object of contention: assembling therefore, a council of war, he consulted upon the measures to be adopted in the present emergency. Some of the commanders advised the whole army to be collected together, and to make one general attack upon the city: others, that the walls and ramparts should be repaired, to prevent the excursions of the enemy: and thus, by cutting off every supply, famine would prove more destructive than the sword. These and many other methods having been suggested, it was at length the determination of Titus, supported by the approbation of the whole council, to surround the city with a wall; which by being strictly guarded, would effectually cut off every communication: when at length the Jews finding themselves hemmed in on all sides, and convinced that they were in the power of the enemy, might be compelled to surrender, to preserve the city and themselves from inevitable ruin." He hastened, therefore, to execute this resolution; and having assigned to every soldier the part he was to perform, proceeded to mark the outlines of his projected circumvallation. This undertaking would have presented too many difficulties, and the prospect of too laborious an application to be attempted hastily, much less to be adopted so vigorously, by any army but that which had hitherto designed

and

(1) When the proposition was first made in this council to blockade the city, Titus objected to it," as being," says Tacitus," unworthy of the Roman arms to resort to such an unwarlike expedient;" but as it now appeared to his mind that his army was insufficient to carry on the siege in the usual manner of attack, he acquiesced in the measure; we shall see, however, towards the close of this history, that the spirit of Titus could not brook delay, and that instead of starving out the besieged, he put them to the sword, thus remarkably fulfilling the prediction that" THOSE DAYS SHOULD "BE SHORTENED;" in consequence of which, the whole siege lasted but six months.

and carried into effect, projects of as extensive, and, seemingly, of as astonishing a nature: but with that zeal and activity which had ever characterised the enterprises of this warlike people, this immense wall was completed in the space of three days.' Its circumference was nearly five English miles, having thirteen redoubts, rather less than a furlong in circuit each; tending equally to its security and strength. These were all strongly garrisoned, and the whole circuit, from being completely guarded, became one impregnable barrier.*

The

(1) This wall, says Josephus (5. xii. 2.) commenced at the Assyrian camp, where the main body of the Roman army was now stationed; and was carried to the lower parts of Cœnopolis, from thence along the valley of Cedron to the Mount of Olives: then bending southward, took in the rock of Peristereon, and that hill adjoining, which is near to the valley reaching to Siloam; whence it bent again to the west, and went down to the valley of the Fountain, beyond which it went up from the Monument of Ananus, the High Priest, and took in that mountain on which Pompey had formerly pitched his camp. It returned then to the north side of the city, and was carried on as far as a village, called "The House of Erebinthi;" thence, taking in Herod's Monument, was joined on the east, at the camp of Titus.-See the plan of the city opposite to the title page.

It was with a reference to this wall, that our Saviour cautioned his disciples to flee from Judea to the mountains, when they thus saw Jerusalem encompassed by armies; for as soon as this circumvallation was completed, * all hope of safety was cut off from the Jews, and all means of escaping from "the city were rendered impracticable."

This laborious undertaking occupied the whole army of Titus three days and nights; a rapidity inconceivable; particularly when we reflect that the wall, which, in extent corresponds, in a remarkable manner with this, built by the army of the younger Scipio, when in the last Punic war he besieged Carthage; was effected by the incessant industry of more than double the numbers of Titus, in not less than twenty-four days. To this it may be said, that the Romans, in the former instance, were very little, if at all annoyed in their operations by the enemy: whereas in the latter, the utmost efforts were made, both to check their designs, and to render their labours ineffectual.

(2) FOR THE DAYS SHALL COME UPON THEE, THAT THINE ENEMIES SHALL CAST

The city, thus surrounded; the famine, as might be expected, was excessive. Houses were filled with bodies of women and children, and the streets choked with the putrid corses of aged and infirm men. Even they who survived, were in so emaciated a condition, as to be destitute of strength sufficient to attempt the burial of their dead. In this abyss of misery, grief was silent, and lamentation was not heard: all pains and passions were smothered in the weakness of long endured hunger. Others, who waited for that relief which the arm of death could only give, stood gazing with tearless eyes and ghastly looks, at those whose sufferings were already terminated. The city was wrapt in a profound and universal gloom. But these scenes, aw ful as they were, and dreadful as they appeared, were less deplorable than those immediately succeeding them. Houses so lately the habitations of the strong and wealthy, but now the noisome dwellings of the dead, were again broken into and explored.' Here the monsters of faction and cruelty, not yet sated with the life-blood they had shed, or satisfied with the violence they had offered to these mangled bodies while the spark of life existed, now stripped them of the

A TRENCH ABOUT THEE, AND COMPASS THEE BOUND, AND KEEP THEE IN ON EVERY SIDE.-Luke, xix. 43.

I WILL CAMP AGAINST THEE ROUND ABOUT, AND WILL LAY SIEGE AGAINST THEE WITH A MOUNT, AND I WILL RAISE FORTS AGAINST THEE.-Isaiah, xxix. 3.

Then were the words of Ezekiel actually fulfilled—THE SWORD IS WITHOUT,

AND THE PESTILENCE AND THE FAMINE WITHIN: HE THAT IS IN THE FIELD SHALL DIE WITH THE SWORD; AND HE THAT IS IN THE CITY, FAMINE and pesTILENCE SHALL DEVOUR HIM, Ezekiel, vii. 15.

(1) THE CITY OF CONFUSION IS BROKEN DOWN: EVERY HOUSE IS SHUT UP THAT NO MAN MAY COME IN.-Isaiah, xxiv. 10.-Josephus repeatedly mentions that the houses were filled with the dead carcasses, and then shut up.

G g

the useless and little covering that remained, and once more assaulted them with every indignity that wantonness could devise, or brutality inflict.'

When the Jews were no longer able to endure the putrid corruption of the dead, orders were issued to have them buried at the public charge; but for want of room to dispose of them, these impious wretches cast them headlong from the wall into the vallies beneath, presenting a spectacle of so horrid a nature, that when Titus, surveying the different posts of his army, found the ditches filled with the dead carcasses, emitting a continued pestilential vapour; he fetched a deep sigh, and stretching out his hands to heaven, appealed to his Gods that he was innocent of the sight before him, the Jews having brought the intire guilt of it upon themselves."

The

(1) Josephus further describes the inhumanity of these wretches, "who cruelly tormented those who were not yet dead, but on the eve of expiring, by plunging swords into every part of their bodies, so that no stroke proved immediately fatal.”—Bell. Jud. 5, xii. 3.

(2) THEREFORE BEHOLD, THE DAYS COME, SAITH THE LORD, THAT THIS PLACE SHALL NO MORE BE CALLED TOPHET, NOR THE VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM; BUT THE VALLEY OF SLAUGHTER. AND I WILL MAKE VOID THE COUNSEL OF JUDAH AND JERUSALEM IN THIS PLACE; AND I WILL CAUSE THEM TO FALL BY THE SWORD BEFORE THEIR ENEMIES, AND BY THE HANDS OF THEM THAT SEEK THEIR LIVES: AND THEIR CARCASSES WILL I GIVE TO BE MEAT FOR THE FOWLS

OF THE HEAVEN AND FOR THE BEASTS OF THE EARTH.-Jer. xix. 6, 7.

THUS SAITH THE LORD, EVEN THE CARCASSES OF MEN SHALL FALL AS DUNG UPON THE OPEN FIELD, AND AS THE HANDFUL AFTER THE HARVESTMAN, and NONE SHALL GATHER THEM.-Jer. ix. 22.

(3) Titus is said throughout this siege to have given proofs of great humanity and feeling, but this has been questioned by those who are well aware that even the flattering title given him by Suetonius (Amor et delicia humani generis), that he was the love and delight of mankind, was not, as many have presumed, conferred upon him for his conduct at Jerusalem, but at Rome; and then, not till some time after this siege: indeed it appears that neither he or his father were thought well of at Rome, till they had obtained the purple.

The people now labouring under the accumulated horrours of famine and despair, looked with an eye of jealousy upon the easy enjoyment of the enemy, who, with little difficulty, were able to procure every kind of provision from Syria and the neighbouring provinces. Their supplies were so plentiful, that several, from a cruel ostentation, went up to the walls, irritating the want on one side, by displaying the abundance on the other. But all was ineffectual! Nothing could now operate on the feelings of the seditious Jews. Titus, therefore, from motives of compassion to the remainder of the miserable people, determined to pursue with indefatigable assiduity, his new operations; and to carry them forward with all possible dispatch. For this purpose he again raised mounds, similar to those recently destroyed, with the exception of the one before Antonia; the magnitude of which was now considerably increased. The woods in the neighbourhood of the city, were immediately employed as materials best adapted to the construction of these, and of every description of warlike implements. Thus occupied, the minds of the Romans seemed to have turned from the contemplation of the state of their enemies, to the pursuit of objects, calculated only to display national skill and ingenuity. Busied in raising fortifications, and in the construction of various complicated and destructive engines, they appeared to have laid aside all present hostilities, with a view more effectually to secure future conquest: heedless of what was passing within the walls, they were unconscious of having inspired any additional dread by the appearance of their works; till many of the Jews foreseeing distress even greater than that which they had already

suffered,