For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.—Zechariah xiv. 2.

Imperial Rome, to whom the world once bowed, and whose power could command armies from "all nations," had conquered Judea, and received from her the yearly tribute of her subjection:[138] but, through the oppression of the Roman governors, and the madness of the people, the standard of revolt was planted, and the Jews attempted to break their yoke of bondage. The Roman legions, inured to war, and accustomed to the shout of victory, hastened to subdue the rebellious Israelites: they passed from city to city, and from province to province; slaughter and death marked their course; the strife was desperate; the conflict bloody; the Jews fought like men determined to conquer or to die: two hundred and forty-seven thousand seven hundred were slain before their provinces were subjugated, and an immense number made prisoners: amongst whom was Josephus, the historian of the war, who was governor of the two Galilees, and who defended them with skill and bravery. The Romans, having conquered the provinces, approached to assault Jerusalem, which was then a dreadful scene. The sound of war was heard through all her gates; regardless of the approaching foe, the Jews had turned their arms against each other; three several factions were busily engaged in the work of slaughter and destruction. Eleazar and the Zealots seized the temple; John of Gischala and his followers occupied its out-works; and Simon, the son of Gorias, possessed the whole of the lower, and a great part of the upper, town. Jerusalem was built on two hills; the highest, on which stood the temple, was called the upper town, and the other the lower: between these lay a valley covered with houses; the suburbs of the city were extensive, and encircled by a wall; two other walls also surrounded Jerusalem, the interior one of remarkable strength. Neither of the three factious parties had any just claim to supremacy or power, though all contended for dominion, and fought for plunder. The Zealots were the smallest party, but, from their situation, possessed the advantage: they sallied from their strong holds to attack John, who seized every opportunity of assaulting Simon; thus John maintained a double war, and was often obliged to divide his forces, being attacked by Eleazar and Simon at the same time. In these furious contests, no age or sex was spared; the slaughter was dreadful. When either party was repelled, the other set fire to the building, without any distinction. Regardless of their contents, they consumed granaries and store-houses, which contained a stock of corn and other necessaries of life, sufficient to maintain the inhabitants during a siege of many years; but nearly the whole was burnt, and this circumstance made way for a calamity more horrid than even war itself. Famine soon showed her meagre form, and all classes felt the dreadful effects of a scarcity of food. Such was the miserable state of Jerusalem when the Roman general Titus (son of the reigning emperor, Vespasian,) prepared to attack the city. The sight of a powerful foreign foe at their gates, with all the artillery of war, could not quell the factions within; it is true, when closely pressed by the Romans, the three parties joined to repel the common enemy, but no sooner had they breathing time, than the spirit of contention arose, and they resumed the slaughter of each other: thus they maintained a fierce contest with the besiegers, and, at the same time, seized every opportunity of destroying each other. The misery of the city was soon beyond precedent, from the dreadful effects of famine, the price of provisions became exorbitant, and, when no longer offered for sale, the houses were entered and searched, and the wretched owners tortured till they confessed where the slender pittance was concealed; at length the distress became so great, that persons parted with the whole of their property to obtain a bushel of wheat, which they eat before it could be baked, or even ground; and happy was he who could catch a morsel of meat, half roasted, half raw, from the fire. No kind of cruelty was omitted in search of food: at length their sufferings were so severe, that the wretched inhabitants were necessitated to search the vaults and sinks for sustenance, and even fed on articles too offensive to be named. The ties of nature and humanity were forgotten, the wife seized the food from her husband, the child from the parent, and even the mother from her infant.[139] The excruciating pain of famine so far overpowered the tenderest and finest affections in nature, that a woman, descended from a rich and respectable family, even killed, boiled, and ate, her own child, a son in all the artless and endearing simplicity of infancy! Well may the British mother tremble at the horrid sound, and pity the wretched Israelitish female, thus sunk below the brute. Pestilence now stalked abroad, for the air was tainted by the dead: though no less than six hundred thousand dead bodies were carried out of the city during the time Titus encamped before the walls, yet there was an incredible number who had no friends to bury them, and their bodies were enclosed in large buildings, or laid in heaps in the open air. "O Jerusalem, thou didst drink at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury, thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out" even desolation, destruction, famine and sword, "thy houses rifled, thy women ravished" by Jewish ruffians, and the city at length taken by the Roman general. Titus had again and again offered the Jews honourable terms of capitulation; but they rejected all his overtures with proud disdain, and when his soldiers took the city, exasperated at the hardships they had endured, they spared neither sex, age, or rank. Sword and fire destroyed Jerusalem and her children, and closed this horrid war, in which one million one hundred thousand Jews were slain, and ninety-seven thousand made prisoners.