Throughout that day fatigue and consternation crushed the energies of the Jews; but, on the following day, with recruited strength and renewed courage, they sallied out through the eastern gate upon the guards of the outer court of the temple, at about the second hour. The Romans stubbornly met their challenge and, forming a screen in front with their shields like a wall, closed up their ranks; it was evident, however, that they could not long hold together, being no match for the number and fury of their assailants. Caesar, who was watching the scene from Antonia, anticipating the breaking of the line, now brought up his picked cavalry to their assistance. The Jews could not withstand their onset: the fall of the foremost led to a general retreat. Yet whenever the Romans retired they returned to the attack, only to fall back once more when their opponents wheeled round; until, about the fifth hour of the day, the Jews were overpowered and shut up in the inner court of the temple.

Titius then withdrew to Antonia, determined on the following day, at dawn, to attack with his whole force, and invest the temple. That building, however, God indeed long since, had sentenced to the flames; but now in the revolution of the years had arrived the fated day, the tenth of the month of Lous, the day on which of old it had been burnt by the king of Babylon. The flames, however, owed their origin and cause to God's own people. For, on the withdrawal of Titius, the insurgents, after a brief respite, again attacked the Romans, and an engagement ensued between the guards of the sanctuary and the troops who were endeavoring to extinguish the fire in the inner court; the latter routing the Jews and pursuing them right up to the sanctuary. At this moment, one of the soldiers, awaiting no orders and with no horror of so dread a deed, but moved by some supernatural impulse, snatched a brand from the burning timber and, hoisted up by one of his comrades, flung the fiery missile through a low golden door, which gave access on the north side of the chambers surrounding the sanctuary. As the flame shot up, a cry, as poignant as the tragedy, arose from the Jews, who flocked to the rescue, lost to all thought of self-preservation, all husbanding of strength, now that the object of all their past vigilance was vanishing.

Titius was resting in his tent after the engagement, when a messenger rushed in with the tidings. Starting up just as he was, he ran to the temple to arrest the conflagration; behind him followed his whole staff of generals, while in their train came the excited legionaries, and there was all the hubbub and confusion attending the disorderly movement of so large a force. Caesar, both by voice and hand, signalled to the combatants to extinguish the fire; but they neither heard his shouts, drowned in the louder din which filled their ears, nor heeded his beckoning hand, distracted as they were by the fight or their fury. The impetuosity of the legionaries, when they joined the fray, neither exhortation nor threat could restrain; passion was for all the only leader. Crushed together about the entrances, many were trampled down by their companions; many, stumbling on the still hot and smouldering ruins of the porticoes, suffered the fate of the vanquished. As they drew nearer to the sanctuary they pretended not even to hear Caesar's orders and shouted to those in front of them to throw in the firebrands. The insurgents for their part, were now powerless to help; and on all sides was carnage and flight. Most of the slain were civilians, weak and unarmed people, each butchered where he was caught. Around the altar a pile of corpses was accumulating; down the steps of the sanctuary flowed a stream of blood, and the bodies of the victims killed above went sliding to the bottom.