The City of Delight

Within the Roman lines was a bent and deformed figure of an old waif

that the soldiers had picked up attempting to run the lines into

Jerusalem the second day after the siege had been laid about the Holy

City.

The old man, though wrinkled and twisted and bowed, had fought with

such terrible savagery and had incontinently laid in the dust in

succession three of the camp's best fighting-men, that the Roman

soldiers, for ever partizan to the strong man, had finally with great

difficulty succeeded in trussing the old belligerent and had brought

him before Titus.

There they laid the twisted old burden before the young general and

shamelessly told how he, thrice the age of the vanquished men, had

finished them with despatch.

It was evident that the old man was a Jew; it became also apparent

that he was dumb and partly deaf, and further to their amazement and

admiration, they discovered that his right leg and arm were too stiff

for ordinary use and that he had done his wonderful execution with

terrific left limbs.

This saved his life and gave him a partial liberty. Titus, however,

admitted to Carus that the old man's distress at being kept out of

Jerusalem was pitiable enough to urge the young general to deport him

and get him out of sight.

For it was manifest that the old minotaur was in deep trouble. But his

paralyzed tongue would not serve him, and his menial ignorance had not

provided him with the means of telling his desire by writing. Titus

was unable to understand from his signs anything further than that he

wished to get into the city. The young general in one of his outbursts

of generosity would have permitted this, but that Nicanor happened in

at an evil moment and drew such pictures of calamitous effect in

passing the old servant into Jerusalem that Titus was forced

reluctantly and irritably to be convinced of the folly of his

kindness. So here, through the terrible days of the siege, old Momus

at times desperate and savage, at others piteously suppliant, wore on

the sentries' peace of mind and stood like a shadow, for ever watching

the white walls of the besieged city.

The Romans were now within the city. Only Zion and the Temple held

against them. A wall built with the thoroughness of David, the

ancient, and solidified by the mortising of Time, ran directly from

Hippicus to the Tyropean Valley, joining the tremendous fortifications

of Moriah and so cut off Zion from the advance of the army. Securely

intrenched within that quarter and the Temple, Simon and John began

the last resistance which should tax Roman endurance and Roman

patience as it had not been taxed before.

Titus no longer lagged. Famine had long since become a powerful ally

and the honor of the Flavian house rested upon his immediate

subjugation of the rebellious city. He no longer expected

capitulation; yet he did not neglect to be prepared for it and to

encourage it. Though the heart of the historian Josephus broke, he did

not fail to serve his patron as mediator, though without hope. Titus

himself, as from time to time the horror of his work impressed itself

upon him, made overtures to the factionists, neglecting no art or

inducement which should convince the seditious that their resistance

was foolhardy, even mad. At such times, Nicanor's face became

contemptuous and Carus himself frowned at the young general's

attitude. But the spirit of a Roman and the traditions of a soldier

even could not prevent the young man from weakening at times before

the charnel pit in Tophet where countless thousands of vultures

fattened with roaring of wings and hissing of combat.