Destruction of Jerusalem
29
of battle, and to the insatiable hope of plunder. The soldiers saw
everything around them radiant with gold, which shone dazzlingly in
the wild light of the flames; they supposed that incalculable treasures
were laid up in the sanctuary. A soldier, unperceived, thrust a lighted
torch between the hinges of the door; the whole building was in flames
in an instant. The blinding smoke and fire forced the officers to retreat,
and the noble edifice was left to its fate.
“It was an appalling spectacle to the Roman; what was it to the Jew?
The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city blazed like
a volcano. One after another the buildings fell in, with a tremendous
crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of cedar
were like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone like spikes of
[35]
red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke.
The neighboring hills were lighted up; and dark groups of people were
seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the destruction; the
walls and heights of the upper city were crowded with faces, some pale
with the agony of despair, others scowling unavailing vengeance. The
shouts of the Roman soldiery as they ran to the fro, and the howlings
of the insurgents who were perishing in the flames, mingled with
the roaring of the conflagration and the thundering sound of falling
timbers. The echoes of the mountains replied or brought back the
shrieks of the people on the heights; all along the walls resounded
screams and wailings; men who were expiring with famine rallied
their remaining strength to utter a cry of anguish and desolation.
“The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle
from without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests,
those who fought and those who entreated mercy, were hewn down in
indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that of the
slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on
the work of extermination.”
After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon fell into
the hands of the Romans. The leaders of the Jews forsook their im-
pregnable towers, and Titus found them solitary. He gazed upon them
with amazement, and declared that God had given them into his hands;
for no engines, however powerful, could have prevailed against those
stupendous battlements. Both the city and the temple were razed to
their foundations, and the ground upon which the holy house had
stood was “plowed like a field.” [
Jeremiah 26:18
.] In the siege and the