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[446]
SO now Titus's banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his
soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a party
of horsemen, and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that went out
into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed fighting men,
who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but the greater part
of them were poor people, who were deterred from deserting by the concern
they were under for their own relations; for they could not hope to escape
away, together with their wives and children, without the knowledge of
the seditious; nor could they think of leaving these relations to be slain
by the robbers on their account; nay, the severity of the famine made them
bold in thus going out; so nothing remained but that, when they were concealed
from the robbers, they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were
going to be taken, they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being
punished; as after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any
supplications for mercy; so they were first whipped, and then tormented
with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then crucified before
the wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity
them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they
caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that
were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw
would be to make such as great deal them useless to him. The main reason
why he did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might
perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards
be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath
and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed 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. 1
1 Reland very properly takes notice here, how justly this judgment came upon the Jews, when they were crucified in such multitudes together, that the Romans wanted room for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies of these Jews, since they had brought this judgment on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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