thousand foot; Sohemus
joined him with four thousand men--a third of whom were horse, the
rest archers. Thus he had ten thousand Roman troops, and thirteen
thousand allies; besides many volunteers, who joined him from the
Syrian cities.

"After burning and pillaging Zebulon, and wasting the district,
Cestius returned to Ptolemais, and then advanced to Caesarea. He
sent forward a part of his army to Joppa. The city was open, and no
resistance was offered; nevertheless, the Romans slew all, to the
number of eight thousand five hundred. The cities of Galilee opened
their gates, without resistance, and Cestius advanced against
Jerusalem.

"When he arrived within six miles of the town, the Jews poured out;
and fell upon them with such fury that, if the horse and light
troops had not made a circuit, and fallen upon us in the rear, I
believe we should have destroyed the whole army. But we were forced
to fall back, having killed over five hundred. As the Romans moved
forward, Simon--son of Gioras--with a band, pressed them closely in
rear; and slew many, and carried off numbers of their beasts of
burden.

"Agrippa now tried, once more, to make peace, and sent a deputation
to persuade us to surrender--offering, in the name of Cestius,
pardon for all that had passed--but Eleazar's party, fearing the
people might listen to him, fell upon the deputation, slew some,
and drove the others back.

"Cestius advanced within a mile of Jerusalem and--after waiting
three days, in hopes that the Jews would surrender, and knowing
that many of the chief persons were friendly to him--he advanced to
the attack, took the suburb of Bezetha, and encamped opposite the
palace in the upper city. The people discovered that Ananias and
his friends had agreed to open the gates; and so slew them, and
threw the bodies over the wall. The Romans for five days attacked
and, on the sixth, Cestius, with the flower of his army made an
assault; but the people fought bravely and, disregarding the
flights of arrows which the archers shot against them, held the
walls, and poured missiles of all kinds upon the enemy; until at
last, just as it seemed to all that the Romans would succeed in
mining the walls, and firing the gates, Cestius called off his
troops.

"Had he not done so, he would speedily have taken the city; for the
peace party were on the point of seizing one of the gates, and
opening it. I no longer belonged to this party; for it seemed to me
th