such men as led the war party the struggle must be hopeless. This minority believed that a timely yielding might soften the severity of the foe, and preserve to them their religion even at the cost of their country. The truer patriots counselled conciliation, and at the head of these was the good old high priest Ananias. But his gentle advice was shouted down, and his supporters were accused of sympathy with Rome and hooted at as traitors, and the poor old man himself, before the end of the war, met with a violent death at the hands of the Zealots. =4. The Siege of Jerusalem.=――It was a strong and beautiful city on which Titus looked as he slowly rode round the walls to reconnoitre. Jerusalem was built in a bowl of mountains. Even in its ruins, and eighteen centuries later, it is written of the city which its poets called the ‘joy of the whole earth,’ ‘I never saw anything more essentially striking, no city except Athens whose site is so pre-eminently impressive.’[4] In those days it was fortified by three enormous walls, and the Temple, in all its glory, stood within the innermost. To the Jews it seemed impossible that even the first and outermost of these protecting walls should be taken. Begun by Herod Agrippa, and formed of great blocks of unhewn stone, the wall stood now 45 feet high and 17 broad, and 150 battlemented towers were built up in it at intervals. But battering-rams thundered night and day, and the first wall fell after a desperate defence, and then the second, and at last only the third and innermost was left to guard the Temple.