should rob them of them, and made their way to the Roman ranks. Titus received them with kindness, and permitted them to go whither they wished. As these continued to escape daily, some of the Roman soldiers learned the secret of the concealed gold, and a report prevailed in the camp that the bodies of these fugitives were filled with treasures. They seized some of them, ripped them open, and searched among their entrails for the means of satisfying their abominable cupidity. Two thousand of these miserable wretches perished in this manner. Titus conceived such a horror at this, that he would have punished the perpetrators with death, if their numbers had not exceeded those of their victims. He continued to press the siege closely: after having caused fresh terraces to be erected, to replace those the enemy had destroyed, he held a council with his principal officers: most of them proposed to give a general assault; but Titus, who was not less sparing of the blood of his soldiers than he was prodigal of his own, was of a contrary opinion. The besieged, he said, were destroying one another; what occasion could there be to expose so many brave warriors to the fury of these desperate ruffians? He formed the project of surrounding the place with a wall, which would not allow the Jews to make any more sorties. The work was distributed among all the legions, and was completed in three days. It was then that the miserable factions began for the first time to despair of their safety. If the troubles without the walls were great, those which consumed the unhappy city were still more terrible. Who can paint, exclaims Josephus, the fearful effects of the famine which devoured these unfortunates? It increased every day; and the fury of the seditious, more redoubtable than this scourge itself, increased with it. They held no property sacred; everything was torn from the unhappy citizens. A closed door denoted provisions within: they forced it open, and snatched the morsels from the mouths about to swallow them, with brutal violence. They struck down old men; they dragged women by the hair, without regard to either age, sex, or beauty; they spared not lisping innocence. Such as still had any portion of food, shut themselves up in the most secret places of their dwellings, swallowed the grain without crushing it, or glutted themselves with raw flesh, for fear the odour of cooking it should attract the inhuman inquisitors. Fleshless men, or rather phantoms, with dried-up visages and hollow eyes, dragged themselves along to corners, where famine speedily relieved them by death. So great was the number of the dead, that the living had neither strength nor courage to bury them! There were no more tears--the general calamities had dried up the source of them! No more sighs were heard; hunger had stifled all the feelings of the soul! A famished multitude ran hither and thither, and seized eagerly upon that which would have been rejected by the most unclean animals.