Titus appears to have been anxious to save his men, and even to save the besieged; he now endeavoured to induce them to submit, while afterwards he preferred the slower method of blockade to the chances of assault on the two remaining strongholds. Josephus was commissioned to address the defenders, which he did at some danger to himself.[355] Though he was a priest, and a Pharisee, he was hated by the Zealots because he belonged to the moderate party, and to the liberal school of educated Jews who agreed with Gamaliel in Jerusalem and Philo in Egypt. He had fought bravely in Galilee, but was disgusted with the Zealot leaders, John and Eleazar. He had a wider knowledge of the world than they had, and his embassy to Poppea--nearly twenty years before--had made him favourably known at Rome.[356] Vespasian spared his life when he was captured after the fall of Jotapata; and from that time, knowing that the struggle for freedom was hopeless, he endeavoured to save his country from further misery. His speech to the besieged was on the familiar lines of which we have instances in the New Testament, rehearsing Hebrew history from Abraham down to Herod. Its most interesting passage, however, is that which refers to Siloam. He regarded the Romans as being now in the right, though in the wrong when Sosius was defeated, and that they were consequently favoured by God in the supply of water due to the abundant rain of the season. “As for Titus, those springs which were formerly almost dried up when they were under your power, since he has come, run more plentifully than they did before; accordingly you know that Siloam, as well as all the other springs that were without the city, did so far fail that water was strictly sold by measure, whereas they now have such a great quantity of water, for your enemies, as is sufficient not only for drink both for themselves and their beasts, but even to water their gardens.” This passage agrees with the accounts of the south wall already mentioned in placing Siloam outside its line. It is also remarkable that, while the besieged suffered long agonies from famine, they are not said to have suffered from thirst. No doubt the rains also filled their cisterns, and the great tanks would have been filled up from the aqueducts before the latter were cut off by the Romans.