advantage.

4. Now when the banks were finished, which was done on the
sudden, both by the multitude of hands, and by their being
accustomed to such work, they brought the machines; but
Chares and Joseph, who were the most potent men in the
city, set their armed men in order, though already in a fright,
because they did not suppose that the city could hold out long,
since they had not a sufficient quantity either of water, or of
other necessaries. However, these their leaders
encouraged them, and brought them out upon the wall, and for a
while indeed they drove away those that were bringing the
machines; but when those machines threw darts and
stones at them, they retired into the city; then did the Romans
bring battering rams to three several places, and made the wall
shake [and fall]. They then poured in over the parts of the wall
that were thrown down, with a mighty sound of trumpets and noise
of armor, and with a shout of the
soldiers, and brake in by force upon those that were in the
city; but these men fell upon the Romans for some time, at their
first entrance, and prevented their going any further, and with
great courage beat them back; and the Romans
were so overpowered by the greater multitude of the people, who
beat them on every side, that they were obliged to run into the
upper parts of the city. Whereupon the people
turned about, and fell upon their enemies, who had attacked
them, and thrust them down to the lower parts, and as they were
distressed by the narrowness and difficulty of the place, slew
them; and as these Romans could neither beat those
back that were above them, nor escape the force of their own