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

the temple; and upon the pouring in of the army, there was slaughter of vast
multitudes every where, by reason of the rage the Romans were in at the
length of this siege, and by reason that the Jews who were about Herod
earnestly endeavored that none of their adversaries might remain; so they
were cut to pieces by great multitudes, as they were crowded together in
narrow streets, and in houses, or were running away to the temple; nor was
there any mercy showed either to infants, or to the aged, or to the weaker
sex; insomuch that although the king sent about and desired them to spare
the people, nobody could be persuaded to withhold their right hand from
slaughter, but they slew people of all ages, like madmen. Then it was that
Antigonus, without any regard to his former or to his present fortune, came
down from the citadel, and fell at Sosius's feet, who without pitying him at
all, upon the change of his condition, laughed at him beyond measure, and
called him Antigona. (1) Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him go
free, but put him into bonds, and kept him in custody.
3. But Herod's concern at present, now he had gotten his enemies under
his power, was to restrain the zeal of his foreign auxiliaries; for the multitude
of the strange people were very eager to see the temple, and what was sacred
in the holy house itself; but the king endeavored to restrain them, partly by
his exhortations, partly by his threatenings, nay, partly by force, as thinking
the victory worse than a defeat to him, if any thing that ought not to be seen
were seen by them. He also forbade, at the same time, the spoiling of the
city, asking Sosius in the most earnest manner, whether the Romans, by thus
emptying the city of money and men, had a mind to leave him king of a
desert, - and told him that he judged the dominion of the habitable earth too
small a compensation for the slaughter of so many citizens. And when Sosius
said that it was but just to allow the soldiers this plunder as a reward for what
they suffered during the siege, Herod made answer, that he would give every
one of the soldiers a reward out of his own money. So he purchased the
deliverance of his country, and performed his promises to them, and made
presents after a magnificent manner to each soldier, and proportionably to
75