King Agrippa’s cavalry did excellent service at the first. Sallying forth at unexpected times they scattered the mob with their furious charges, and, sweeping the streets clear of the besiegers, they rode triumphantly round and round the palace. But Simon soon found a remedy for these tactics by sprinkling the ground with steel calthrops that lamed the horses and brought down the riders. After this the cavalry refused to make any more sallies. Simon marked their flagging zeal, and was quick to turn it to his own advantage. By the mouth of a herald he proclaimed that the Jewish defenders of the Prætorium should have full liberty to march out of the city with their arms and effects; some few, however, were to be exempted from this privilege, Ananias being one of the number. To his eternal disgrace, Darius, master of Agrippa’s horse, accepted these terms; Metilius, owing to the paucity of his own band, was unable to prevent this defection, and accordingly, on the twenty-first morning of the siege, the Jewish contingent began to file through the front gate of the Prætorium, amid the jeers and curses of those whom they were leaving to their fate. Death had reduced the number of the Romans to two hundred and fifty; and, as it was impossible with so small a force to defend the whole circuit of the Prætorium, Metilius seized the opportunity while the eyes of the Zealots were fastened upon the outgoing Jewish troops to withdraw quietly and quickly to the three great towers of Mariamne, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, erected by Herod the Great, and respectively dedicated to the memory of his wife, his brother, and his friend--towers situated upon the city-wall, which, at this point, formed in itself the northern and western sides of the Prætorium. In the matter of military architecture, antiquity had nothing to show more marvelous than these three towers. Each stood upon a base of stone without any chamber or vacuity in it, the base of Mariamne forming a solid cube of thirty feet, that of Phasaelus forty, and that of Hippicus sixty. The battering-ram was powerless against these enormous blocks, compacted with unequaled perfection, and bound together by iron cramps. The Zealots, quickly discovering that the Prætorium had been abandoned by its defenders, entered, and a wild scene ensued. Never remarkable for discipline or for subserviency to their chiefs, they wrangled fiercely over the spoil, even to the extent of drawing swords upon each other. Upon one point, however, all were agreed--namely, that the beautiful sculptures adorning this old Herodian palace were a violation of the Second Commandment, and an insult to the Jewish religion. “Idols!” they screamed. Making no distinction between the statues of mortals and those of gods, they called for hammer and mallet, and broke all alike to pieces. “Vashti’s image among the rest, I suppose,” muttered Crispus, as he watched the work of destruction. “I would have given much to preserve it.”