 A giant siege tower with a battering ram was constructed and moved laboriously up the completed ramp.According to Josephus, when Roman troops entered the fortress, they discovered that its defendants had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide or killed each other, 960 men, women, and children in total.Josephus wrote of two stirring speeches that the Sicari leader had made to convince his men to kill themselves.