So now the last hope which supported the tyrants and that crew of robbers who were with them was in the caves and caverns underground; whither, if they could once fly, they did not expect to be searched for; but endeavored that, after the whole city should be destroyed and the Romans gone away, they might come out again and escape from them. This was no better than a dream of theirs, for they were not able to lie hid either from God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these underground subterfuges, and set more places on fire than did the Romans themselves; and those that fled out of their houses thus set on fire into the ditches they killed without mercy, and pillaged them also; and if they discovered food belonging to anyone they seized upon it and swallowed it down, together with their blood also--nay, they were now come to fight one with another about their plunder; and I cannot but think that, had not their destruction prevented it, their barbarity would have made them taste of even the dead bodies themselves. Now when Cæsar perceived that the upper city was so steep that it could not possibly be taken without raising banks against it, he distributed the several parts of that work among his army, and this on the twentieth day of the month Lous [Ab]. It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans got together privately and took counsel about surrendering up themselves to the Romans. Accordingly, they sent five men to Titus and entreated him to give them his right hand for their security. So Titus, thinking that the tyrants would yield, if the Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the war depended, were once withdrawn from them, after some reluctancy and delay complied with them, and gave them security for their lives, and sent the five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon perceived it, and immediately slew the five men that had gone to Titus, and took their commanders and put them in prison, of whom the most eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas; but as for the multitude of the Idumeans, who did not at all know what to do, now their commanders were taken from them, he had them watched, and secured the walls by a more numerous garrison. Yet could not that garrison resist those that were deserting, for although a great number of them were slain, yet were the deserters many more in number. These were all received by the Romans, because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing them, and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and because they hoped to get some money by sparing them, for they left only the populace, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, and every one of them at a very low price, and that because such as were sold were very many, and the buyers were few; and although Titus had made proclamation beforehand that no deserter should come alone by himself, that so they might bring out their families with them,