From the Taking of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes to the Death of Herod the Great - Flavius Josephus

Chapter 18
Herod and Sosius Took Jerusalem by Force
1. Now the multitude of the Jews that were in the city were divided into
several factions; for the people that crowded about the temple, being the
weaker part of them, gave it out that, as the times were, he was the happiest
and most religious man who should die first. But as to the more bold and
hardy men, they got together in bodies, and fell a robbing others after various
manners, and these particularly plundered the places that were about the city,
and this because there was no food left either for the horses or the men; yet
some of the warlike men, who were used to fight regularly, were appointed
to defend the city during the siege, and these drove those that raised the
banks away from the wall; and these were always inventing some engine or
another to be a hinderance to the engines of the enemy; nor had they so much
success any way as in the mines under ground.
2. Now as for the robberies which were committed, the king contrived
that ambushes should be so laid, that they might restrain their excursions;
and as for the want of provisions, he provided that they should be brought to
them from great distances. He was also too hard for the Jews, by the Romans'
skill in the art of war; although they were bold to the utmost degree, now
they durst not come to a plain battle with the Romans, which was certain
death; but through their mines under ground they would appear in the midst
of them on the sudden, and before they could batter down one wall, they
built them another in its stead; and to sum up all at once, they did not show
any want either of painstaking or of contrivances, as having resolved to hold
out to the very last. Indeed, though they had so great an army lying round
about them, they bore a siege of five months, till some of Herod's chosen
men ventured to get upon the wall, and fell into the city, as did Sosius's
centurions after them; and now they first of all seized upon what was about
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