Burial became too gigantic a labor, and John and Simon ordered the bodies thrown over the walls to prevent pestilence.
Titus riding around the city on a day came upon a heap of this outcast dead and turned suddenly white.

He rode back to his camp and within the hour there approached the walls under a flag of truce an imposing Jew of middle-age, with a superb beard and a veritable mantle of rich black hair escaping from his turban and falling heavy with life and strength upon a pair of great shoulders.

He was simply dressed, but his stately carriage and splendid presence made a kingly garment out of his white gown.
Those upon the wall knew him and though they were obliged to respect the banner under which he approached, they gnashed their teeth and greeted him with epithets, poisonous with hate.

He was Flavius Josephus, one time patriot and enemy of Rome, but now secure under Titus' patronage, abettor of his patron against his fellow-countrymen.
The Maccabee, among the fighting-men on the wall, saw his approach and discreetly stepped behind a soldier that he might not be singled out as a familiar toward which the approaching mediator would logically direct his appeal.

He had no desire to be addressed by his name before this precarious mob already mad with rage at a turncoat.
And thus concealed the Maccabee heard Josephus appeal to the Jews with apparent sincerity and affection, promise amnesty, protection and justice in his patron's name; heard his overtures greeted with fury and finally saw the Jews swarm over the walls and drive him to fly for his life up Gareb to the camp of Titus.
It was not the first incident he had seen which showed him his own fate if it became known that he intended to treat with Rome.