possessions for a single measure of wheat, the less well-to-do for a measure of barley, then they shut themselves up in the most secret corners of their houses, and in their intolerable hunger devoured the grain unground, or, as circumstances and fear permitted, barely baked. The table was nowhere [360] laid—the food was snatched out of the fire still raw, and swallowed in this form.

3. The food was miserable, and the heart ached at the sight of the stronger taking the best part, while the weak were exhausted in despair. Hunger dominated all the senses, but nothing was so strongly suppressed by it as the feeling of shame; everything that was considered worthy of respect under ordinary conditions was ignored under the influence of hunger. Wives snatched food from their husbands, children from their parents, and, what was most unmerciful, mothers from their dumb children; their beloved offspring died of hunger in their arms, and they, not timidly, took from them the last drop of milk that could still prolong their lives. But even with such means of food they could not hide: the rebels lay in wait for them everywhere in order to steal this from them. The locked house was a sign that its inhabitants were eating something; Suddenly they broke down the doors, invaded and tore a piece almost out of their throats. The old men who clung tenaciously to their food were beaten mercilessly, the women who hid what they had in their hands were dragged by the hair, there was no regret either for the venerable gray hair or for the tender age; they also tore out the last pieces from children, who were thrown to the ground if they did not let them out of their hands. With those who, in order to warn robbers, hastily swallowed what would otherwise have been stolen from them, they acted even more severely, as if they were being deprived of what was inalienable to them. They invented tortures of a terrible kind in order to find out the places where supplies were stored: they plugged the shameful holes of the unfortunates with peas and stabbed them with sharpened sticks in the seat. Others were subjected to incredible tortures only for the sake of giving them a piece of bread or pointing to a hidden handful of flour. The torturers might have been called less cruel if their actions had been prompted by want, but they did not suffer hunger, but sought to vent their ferocious malice on someone, and at the same time wanted to prepare for themselves provisions for the future. There were brave men who at night crept almost to the Roman camp and there gathered wild vegetables and herbs, but when they returned with the booty, satisfied that they had escaped from the hands of the enemy, they were attacked by their own people, who took everything from them and left nothing, even if they prayed and conjured in the name of God to give them at least a part of it, which was obtained by them at the risk of life: the robbed [361] had to be content with the fact that his life was at least spared.

4. Such violence, however, was endured by the common people from the servants of tyrants, but men of distinction and wealth were brought to the tyrants themselves. There some were put to death on false charges of conspiracy, others on the pretext that they wanted to betray the city to the Romans, and most often false witnesses accused them of intending to desert to the Romans. Those who were robbed by Simon were brought to John, and those who were ruined by the latter were handed over to the former. So in turn they drank the blood of their fellow citizens and divided the corpses of the unfortunates among themselves. Fighting among themselves for supreme power, they were unanimous in their crimes. Whoever prevented another from taking part in violence against fellow citizens was considered a selfish scoundrel, and he who was excluded from participation regretted that he had lost the opportunity to commit cruelty, as the loss of a good deed.

5. It is impossible to describe their fanaticism separately. In short, no city has suffered anything like it, and no generation since the world has done more evil. After all, they also mocked the Jewish people in order to appear less godless towards foreigners. But by this they clearly showed that they themselves were slaves, a crowd of vagabonds, and the illegitimate scum of their people. It was they who destroyed the city, they forced the Romans, against their own will, to give their name to the sad victory, and they themselves almost with their own hands dragged into the temple the slowing fire. Without sorrow or tears, they looked from the Upper City at the conflagration, while it aroused a feeling of compassion among the Romans. Of this, however, we shall have occasion to speak again when we come to the description of the corresponding events.

Chapter Eleven

A multitude of Jews were crucified before the walls of the city. — About Antiochus Epiphanes. — The Jews destroy the fortifications of the Romans.

1. Titus, meanwhile, quickly finished the construction of the ramparts, although the soldiers suffered much from the defenders of the wall. [362] After this, he sent a part of the horsemen to capture those Jews who went down to the country ravines in search of food. Among them there were also warriors who could no longer be satisfied with robbery alone, but for the most part they were poor from the common people. If they did not go over to the Romans, it was only because they feared for the fate of their families, for it was impossible to flee with their wives and children because of the vigilance of the rebels, and to leave them to the mercy of these villains would have been to deliberately condemn them to death. Famine, however, inspired them with courage to leave the city, but even after they had succeeded in deceiving the guards, they were still in danger from an external enemy. Falling into the hands of the Romans, they unwittingly defended themselves out of fear of execution, and once they resisted, they considered it useless to ask for mercy afterwards and perished. After preliminary scourging and all kinds of torture, they were crucified in full view of the wall. Titus, though he pitied these unfortunates, of whom five hundred men were brought in every day, and sometimes more, on the other hand, he thought it dangerous to set at liberty men who had been taken prisoner by force, and if he wished to guard them, such a mass of guards might soon become guards for their guards.