CHAPTER II

THE LION OF JUDAH

Eleazar had resolved to obtain supreme command. In a crisis like the present, no divided authority could be expected to offer a successful resistance. John of Gischala must be ruined by any means and at any sacrifice. His unscrupulous rival, regardless of honour, truth, every consideration but the rescue of his country, laid his plans accordingly. With a plausible pretence of being reconciled, and thus amalgamating two formidable armies for the common good, he proposed to hold a conference with John in the Outer Court of the Temple, where, in presence of the elders and chief men of the city, they should arrange their past differences and enter into a compact of alliance for the future. The Great Council of the nation, ostensibly the rulers of public affairs, and influenced alternately by the two antagonists, were to be present. Eleazar thought it would go hard, but that, with his own persuasive powers and public services, he should gain some signal advantage over his adversary ere they separated.

He appeared, accordingly, at the place of conference, splendidly armed indeed in his own person, but accompanied by a small retinue of adherents all attired in long peaceful robes, as though inviting the confidence of his enemy. Observant eyes, it is true, and attentive ears, caught the occasional clank and glitter of steel under these innocent linen mantles, and the friends, if few in number, were of tried valour and fidelity, while a mob of warlike men outside, who had gathered ostensibly to look idly on, belonged obviously to the party of the Zealots. Nevertheless, Eleazar had so contrived matters that, while he guarded against surprise, he should appear before the Council as a suppliant imploring justice rather than a leader dictating terms. He took up his position, accordingly, at the lower end of the court, and after a deep obeisance to the assembled elders, stood, as it were, in the background, assuming an air of humility somewhat at variance with his noble and warlike exterior.

His rival, on the contrary, whose followers completely blocked up the entrance from the Temple, through which he had thought it becoming to arrive, strode into the midst with a proud and insolent bearing, scarcely deigning to acknowledge the salutations he received, and glancing from time to time back amongst his adherents, with scornful smiles, that seemed to express a fierce contempt for the whole proceeding. He was a man who, though scarcely past his youth, wore in his face the traces of his vicious and disorderly career. His features were flushed and swollen with intemperance; and the deep lines about his mouth, only half concealed by the long moustache and beard, denoted the existence of violent passions, indulged habitually to excess. His large stature and powerful frame set off the magnificence of his dress and armour, nor was his eye without a flash of daring and defiance that boded evil to an enemy; but his bearing, bold as it was, smacked rather of the outlaw than the soldier, and his rude, abrupt gestures contrasted disadvantageously with the cool self‐ possession of his rival. The latter, asking permission, as it were, of the Senate by another respectful obeisance, walked frankly into the middle of the court to meet his foe. John changed colour visibly, and his hand stole to the dagger at his belt. He seemed to expect the treachery of which he felt himself capable; but Eleazar, halting a full pace off, looked him steadily in the face, and held out his right hand in token of amity and reconciliation. A murmur of approval ran through the Senate, which increased John’s uncertainty how to act; but after a moment’s hesitation, unwillingly and with a bad grace, he gave his own in return.

Eleazar’s action, though apparently so frank and spontaneous, was the result of calculation. He had now made the impression he desired on the Senate, and secured the favourable hearing which he believed was alone necessary for his triumph.

“We have been enemies,” said he, releasing the other’s hand and turning to the assembly, while his full voice rang through the whole court, and every syllable reached the listeners outside. “We have been fair and open enemies, in the belief that each was opposed to the interests of his country; but the privations we have now undergone in the same cause, the perils we have confronted side by side on the same ramparts, must have convinced us that however we may differ in our political tenets, nay, in our religious practices, we are equally sincere in a determination to shed our last drop of blood in the defence of the Holy City from the pollution of the heathen. This is no time for any consideration but one—Jerusalem is invested, the Temple is threatened, and the enemy at the gate. I give up all claim to authority, save as a leader of armed men. I yield precedence in rank, in council, in everything but danger. I devote my sword and my life to the salvation of Judæa! Who is on my side?”

Loud acclamations followed this generous avowal; and it was obvious that Eleazar’s influence was more than ever in the ascendant. It was no time for John to stem the torrent of popular feeling, and he wisely floated with the stream. Putting a strong control upon his wrath, he expressed to the Senate in a few hesitating words, his consent to act in unison with his rival, under their orders as Supreme Council of the nation; a concession which elicited groans and murmurs from his own partisans, many of whom forced their way with insolent threats and angry gestures into the court. Eleazar did not suffer the opportunity to escape without a fresh effort for the downfall of his adversary.

“There are men,” said he, pointing to the disaffected, and raising his voice in full clear tones, “who had better have swelled the ranks of the enemy than stood side by side with Judah on the ramparts of Agrippa’s wall. They may be brave in battle, but it is with a fierce undisciplined courage more dangerous to friend than foe. Their very leader, bold and skilful soldier as he is, cannot restrain such mutineers even in the august presence of the Council. Their excesses are laid to his charge; and a worthy and patriotic commander becomes the scapegoat of a few ruffians whose crimes he is powerless to prevent. John of Gischala, we have this day exchanged the right hand of fellowship. We are friends, nay, we are brothers‐in‐arms once more. I call upon thee, as a brother, to dismiss these robbers, these paid cut‐throats, whom our very enemies stigmatise as ‘Sicarii,’ and to cast in thy lot with thine own people, and with thy father’s house!”

John shot an eager glance from his rival to his followers. The latter were bending angry brows upon the speaker, and seemed sufficiently discontented with their own leader that he should listen tamely to such a proposal. Swords, too, were drawn by those in the rear, and brandished fiercely over the heads of the seething mass. For an instant the thought crossed his mind, that he had force enough to put the opposing assemblage, Senate and all, to the sword; but his quick practised glance taught him at the same time, that Eleazar’s party gathered quietly towards their chief, with a confidence unusual in men really without arms, and a methodical precision that denoted previous arrangement; also that certain signals passed from them to the crowd, and that the court was filling rapidly from the multitude without. He determined then to dissemble for a time, and turned to the Senate with a far more deferential air than he had yet assumed.

“I appeal to the elders of Judah,” said he, repressing at the same time by a gesture the turbulence of his followers—“I am content to abide by the decision of the National Council. Is to‐day a fitting season for the reduction of our armament? Shall I choose the present occasion to disband a body of disciplined soldiers, and turn a host of outraged and revengeful men loose into the city with swords in their hands? Have we not already enough idle mouths to feed, or can we spare a single javelin from the walls? My _brother_”—he laid great stress upon the word, and gripped the haft of his dagger under his mantle while he spoke it—“My brother gives strange counsel, but I am willing to believe it sincere. I too, though the words drop not like honey from my beard as from his, have a right to be heard. Did I not leave Gischala and my father’s vineyard for a prey to the enemy? Did I not fool the whole Roman army, and mock Titus to his face, that I might join in the defence of Jerusalem? and shall I be schooled like an infant, or impeached for a traitor to‐day? Judge me by the result. I was on the walls this morning; I saw not my brother there. The enemy were preparing for an assault. The engine they call Victory had been moved yet nearer by a hundred cubits. While we prate here the eagles are advancing. To the walls! To the walls, I say! Every man who calls himself a Jew; be he Priest or Levite, Pharisee or Sadducee, Zealot or Essene. Let us see whether John and his Sicarii are not as forward in the ranks of the enemy as this _brother_ of mine, Eleazar, and the bravest he can bring!”

Thus speaking, and regardless of the presence in which he stood, John drew his sword and placed himself at the head of his adherents, who with loud shouts demanded to be led instantly to the ramparts. The enthusiasm spread like wildfire, and even communicated itself to the Council. Eleazar’s own friends caught the contagion, and the whole mass poured out of the Temple, and, forming into bands in the streets, hurried tumultuously to the walls.

What John had stated to the Council was indeed true. The Romans, who had previously demolished the outer wall and a considerable portion of the suburbs, had now for the second time obtained possession of the second wall, and of the high flanking tower called Antonia, which John, to do him justice, had defended with great gallantry after he had retaken it once from the assailants. It was from this point of vantage that an attack was now organised by the flower of the Roman army, having for its object the overthrow of her last defences and complete reduction of the city. When Eleazar and his rival appeared with their respective bands they proved a welcome reinforcement to the defenders, who, despite of their stubborn resistance, were hardly pressed by the enemy.

Every able‐bodied Jew was a soldier on occasion. Troops thus composed are invariably more formidable in attack than defence. They have usually undaunted courage and a blind headlong valour that sometimes defies the calculations of military science or experience; but they are also susceptible of panic under reverses, and lack the cohesion and solidity which is only found in those who make warfare the profession of a lifetime. The Jew armed with spear and sword, uttering wild cries as he leaped to the assault, was nearly irresistible; but once repulsed, his final discomfiture was imminent. The Roman, on the contrary, never suffered himself to be drawn out of his ranks by unforeseen successes, and preserved the same methodical order in the advance as the retreat. He was not, therefore, to be lured into an ambush however well disguised; and even when outnumbered by a superior force, could retire without defeat.

The constitution of the legion, too, was especially adapted to enhance the self‐reliance of well‐drilled troops. Every Roman legion was a small army in itself, containing its proportion of infantry, cavalry, engines of war, and means for conveyance of baggage. A legion finding itself never so unexpectedly detached from the main body, was at no loss for those necessaries without which an army melts away like snow in the sunshine, and was capable of independent action, in any country and under any circumstances. Each man too had perfect confidence in himself and his comrades; and while it was esteemed so high a disgrace to be taken prisoner that many soldiers have been known rather to die by their own hands than submit to such dishonour, it is not surprising that the imperial armies were often found to extricate themselves with credit from positions which would have ensured the destruction of any other troops in the world.

The internal arrangement, too, of every cohort, a title perhaps answering to the modern word regiment, as does the legion to that of division, was calculated to promote individual intelligence and energy in the ranks. Every soldier not only fought, but fed, slept, marched, and toiled, under the immediate eye of his _decurion_ or captain of ten, who again was directly responsible for those under his orders to his centurion, or captain of a hundred. A certain number of these centuries or companies, varying according to circumstances, constituted a maniple, two of which made up the cohort. Every legion consisted of ten cohorts, under the charge of but six tribunes, who seem to have entered on their onerous office in rotation. These were again subservient to the general, who, under the different titles of prætor, consul, etc., commanded the whole legion. The private soldiers were armed with shield, breastplate, helmet, spear, sword, and dagger; but in addition to his weapons every man carried a set of intrenching tools, and on occasion two or more strong stakes, for the rapid erection of palisades. All were, indeed, robust labourers and skilful mechanics, as well as invincible combatants.

The Jews, therefore, though a fierce and warlike nation, had but little chance against the conquerors of the world. It was but their characteristic self‐devotion that enabled them to hold Titus and his legions so long in check. Their desperate sallies were occasionally crowned with success, and the generous Roman seems to have respected the valour and the misfortunes of his foe; but it must have been obvious to so skilful a leader, that his reduction of Jerusalem and eventual possession of all Judæa was a question only of time.

At an earlier period of the siege the Romans had made a wide and shallow cutting capable of sheltering infantry, for the purpose of advancing their engines closer to the wall, but from the nature of the soil this work had been afterwards discontinued. It now formed a moderately‐secure covered‐ way, enabling the besieged to reach within a short distance of the Tower of Antonia, the retaking of which was of the last importance—none the less that from its summit Titus himself was directing the operations of his army. There was a breach in this tower on its inner side, which the Romans strove in vain to repair, harassed as they were by showers of darts and javelins from the enemy on the wall. More than once, in attempting to make it good at night, their materials had been burnt and themselves driven back upon their works with great loss, by the valour of the besieged. The Tower of Antonia was indeed the key to the possession of the second wall. Could it but be retaken, as it had already been, the Jews might find themselves once more with two strong lines of defence between the upper city and the foe.

When Eleazar and John, at the head of their respective parties, now mingled indiscriminately together, reached the summit of the inner wall, they witnessed a fierce and desperate struggle in the open space below.

Esca, no longer in the position of a mere household slave, but the friend and client of the most influential man in Jerusalem, who had admitted him, men said, as a proselyte to his faith, and was about to bestow on him his daughter in marriage, had already so distinguished himself by various feats of arms in the defence of the city, as to be esteemed one of the boldest leaders in the Jewish army. Panting to achieve a high reputation, which he sometimes dared to hope might gain him all he wished for on earth—the hand of Mariamne—and sharing to a great extent with the besieged their veneration for the Temple and abhorrence of a foreign yoke, the Briton lost no opportunity of adding a leaf to the laurels he had gained, and thrust himself prominently forward in every enterprise demanding an unusual amount of strength and courage. His lofty stature and waving golden hair, so conspicuous amongst the swarthy warriors who surrounded him, were soon well known in the ranks of the Romans, who bestowed on him the title of the Yellow Hostage, as inferring from his appearance that he must have lately been a stranger in Jerusalem; and many a stout legionary closed in more firmly on his comrade, and raised his shield more warily to the level of his eyes, when he saw those bright locks waving above the press of battle, and the long sword flashing with deadly strokes around that fair young head. He was now leading a party of chosen warriors, along the covered‐way that has been mentioned, to attack the Tower of Antonia. For this purpose, the trench had been deepened during the night by the Jews themselves, who had for some days meditated a bold stroke of this nature; and the chosen band had good reason to believe that their movements were unseen and unsuspected by the enemy.

As they deployed into the open space, but a few furlongs from the base of the tower, the Jews caught sight of Titus on the summit, his golden armour flashing in the sun, and, with a wild yell of triumph, they made one of their fierce, rushing, disorderly charges to the attack. They had reached within twenty paces of the breach, when swooping round the angle of the tower, like a falcon on his prey, came Placidus, at the head of a thousand horsemen, dashing forward with lifted shields and levelled spears amongst the disorganised mass of the Jews, broken by the very impetus of their own advance.

The tribune had but lately joined the Roman army, having been employed in the subjugation of a remote province of Judæa—a task for which his character made him a peculiarly fit instrument. Enriched by a few months of extortion and rapine, he had taken care to rejoin his commander in time to share with him the crowning triumphs of the siege. Julius Placidus was a consummate soldier. His vigilance had detected the meditated attack, and his science was prepared to meet it in the most effectual manner. Titus, from the summit of his tower, could not but admire the boldness and rapidity with which the tribune dashed from his concealment, and launched his cavalry on the astonished foe.

But he had to do with one, who, though his inferior in skill and experience, was his equal in that cool hardihood which can accept and baffle a surprise. Esca had divided his force into two bodies, so that the second might advance in a dense mass to the support of the first, whether its disorderly attack should be attended by failure or success. This body, though clear of the trench, yet remaining firm in its ranks, now became a rallying point for its comrades, and although a vast number of the Jews were ridden down and speared by the attacking horsemen, there were enough left to form a bristling phalanx, presenting two converging fronts of level steel impervious to the enemy. Placidus observed the manœuvre and ground his teeth in despite; but though his brow lowered for one instant, the evil smile lit up his face the next, for he espied Esca, detached from his band and engaged in rallying its stragglers; nor did he fail to recognise at a glance the man he most hated on earth. Urging his horse to speed, and even at that moment of gratified fury glancing towards the tower to see whether Titus was looking on, he levelled his spear and bore down upon the Briton in a desperate and irresistible charge. Esca stepped nimbly aside, and receiving the weapon on his buckler, dealt a sweeping sword‐cut at the tribune’s head, which stooping to avoid, the latter pulled at his horse’s reins so vigorously as to check the animal’s career and bring it suddenly on its haunches. The Briton, watching his opportunity, seized the bit in his powerful grasp, and with the aid of his massive weight and strength, rolled man and horse to the ground in a crashing fall. The tribune was undermost, and for the moment at the mercy of his adversary. Looking upward with a livid face and deep bitter hatred glaring in his eye, he did but hiss out “Oh, mine enemy!” from between his clenched teeth, and prepared to receive his deathblow; but the hand that was raised to strike, fell quietly to Esca’s side, and he turned back through the press of horsemen, buffeting them from him as a swimmer buffets the waves, till he reached his own men. Placidus, rising from the ground, shook his clenched fist at the retreating figure; but he never knew that he owed his preservation to the first‐fruits of that religion which had now taken root in the breast of his former slave. When he groaned out in his despair “Oh, mine enemy!” the Briton remembered that this man had, indeed, shown himself the bitterest and most implacable of his foes. It was no mere impulse, but the influence of a deep abiding principle that bade him now forgive and spare for the sake of One whose lessons he was beginning to learn, and in whose service he had resolved to enter. Amongst all the triumphs and the exploits of that day, there was none more noble than Esca’s, when he lowered his sword and turned away, unwilling, indeed, but resolute, from his fallen foe.

The fight raged fiercely still. Eleazar with his Zealots—John of Gischala with his Robbers—rushed from the walls to the assistance of their countrymen. The Roman force was in its turn outnumbered and surrounded, though Placidus, again on horseback, did all in the power of man to make head against the mass of his assailants. Titus at length ordered the Tenth Legion, called by his own name and constituting the very flower of the Roman army, to the rescue of their countrymen. Commanded by Licinius, in whose cool and steady valour they had perfect confidence, these soon turned the tide of combat, and forced the Jews back to their defences; not, however, until their general had recognised in the Yellow Hostage the person of his favourite slave, and thought, with a pang, that the fate of war would forbid his ever seeing him face to face again, except as a captive or a corpse.