Note 10 — Chapter II · THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.

Taking the shape of the city to be circular and 33 stadia in circumference (it was more nearly circular than square), we find its area to have been rather more than 3,500,000 square yards. This, at 30 square yards to one person, gives about 120,000 for the ordinary population. And there were extensive gardens and numerous villas to the north and east which contained another population altogether quite impossible to estimate. And it must not be forgotten that Cestius (Joseph. ‘Bell. Jud.’ vi. ix. 3) caused an estimate to be made, a very few years before the siege, of the numbers actually present at the Passover, and that the official return was 2,560,500 persons. The whole question is clearly stated by Mr. Williams (‘Holy City,’ vol. i. p. 481). And, as he points out very justly, it is not a question how many would be comfortably accommodated in Jerusalem, but how many were actually crammed into it.