Note 31 — Chapter XIV
Reading edition
Josephus informs us, that the Jews under Simon, “all set themselves to work and levelled this mountain; and in that work spent both day and night, without any intermission, which cost them three whole years before it was removed and brought to an entire level with the plain of the rest of the city; after which the temple was the highest of all the buildings. Now the citadel, as well as the mountain on which it stood, was demolished.” Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. vi. § 7.
By the words, “to an entire level with the plain of the rest of the city,” he cannot mean to a level with the plain of Zion; for in another place (de Bel. lib. v. cap. iv. § 1.) he says that the upper city, or Zion, was much higher than this; we must understand him to say, that the peak was reduced to the general level of the rest of Acra.