How came this pagan priest to know the true name of God, and why was he praying to Him? Then the full meaning of the scene was borne in upon them. It was the ceremony called by the Romans the Evocation.[25] It was the custom of that people at the beginning of a siege to invoke the tutelary deity of the invested city, inviting him not to be made a prisoner, but to come forth and take up his abode among the divinities of the Roman Capitol. Without such ceremony they would be fighting against the gods--an impious deed! The ceremony, ludicrous or blasphemous, according as one may view it, was at all events unnecessary on the present occasion. The tutelary angels _had_ quitted the city, and Crispus was of those who had heard their departing voice. To the Jews upon the wall, the affair was as blasphemy. Jehovah was their own peculiar heritage! That the heathen should dare pray to Him, above all that they should call upon Him to quit the place where He had chosen to put His name forever, was a thing not to be borne. Calling for their most expert archer, they bade him shoot down the impious Theomantes. But the action was observed by the quick-eyed Rufus, who interposed his shield between the priest and the oncoming arrow. A moment afterwards Titus tossed his baton high in air. At that sight--the signal for battle--there rolled down the Roman lines a shout that seemed to shake the very towers of the city, the thrilling war-cry of “ROMA! ROMA!” and with that each man flew to his appointed work. The greatest siege in the world’s history had begun! CHAPTER XIX THE FIRST DAY’S FIGHT On the very edge of each agger there leaped up, as if by magic, a cloud of archers and slingers, who, setting up iron screens in front of themselves, proceeded to direct their missiles upon the defenders of the battlements. Expert as were these archers--Cretans all, a nation famed from Homeric times in the use of the bow--they were surpassed in accuracy of aim by the slingers. These, natives of the Balearic Isles, had been trained to their work from very childhood, when their daily meal, set upon some high point, could not be obtained, unless brought down by themselves with the sling. Hence a force of Baleares formed an adjunct to every Roman legion. Their missiles, consisting both of stones and leaden plummets, were discharged by a triple whirl of the sling; with a force so powerful that headpiece, breastplate, and buckler afforded little protection; with a motion so swift that the leaden plummet, glowing in the air, sometimes melted; with an aim so true that the slinger could not only hit the face of a distant enemy, but could even hit whatever part of the face he chose. Not infrequently the missile bore some insulting inscription; and Simon, picking up a stone that had very nearly brained him, found it marked with the message: “ΔΕΞΑΙ--Take this!”