Now, everywhere above such portions of the
beleaguered city as remained standing, shot up tall spires and wreaths
of flame. Titus had forced the walls, and thousands upon thousands of
Jews were perishing beneath the swords of his soldiers, or in the fires
of their burning homes. Still, some ninety thousand were left alive,
to be driven like cattle into the Court of Women. Here more than ten
thousand died of starvation, while some were set aside to grace the
Triumph, some to be slaughtered in the amphitheatres at Caesarea and
Berytus, but the most were transported to Egypt, there, until they died,
to labour in the desert mines. Thus was the last desolation accomplished
and the prophecy fulfilled: "And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt
again with ships . . . and there ye shall sell yourselves unto your
enemies for bondmen and for bondwomen, and no man shall buy you." Thus
did "Ephraim return to Egypt," whence he came forth to sojourn in the
Promised Land until the cup of his sin was full. Now once more that land
was a desert without inhabitants; all its pleasant places were waste;
all its fenced cities destroyed, and over their ruins and the bones of
their children flew Caesar's eagles. The war was ended, there was peace
in Judaea.
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