(420) Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, (421) the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a straitness among them, that there came a pestilential destruction upon them, and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly. (422) And that this city could contain so many people in it, is manifest by than number of them which was taken under Cestius, who being desirous of informing Nero of the power of the city, who otherwise was disposed to condemn that nation, entreated the high priests, if the thing were possible, to take the number of their whole multitude. (423) So these high priests, upon the coming of that feast which is called the Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour until the eleventh, but so that a company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice, (for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves), and many of us are twenty in a company, (424) found the number of sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred; (425) which, upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amounts to two millions seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were pure and holy; (426) for as to those that have the leprosy, or the gonorrhea, or woman that have their monthly courses, or such as are otherwise polluted, it is not lawful for them to be partakers of this sacrifice; (427) nor indeed for any foreigners neither, who come here to worship.