away

and while the fucking children were wasting in their arms, they fcrupled not to take from them the drops which fupported their lives."

As the famine increased, the audacity of the feditious, though they themselves were not in want, increafed likewife. They burst into houses in fearch of provifions; and where any thing was found, the family were beaten, as if they had denied it; if nothing was discovered, they were handled more cruelly for the fuppofed concealment. The

moft horrid and atrocious tortures were inflicted, to extort the confeffion of one loaf of bread, or a handful of meal. They neither fpared fex, nor reverenced age, nor commiferated childhood; but dashed the infants against the stones. Under cover of the night fome of the befieged ventured over the walls, towards the Roman camp, to gather wild herbs; and on their return, when they thought they had escaped the hands of the enemy, they were met by the feditious, and robbed of all their miserable booty. In vain did they intreat, even by the awful name of

1 Bp. Newcome on our Lord's Condu&t, &c. p. 223. Of this Writer's elegant tranflation of the paffages which he quotes from Jofephus I have in fome other inftances on revising the lectures availed myself. For the felection and arrangement of particulars I am answerable.

Jehovah,

Jehovah, that they might be permitted to have part of what they had brought at the hazard of their life. It was a favour, if those who had plundered, did not murder them.

To these proceedings the tyrants gave fanction by their own example; and while their men spoiled the lower ranks, they themselves oppreffed the rich and the noble. Those ftript by Simon were fent to John; and those whom John had fleeced, Simon received. Thus they drank, as it were, to each other the blood of the people; and contending for fuperiority, were confederate in crimes.

When by the building of the wall before mentioned all egrefs was cut off, the famine gathered ftrength, and devoured whole families'. The houses were filled with corpfes of women and children; and the men of gray hairs lay in the streets. The young men, like spectres', wandered about in the public places, and fell where death overtook

I B. J. L. V. c. xii. §. 3, 4.

ώσπες ειδωλα. Eufebius has the fame allufion in defcribing the effects of a fevere famine and peftilence in the time of the emperor Maximin: worse adwλx ringos âde ngineros ↓uxogga7897ES. H. E. L.İX. c. viii.

them. The fick were unable to bury their friends, and the healthy were deterred by the number of the dead, and fear for themfelves. Many expired upon those whom they were interring; and many went voluntarily to die in the tomb.

In these calamities there was neither complaint nor lamentation heard; but the living beheld, with tearless eyes and a ghaftly fmile, those who found refuge in death before them. Silence reigned in the city by day, and death and terror alarmed the night.

The robbers however were the heaviest plague. They rifled the dead with unfeeling laughter; and in horrid sport tried the edge of their weapons both upon the deceased and those who were yet alive. But thofe who prayed to receive at their hands the fatal ftroke, they scornfully left to pine away with hunger. In their last moments, seeing the feditious ftill in health, they fixed their eyes on the temple and expired.

At first, to remove the intolerable ftench, the dead were interred at the public expence. When this could no longer be done, an easier mode of getting rid of them was devised;

and

and in less than three months from the beginning of the fiege, above a hundred thoufand were thrown over the walls. The compaffionate Roman fighed at the spectacle, and with uplifted hands called GOD to witnefs, that the deed was none of his.

Unutterable fufferings ftill enfued". The befieged were compelled to eat their belts, their shoes, and the fkins of their shields. Withered grafs was even fold; and things which before offended the fight, were now carefully fought for, and greedily devoured *.

Nay, fays the hiftorian, I must record a fact, fuch as Greeks or barbarians never heard of. There was a woman, named Mary, of honourable birth, whom the robbers had daily plundered and haraffed; but would neither in refentment of her provocations, nor compaffion for her fufferings, when they deprived her of fubfiftence, deprive her of life. Hunger at last piercing her bones, in rage and despair fhe feifed her fon, an infant

B. J. L. V. c. xiii. §. 7. From the 14th of April to the ft of July. There were caft out in the whole fix hundred thoufand.

"Ibid. L. VI. c. iii. §. 3-5

× Ibid. L. V. c. xiii. §. 7.

at

at the breast, and "For what," he cried, " in the midst of war, and famine, and fedition, should I preferve thee, my unhappy babe? With the Romans if there be fafety, there is also fervitude. This fervitude the famine anticipates, and the feditious are fiercer than either. Come then, be thou food to me, a Fury to the feditious, and a tale in life, what alone is wanting to complete the fum of Jewish calamities."

With these words, fhe flew her fon, and having prepared him for food, fhe devoured half, and carefully laid up the remainder. The horrid repaft was scarcely ended, when the vultures of fedition, lured by the fmell, came and threatened death, if the concealed what he had provided. But of menaces there was no need; the produced what was left, boasting she had referved it as an honourable portion for Them. The feditious, till now unacquainted with horror, were here alone feised with trembling and astonishment. But the mother exclaimed, "The child is my own, and the deed is mine. Eat, for I have eaten. Be not Ye more tender than a woman, more compaflionate than a mother. But if ye reject the victim, I who have eaten half, will eat the remainder.”

This