To the mind of the pagan Rufus the matter was one of little moment, but to Crispus, with his Christian way of thinking, this cessation of a sacrifice that had taken place twice a day for a space of thirteen hundred years was full of a profound significance; he knew that to the pious Hebrew, if not to the fighting Zealot, it must appear an event as grave almost as a stoppage in the progress of the universe, for had not the scribes said, “The world was made for the sake of the temple,” and what was the temple without its sacrifices? Titus, made aware of the event, sought to conciliate the religious sentiment of the foe by a very remarkable offer. Josephus, covered by the shield of a legionary, walked along the causeway; and, halting in the middle, lifted up his voice, and addressed the Jewish people in the Hebrew tongue. “Simon Bar-gioras and John of Giscala, hear now the words of Titus Cæsar. He hath a reverence for your temple, and would fain save it from the destruction which ye, by converting it into a citadel, are bringing upon it. If ye will remove your men of war, he will meet you in battle at Mount Zion or in whatever place you choose; he, too, will withdraw his arms from the temple, leaving it sacred and inviolate. And as a token of his good will towards you, he offers you this day a gift of threescore rams that ye may continue the daily sacrifice as heretofore.” “Ha! mark you that?” said Rufus to Crispus. “There speaks not Titus but Berenice.” There were among the Jewish people thousands that would gladly have seen the war removed from the temple and its precincts, but they were overawed by the Zealots, who, by the mouth of Simon, thus made answer: “Titus, knowing that he cannot take the temple by force of arms, whereof the fight of this morning is a witness, speaks thus, hoping to lure us from our stronghold, that he may the more easily enter it. But in vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. His threescore rams we will not take, for never shall it be said that the sacrifices to the Eternal One have become dependent upon the polluted offerings of an uncircumcized heathen. And to him and to the whole Roman empire do we offer an everlasting defiance. Now, renegade, carry back in thy detestable Greek or Latin the answer of Simon Bar-gioras.” This haughty reply, and especially its boastful note as to the fight on the causeway, so provoked Titus that he determined to make a second attempt that very night. As the whole army were unable to join in the assault owing to the narrowness of the approach, there were picked out from each century the thirty bravest and strongest men; tribunes were appointed over each thousand, and one Cerealis, an officer of rare valor, was chosen to command the whole. In the great hall of Antonia the storming party consecrated themselves, as it were, to the work by offering, under the presidency of Theomantes, a solemn sacrifice to Mars.