If we reflect on these things, we shall find that God shows care for men, and by all kinds of premonitory signs indicates to His people the means of salvation, and that they owe their destruction to folly and calamities of their own choosing. For example, the Jews, after the demolition of the (tower of) Antonia, reduced the Temple to a square, although they had it recorded in their oracles that the city and the sanctuary would be taken when the Temple should become four-square. But what more than all else incited them to the war was an ambiguous oracle, likewise found in their sacred writings, to the effect that about that time some one from their country should become ruler of the world. This they understood to mean some one of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation of it. The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed Emperor on Jewish soil. For all that, it is impossible for men to avoid Fate, even though they foresee it. For some of these portents, then, the Jews found agreeable meanings, others they treated with contempt, until the ruin of their country and their own destruction convicted them of their folly.—_B.J._ VI. 5. 3 f. (288-315). Footnote 316: Cf. Appendix, Note VI. Footnote 317: The “tyrants” had encouraged optimistic false prophets in order to prevent desertion to the Romans. Footnote 318: March-April. Footnote 319: Eusebius (_H.E._ III. 8) reads “by the High Priest.” Footnote 320: Cf. Acts iv. 1; v. 24. Footnote 321: Or “among themselves.” Footnote 322: April-May. Footnote 323: So all the Gr. MSS (cf. Tac. _Hist._ v. 13, _maior humanâ vox excedere deos_). The Lat. version, with two other authorities, reads, “Let us depart hence.” Footnote 324: The Feast of Tabernacles (_Sukkoth_). Footnote 325: πετροβόλος, the Lat. _ballista_, a kind of large catapult. (51) The Last Scene. Capture of the Upper City. Jerusalem in Flames “Tum vero omne mihi visum considere in ignes....” [Sidenote: September A.D. 70] The Romans, now masters of the walls, planted their standards on the towers, and with clapping of hands and jubilation raised the song of triumph in honour of their victory. They had found the end of the war a much lighter task than the beginning; indeed, they could hardly believe that they had surmounted the last wall without bloodshed, and were truly[326] at a loss on finding no enemy in sight.