The Feast of Pentecost was drawing near, and, as usual, multitudes of people congregated from all parts of the country at Jerusalem. This time, the greater part of them were animated by hostile feelings against the Romans and the Herodians. The strife was not delayed. The people soon chose their leaders, and succeeded in occupying the Mount of the Temple and the Hippodrome, whence they defied the Romans, who had taken up their quarters in the palace of Herod. Sabinus, thinking himself lost, encouraged the Romans to besiege the Temple, and sent messages to Varus for more reinforcements. The Judæans, well protected behind the Temple walls, hurled their weapons and their huge stones down upon the Romans. Victory would have been theirs had not the enemy, with burning materials, set fire to the colonnade. The flames spread so rapidly that escape was impossible. Of the unfortunate combatants, some were victims of the fire, others fell before the swords of the Romans, and many of them killed themselves in reckless despair. As soon as the Temple was left unprotected, the Romans, tempted by the treasures which they knew it contained, rushed into the courts. Sabinus alone is said to have appropriated four hundred talents from the treasures of the Temple. The plunder of these treasures, the desecration of the Holy of Holies, and the destruction of the halls of the Temple, barely ten years after the sacred edifice had been completed, roused all the indignation and, at the same time, all the valor of the Judæans. Even a great part of the Herodian troops went over to the malcontents, and assisted them against the Romans. Thus strengthened, they besieged the palace of Herod, laid mines under the towers, and threatened the Romans with destruction if they did not retire immediately. Sabinus, anxiously awaiting the expected reinforcements, but vacillating between fear of the besiegers and a longing to obtain the mastery over them, remained for the time in the citadel of the palace.