tcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those
that were worn away by the famine and their mouths almost closed, when
they saw the fire of the holy house they exerted their utmost strength
and brake out into groans and outcries again. Perea did also return the
echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city], and augmented the
force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than
this disorder, for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which
the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it,
that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were
slain more in number than those that slew them, for the ground did
nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the
soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled
from them.

And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the
inner court of the Temple] by the Romans, and had much ado to get into
the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the remainder of
the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court. As for the
priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that
were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them
at the Romans instead of darts. But then as they gained nothing by so
doing, and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall
that was eight cubits broad, and there they tarried.

And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round
about the holy house, burned all those places, as also the remains of
the cloisters and the gates, two excepted: the one on the east side and
the other on the south; both which, however, they burned afterward. They
also burned down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity
of money and an immense number of garments and other precious goods
there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the
entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people
had there built themselves chambers (to contain such furniture). The
soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer
(court of the) Temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed
multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before
Caesar had determined anything about these people, or given the
commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were