the higher part of the ground; so he encompassed all the lower
part of the mountain with his army, and watched them all that
day. Now it happened that the Samaritans, who were now destitute
of water, were inflamed with a violent heat, (for it was summer
time, and the multitude had not provided themselves with
necessaries,) insomuch that some of them died that very day with
heat, while others of them preferred slavery before such a death
as that was, and fled to the Romans; by whom Cerealis understood
that those which still staid there were very much broken by their
misfortunes. So he went up to the mountain, and having placed his
forces round about the enemy, he, in the first place, exhorted
them to take the security of his right hand, and come to terms
with him, and thereby save themselves; and assured them, that if
they would lay down their arms, he would secure them from any
harm; but when he could not prevail with them, he fell upon them
and slew them all, being in number eleven thousand and six
hundred. This was done on the twenty-seventh day of the month
Desius [Sivan]. And these were the calamities that befell the
Samaritans at this time.

33. But as the people of Jotapata still held out manfully, and
bore up tinder their miseries beyond all that could be hoped for,
on the forty-seventh day [of the siege] the banks cast up by the
Romans were become higher than the wall; on which day a certain
deserter went to Vespasian, and told him how few were left in the
city, and how weak they were, and that they had been so worn out
with perpetual watching, and as perpetual fighting, that they
could not now oppose any force that came against them, and that
they might he taken by stratagem, if any one would attack them;
for that about the last watch of the night, when they thought