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[118]
However, when Titus had recalled those men from Gophna, he gave orders
that they should go round the wall, together with Josephus, and show themselves
to the people; upon which a great many fled to the Romans. These men also
got in a great number together, and stood before the Romans, and besought
the seditious, with groans and tears in their eyes, in the first place
to receive the Romans entirely into the city, and save that their own place
of residence again; but that, if they would not agree to such a proposal,
they would at least depart out of the temple, and save the holy house for
their own use; for that the Romans would not venture to set the sanctuary
on fire but under the most pressing necessity. Yet did the seditious still
more and more contradict them; and while they cast loud and bitter reproaches
upon these deserters, they also set their engines for throwing of darts,
and javelins, and stones upon the sacred gates of the temple, at due distances
from one another, insomuch that all the space round about within the temple
might be compared to a burying-ground, so great was the number of the dead
bodies therein; as might the holy house itself be compared to a citadel.
Accordingly, these men rushed upon these holy places in their armor, that
were otherwise unapproachable, and that while their hands were yet warm
with the blood of their own people which they had shed; nay, they proceeded
to such great transgressions, that the very same indignation which Jews
would naturally have against Romans, had they been guilty of such abuses
against them, the Romans now had against Jews, for their impiety in regard
to their own religious customs. Nay, indeed, there were none of the Roman
soldiers who did not look with a sacred horror upon the holy house, and
adored it, and wished that the robbers would repent before their miseries
became incurable.
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