Page:Jerusalem's captivities lamented, or, A plain description of Jerusalem from Joshua's time to the year 1517, both from Scripture and ancient history.pdf/14

14 city, and pitched his camp upon the river Poleponina, raiſed a mount, and with a battering ram broke into the city, May 7th, and afterwards he raiſed four other mounts, and made himſelf maſter of the ſecond wall, and built twelve caſtles thereon, ſo that none could paſs in or ont, whereby the famine and peſtilence raged within, and the ſword without the city ſo that multitudes periſhed; for, from April the 14th, to July following, there were buried, by the common charge of the city, ſix hundred thouſand carcaſes, and multitudes thrown into empty houſes, and over the walls, which filled the houſes with dead bodies.

Titus intended to ſave the Temple from fire, when ſome of the city was in flames, by ſetting a guard on it, but the ſeditious who raiſed the fire, ſlew every man of the guard which Titus hearing, brought his whole army thither. At that time a ſoldier of the ſeditious took a flaming fire-brand, and caſt it through the golden window into the Temple, and others ſet fire to the doors, and after the gold grew hot, the Temple began to burn, and immediately the whole fabric was in a flame, and the HOLY of HOLIES was laid open to the view of all there preſent.

This happened in the ſecond year of the reign of Veſpaſian, and the ſame month that it was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar. Titus