The enemy in the mean time pushed on the siege most warmly: the rams never ceased to batter the walls; and vast wooden towers were erected, from the summits of which enormous stones were launched upon the heads of those whom famine and pestilence had spared. But even in this extremity the Jews persisted in their defence; Zedekiah concealing his alarm under a firm countenance, reassuring them by his words, and animating them by his example. The more impetuous the enemy, the more furious became the citizens. They opposed force by force, and art quickly destroyed whatever art devised. Eighteen months passed in this way, without any attention being paid to the voice of Jeremiah, who continued to press the inhabitants to throw open their gates, and by concession disarm the wrath of a power that must in the end overcome them. At length the enemy effected a great breach, and it became necessary to yield. Zedekiah marched out at a secret gate at the head of the soldiery, but he was overtaken, loaded with chains, and led away into captivity, after witnessing the massacre of his children, and after being deprived of the light of day, which had too long shone upon his sacrileges. The conqueror made his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem; he bore away all the riches of the temple, immolated the greater part of the inhabitants, and led the rest into slavery, after reducing the temple and the principal quarters of the city to ashes. Such was the first destruction of Jerusalem, richly merited by the impiety and vices of its inhabitants, 1,468 years after its foundation by Melchisedech, and nearly five hundred years after David wrested it from the power of the Jebusites. Many years after, Zerubbabel rebuilt it by permission of Cyrus, king of Persia; Nehemiah reinstated the fortifications. It submitted to Alexander the Great; and after death had carried off that conqueror, withstood several sieges for a time; but these were of trifling importance, though they generally terminated in the plunder of the Temple. This was the state of the Holy City up to the time of the great Pompey. FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 63.