THE TANGLED WEB Meanwhile Jerusalem was in the fury of barbarous warfare.

At this ravine and that debouching upon Golgotha, the Vale of Hinnom and the Valley of Tophet, whole legions of besiegers were stationed.

Along the walls the men of Simon and the men of John tramped in armor.

From the various gates furious sorties were made by swarms of unorganized Jews who fell upon the Romans unused to frantic warfare, and slaughtered, set fire to engines, destroyed banks and threw down fortifications and retreated within the gates before the demoralized Romans could rally.
Catapult and ballista upon the eminences outside the walls kept up an unceasing rain of enormous stones which whistled and screamed in the air and shook Jerusalem to its foundations.

The reverberating boom and the tremor of earth were varied from time to time by the splintering crash of houses crushing and the increase of uproar, as scores of luckless inhabitants went down under the falling rock.