space that lay between Scopus and the northern wall was levelled, to admit a nearer encampment. This part was occupied by delightful gardens, whither the inhabitants had been wont to resort in the evenings of happier days to inhale the balmy air, to smell the perfume of fragrant flowers, to sit under the vine

and the fig-tree, and to pluck the delicious fruit. These paradises were now in the flush of vernal loveliness; the spring rains had covered the shrubs with foliage, and the parterres were gay with a profusion of brilliant flowers; the shrubs and trees were, some of them, loaded with grateful fruit, and others covered with blossoms. All this beauty was ruthlessly

destroyed by the iron hand of the spoiler; the hedges and walls were thrown down, the trees of beauty and fruitfulness rooted up, the trenches filled, and the very surface of the rock broken up and levelled with crows and axes of iron. Four days were occupied in this work; and then the ground, where nature had smiled in her sweetest beauty, bristled with the grim array of war. For the army was now brought

up

NORTH WALL.

before the northern and western wall, seven deep, with the footmen placed in front and the horsemen behind them, in their ranks, while the archers stood in the midst in seven ranks. The encampment reached as far as the tower Hippicus on the west, and Titus seems to have occupied a central position, pitching his tent opposite the tower Psephinus, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from it.

Having made a circuit of the city, that he might personally survey the walls, Titus set fire to the suburbs, and began to build an embankment for the use of his engines of war, so ordering his slingers and archers, that the builders might be protected against the impetuous sallies of the Jews. But the latter did not despair. Simon bravely manned the wall, and placed on it the military engines which had been captured from Cestius: but these could effect little in opposition to those of superior power, which were the pride of the besieging army.

"The method pursued by Titus against Jerusalem was the very same that was used by the Romans and other cultivated nations in all similar cases. It consisted in forming a bank (such as a railway exemplifies), approaching the wall by degrees as it tended to completion; and of such a height that, when finished, the besiegers might stand nearly on a level with the besieged. The materials of which the bank was formed varied according to convenience; earth was somewhat scanty in the rocky neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and timber was made available for the purpose. The workmen, that is the soldiery, employed in the construction of this embankment, would necessarily be much exposed to missiles from the besieged; and, for their protection, screens of every kind, penthouses, and hurdles were carried forward, preserved from the enemy's application of fire by coatings of iron, hides, or anything else that seemed best. For the same purpose of defending the workmen, the arts of the engineers were taxed to the utmost in the construction of machines, which should

prevent the besieged from manning the walls at all. Towers in several stories, of an amazing height, were rolled on wheels towards the point of conflict, and in these were stationed companies of bowmen, slingers, and javelineers, assisted, perhaps, by small catapults, and the energies of all were directed to prevent a single hostile hand being raised against the banksmen or others. Machines for casting missiles with the greatest force were invented in vast

variety. In the principle of their construction they were of two kinds, catapults and ballistas. Catapults were enormous crossbows for the discharge of arrows; and from them the arrow parted with a flight so rapid as to fetch sparks of fire from the groove by which it was directed. The ballista was essentially composed of a spring of tough wood, which was drawn by main force (or a screw, &c.), to a horizontal position, and, when thus at full stretch, was

suddenly liberated by the blow of a hammer, so that, being checked when vertical, it hurled the stones with which it was charged, not without considerable effect. Josephus, in the siege of Jotapata, saw a stone ball thus propelled strike off the head of a man by his side to the distance of three stadia (six hundred yards) like a bullet from a sling. In the fields about Ptolemais,' says Mr. Maundrell, we saw scattered up and down several large balls of stone, of at least thirteen or fourteen inches diameter.'

At Beer, on the Euphrates, he saw others

of twenty inches diameter. When by the superiority of the besieging army the mound had been driven up to the face of the wall, then the batteringram was brought into play. It shook the walls with the efficiency of cannon; and we shall see that the heavy fortifications of Jerusalem were unequal to resist it. Against these arts of the besiegers, the business of the besieged was to lay hold, one way or other, of the towers, penthouses, and machines with fire; by covering them with pitch, by throwing