of the towers fell; the leaders did not display their customary valour and conduct; they fled on all sides. Some who were accustomed to vaunt the most loudly, now stood pale, trembling, inactive: others endeavoured to break through the Roman works and make their escape. Vague rumours were spread abroad that the whole western wall had fallenthat the Romans were in the city. The men looked round for their wonted leaders: they neither saw their active figures hurrying about in the thickest of the fray, nor heard their voices exciting them to desperate resistance. Many threw themselves on the ground and bitterly lamented their fate. Even John and Simon, instead of remaining in their three impregnable towers, where nothing but famine could have reduced them, descended into the streets, and fled into the valley of Siloam. They then made an attempt to force their way through the wall; but their daring and strength seemed alike broken; they were repulsed by the guard, dispersed, and at length crept down into the subterranean vaults. The Romans ascended the wall with shouts of triumph at a victory so much beyond all hope easy and bloodless; they spread through the streets slaying and burning as they went. In many houses where they expected rich plunder, they found nothing but heaps of putrid bodies-whole families who had died of hunger: they retreated from the loathsome sight and insufferable stench. But they were not moved to mercy towards the living; in some places the flames were actually retarded or quenched with streams of blood: night alone put an end to the carnage.

When Titus entered the city, he gazed with astonishment at the massy towers, and recognized the hand of God in a victory which had thus made him master of such fortresses without a struggle. The multitudes of prisoners who pined in the dungeons, where they had been thrown by the insurgents, were released. The city was ordered to be razed, excepting the three towers, which were left as standing monuments of the victory.

The soldiers themselves were weary of the work of slaugh

ter, and orders were issued to kill only those who resisted. Yet the old and infirm, as unsaleable, were generally put to death the rest were driven into a space of the temple, called the Court of the Women. There a selection was made: the noted insurgents were put to death, except some of the tallest and most handsome, who were reserved to grace the triumph of Titus. Of the rest, all above seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in the public theatres, and in combats against wild beasts. Twelve thousand died of hunger, part from want or neglect of supplies-part obstinately refusing food. During the whole siege, the number killed was one million one hundred thousand; that of prisoners, ninety-seven thousand. In fact, the population, not of Jerusalem alone, but that of the adjacent districts—many who had taken refuge in the city, more who had assembled for the feast of unleavened bread—had been shut up by the sudden formation of the siege.

Yet the chief objects of their vengeance, the dauntless Simon son of Gioras, and John the Gischalite, still seemed to baffle all pursuit. The Roman soldiers penetrated into the subterranean caverns; wherever they went they found incalculable treasures, and heaps of dead bodies-some who had perished from hunger, others from their wounds, many by their own hands: the close air of the vaults reeked with the pestilential effluvia. Most recoiled from these pits of death; the more rapacious went on, breathing death for the sake of plunder. At length, reduced by famine, John and his brethren came forth upon terms of surrender. His life was spared-a singular instance of lenity, if indeed his conduct had been so atrocious as it is described by his rival Josephus. He was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and finally sent to Italy.

Many days after, towards the end of October, when Titus had left the city, as some of the Roman soldiers were rcposing amid the ruins of the temple, they were surprised by the sudden apparition of a man in white raiment, and with a

robe of purple, who seemed to rise from the earth in silent and imposing dignity. At first they stood awe-struck and motionless at length they ventured to approach him; they encircled him and demanded his name. He answered, "Simon the son of Gioras; call hither your general." Terentius Rufus was speedily summoned, and to him the brave though cruel defender of Jerusalem surrendered himself.

On the loss of the city, Simon had leaped down into one of the vaults, with a party of miners, hewers of stone, and iron workers. For some distance they had followed the natural windings of the cavern, and then attempted to dig their way out beyond the walls. But their provisions, however carefully husbanded, soon failed, and Simon determined on dre bold measure of attempting to overawe the Romans by his sudden and spectral appearance. News of his capture was sent to Titus: he was ordered to be set apart for the imperial triumph.

Thus fell, and for ever, the metropolis of the Jewish state. Other cities have risen on the ruins of Jerusalem, and succeeded, as it were, to the inalienable inheritance of perpetual siege, oppression and ruin. Jerusalem might almost seem to be a place under a peculiar curse: it has probably witnessed a far greater portion of human misery than any other spot upon the earth.

Nothing could equal the splendour of the triumph which Vespasian shared with his son Titus for their common victories. Besides the usual display of treasures, gold, silver, jewels, purple, vases, the rarest wild beasts from all quarters of the globe; there were extraordinary pageants, three or four stories high, representing to the admiration and delight of those civilized savages, all the horrors and miseries of war, beautiful countries laid waste; armies slain, routed, led captive; cities breached by military engines, stormed, laid waste with fire and sword; women wailing; houses overthrown; temples burning; and rivers of fire flowing through regions no longer cultivated or peopled, but blazing far away into he long and dreary distance. Among the spoils, the golden