Chapter 9, Titus, when the Jews were not all mollified by his leaving off the siege for a while,

set himself again to prosecute the same, but soon sent Josephus to discourse with his own countrymen about peace.

A resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little while, and to afford the

seditious an interval for consideration, and to see whether the demolishing of their second

wall would not make them a little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid

of a famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be sufficient for them

long. So we made use of this relaxation in order

to compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when he must distribute

subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he gave orders that the commander should put

the army into battle array in the face of the enemy, and then give every one of the soldiers

their pay. So the soldiers, according

to custom, opened the cases wherein their arms lay before covered, and marched with their

breastplates on, as did the horsemen lead their horses in their fine trappings. Then did the places

that were before the city shined very splendidly for a great way, nor was there anything so

grateful to Titus's own men, or so terrible

to the enemy as that sight. For the whole old wall, and the north side of the temple,

were full of spectators, and one might see the houses full of such as looked at them,

nor was there any part of the city which was not covered over with their multitudes. Nay, a very great consternation seized upon the heartiest of the Jews themselves,

when they saw all the army in the same place,

together with the fineness of their arms and the good order of their men.

And I cannot but think that the seditious would have changed their minds at that sight,

unless the crimes they had committed against the people had been so horrid that they

...