those
they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the
crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great that room was
wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.

But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight that, on
the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise, for
they brought the relations of those that had deserted upon the wall,
with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon the
security offered them, and showed them what miseries those underwent who
fled to the Romans; and told them that those who were caught were
supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight
kept many of those within the city who were so eager to desert, till the
truth was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto
certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet
departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus commanded that the
hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off, that they
might not be thought deserters, and might be credited on account of the
calamity they were under, and sent them in to John and Simon, with this
exhortation, that they would now at length leave off (their madness),
and not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have those
advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would
preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and that
Temple which was their peculiar. He then went round about the banks
that were cast up, and hastened them, in order to show that his words
should in no long time be followed by his deeds. In answer to which the
seditious cast reproaches upon Caesar himself, and upon his father also,
and cried out, with a loud voice, that they contemned death, and did
well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the
mischief to the Romans they could while they had breath in them; and
that for their own city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed,
they had no concern about it, and that the world itself was a better
temple to God than this. That yet this Temple would be preserved by Him
that inhabited therein, whom they still had for their assistant in this
war, and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings, which would come
to nothing, because the conclusion of the whole depended upon God only.
These words were mixed with reproaches, and with them they made a mighty
clamor.