The great bulk of the inhabitants awaited the approach of the Romans with uneasiness and alarm. The city was densely crowded, multitudes having come in from the country to celebrate the Passover. Josephus’s numbers are doubtless an exaggeration.[23] But, on the other hand, there has been a tendency among modern writers to err in the opposite direction. It may safely be affirmed that the total of inhabitants, when the Roman standards came in sight, could not have been less than a million, and probably exceeded that amount. There was much, independently of the terror of the Roman name, to awaken their apprehensions. There had been signs in heaven and on earth of approaching disaster. A fiery sword is said to have hung over Jerusalem, day and night, for many months. The whole sky on one occasion was full of what seemed to be chariots and horses of fire, environing Jerusalem. It was whispered that the great gate of the Temple had opened of itself at midnight, and a voice had been heard to exclaim, ‘Let us depart hence.’ A simple herdsman, Jesus, the son of Hanani, was suddenly seized with the spirit of prophecy, and for several years went up and down the city exclaiming, ‘Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!’ He was carried before the Roman governor, and scourged till his bones were laid bare. But he never desisted from his mournful chaunt, until one day during the siege he was struck by a stone from a catapult, and slain. But nothing daunted the determined spirits of the garrison. At the very outset of the siege, Titus had a signal proof of the character of the enemies with whom he had to deal. He had approached the city for the purpose of surveying it, accompanied by 600 horsemen, never dreaming that they would be rash enough to assail him, and rather anticipating that his presence would strike terror into them, and induce them to capitulate. But the moment he approached the walls the Jews sallied out, surrounding his troop, and cutting him off from his supports; and it was only by the most desperate exercise of personal valour that he escaped being slain. On the following day they twice attacked the tenth legion, while engaged in fortifying the camp, and threw it into confusion; and it was Titus’s promptitude alone which averted a great disaster. Soon afterwards they contrived to allure a body of Roman soldiers under the walls, by a pretended offer of surrender, and almost entirely cut it off. It became at once evident that if these men were to be conquered, or even kept in check, the utmost vigilance and promptitude would be required.