David's sepulchre, and had taken out of it three thousand talents of silver, and that there was a much greater number left behind, and indeed enough to suffice all his wants, he had a great while an intention to make the attempt; and at this time he opened the sepulchre by night and went into it, and endeavoured that it should not be at all known in the city, but took only his most faithful friends with him. As for money he found none, as Hyrcanus had done, but that furniture of gold and those precious stones that were laid up there, all which he took away. However, he had a great desire to make a more diligent search, and to go further in, even as far as the very bodies of David and Solomon; where two of his guards were slain by a flame that burst out upon those that went in, as the report was. So he was terribly affrighted, and went out, and built a propitiatory monument of that fright he had been in, and this of white stone, at the mouth of the sepulchre, and at a great expense also." This took place about the year 12 B.C. Had the tomb been outside the walls, it is less likely that it would have escaped destruction in the various sieges of Jerusalem; and the account just cited produces the impression that it was within the city. S. Peter[757], addressing the Jews, says, "Let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day." This brings us down to the year 34 A.D. Dio Cassius[758] states that part of the Tomb of David fell down of itself in the time of Hadrian, which was considered by the Jews to be an evil omen. S. Jerome[759] also informs us that it was visited by the Christians, when he says to S. Paula and S. Eustochium her daughter, "When shall we be allowed to enter the Sepulchre of the Redeemer, and to pray in the Tomb of David?" He does not indeed expressly say that it was within the city, but we may infer it from his mentioning it together with the Sepulchre of Christ, and not alluding to it when he describes the visits to the Sanctuaries in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. This evidence brings us down to the fifth century. The Jewish tradition also on this point is of real weight, because it has never placed the tomb otherwise than on Sion, outside the present city-walls, though without fixing its exact position. Benjamin of Tudela[760], who wrote A.D. 1173, relates that about fifteen years before his arrival at Jerusalem one of the walls of the oratory on Mount Sion fell down, and that while it was being repaired two of the workmen went on with their labour while the rest were absent, and broke away a stone that formed the mouth of a cavern; into this they agreed to enter in search of treasure, "and they proceeded until they reached a large hall, supported by pillars of marble incrusted with gold and silver, before which stood a table with a golden sceptre and crown. This was the Sepulchre of David, King of Israel....