Some days after, vast crowds gathered in the now half-ruined upper town (Zion), uttering lamentations for those who had been killed and pronouncing execrations upon their murderer Florus, and it was not without much difficulty that the heads of the people succeeded in silencing them. But this only increased the audacity of Florus, who demanded, as a proof of their present peaceable intentions, that the people with the nobles should go forth to meet the incoming troops and welcome them in a friendly spirit. The representatives of the Sanctuary could hardly induce the people to comply with that request, for the patriots rebelled against the new humiliation thus thrust upon them, and persuaded many to share their sentiments. At length, however, the high priest succeeded in persuading the people to offer an amicable reception to the Roman cohorts. But soon the deceitful intention of the governor manifested itself. The people fulfilled the heavy sacrifice they had with heavy hearts undertaken to perform, and greeted the troops with forced friendliness; but the soldiers, having received their instructions from Florus, looked grimly at them and made no response. At the first murmur of discontent caused by the strange manner of the Roman troops, the latter rushed upon the people with drawn swords, driving them before them, whilst the horses trampled on the fugitives. A fearful crush took place at the gates of the city, and the road from Bezetha was strewn with the wounded and the killed. When it was perceived that the soldiers were directing their steps towards Fort Antonia and the Temple, the designs of Florus upon the treasures contained in it could no longer be concealed, and the people hastened to the Sanctuary to protect it, if possible, from his sacrilegious project. They threw stones at the soldiers, barred their passage through the narrow entrance, demolished the colonnade which connected the fortress Antonia with the Temple, and thus frustrated the governor's hope of becoming a second Crassus. Without being aware of it themselves, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had by that step commenced the war of insurrection.