Alexander; the commanders of legions took the third watch.
They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in the
night-time, and who should go all night long round the spaces that were
interposed between the garrisons.

So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews, together with
their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its
progress and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper
rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the
lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children
also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows,
all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their
misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves
were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were
deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and
by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves, for
many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins
before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made
under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the
famine confounded all natural passions, for those who were just going to
die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes
and open mouths.

A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the
city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries
were themselves, for they brake open those houses which were no other
than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and
carrying off the coverings of their bodies went out laughing, and tried
the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove
what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that
still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to
lend them their right hand and their sword to despatch them, they were
too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the
famine. Now every one of these died with their eyes fixed upon the
Temple, and left the seditious alive behind them. Now the seditious at
first gave orders that the dead should be buried out of the public
treasury, as not enduring the stench of their dead bodies. But
afterward, when they could not do that, they had them cast down from the
walls into the valleys bene