Herod the Great had been declared king of the Jews by the Romans; but Jerusalem refused to acknowledge him. This prince, aided by Sosius, whom Antony had sent to him with several legions, marched against that city, at the head of a numerous army. He laid siege to it, raised three platforms, which dominated over the towers, poured from their summits a continuous shower of darts, arrows, and stones upon the besieged, and unceasingly battered the ramparts with rams and other machines he had brought with him from Tyre. But the Jews, still intrepid, despised death, and only sought to inflict it upon their assailants. If a wall was destroyed, another arose as if by magic. If a ditch was dug, it was rendered useless by a countermine, and they constantly appeared in the midst of the besiegers when least expected. Thus, without being depressed, either by frequent assaults or by the famine which now made itself cruelly felt, they resisted during five months the united efforts of the Romans and the Jewish partisans of Aristobulus. At length, both the city and the Temple were carried by assault. Then death assumed one of his most awful characters. The Romans bathed themselves in the blood of an obstinate enemy; and the Jews of the king’s party, rejecting every feeling of humanity, immolated to their fury every one of their own nation whom they met in the streets and houses, or even found in the temple. Herod, however, by means of prayers, promises, and menaces, at length obtained a cessation of this horrible butchery, and to prevent the pillaging of the city and the Temple, he generously offered to purchase them of the Romans with his own wealth. This capture of Jerusalem occurred thirty-seven years before Christ, on the very day on which Pompey had carried it by assault twenty-seven years before. SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 66. Towards the end of the reign of Nero, in the sixty-sixth year of the Christian era, under the pontificate of Mathias, the son of Theophilus, began the famous war of the Jews against the Romans. The tyranny, the vexations, the sacrileges of the governors were the causes of it. Tired of groaning so long under a foreign yoke, the Jewish nation believed they had no resource left but in despair. Fortune at first appeared favourable to them; the Romans were beaten several times: but Vespasian, whom the Roman emperor had charged with this war, was soon able, by the exercise of skill, prudence, and valour, to attract fortune to his standards, and to keep her there. After having subdued the whole of Palestine, he was preparing to commence the blockade of Jerusalem, when his army recompensed his virtues with the empire. The new emperor assigned to his son Titus the commission of subduing the rebels and laying siege to the capital.