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The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem

By Flavius Josephus




Translated by William Whiston




PREFACE

1. (1) Whereas the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath
been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our
times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both
of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations
against nations; while some men who were not concerned in the
affairs themselves have gotten together vain and contradictory
stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a
sophistical manner; and while those that were there present have
given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humor of
flattery to the Romans, or of hatred towards the Jews; and while
their writings contain sometimes accusations, and sometimes
encomiums, but no where the accurate truth of the facts; I have
proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the
government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek
tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country,
and sent to the Upper Barbarians; (2) Joseph, the son of
Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first
fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at
what was done afterwards, [am the author of this work].

2. Now at the time when this great concussion of affairs
happened, the affairs of the Romans were themselves in great
disorder. Those Jews also who were for innovations, then arose
when the times were disturbed; they were also in a flourishing
condition for strength and riches, insomuch that the affairs of
the East were then exceeding tumultuous, while some hoped for
gain, and others were afraid of loss in such troubles; for the
Jews hoped that all of their nation which were beyond Euphrates
would have raised an insurrection together with them. The Gauls
also, in the neighborhood of the Romans, were in motion, and the
Geltin were not quiet; but all was in disorder after the death of
Nero. And the opportunity now offered induced many to aim at the
royal power; and the soldiery affected change, out of the hopes
of getting money. I thought it therefore an absurd thing to see
the truth falsified in affairs of such great consequence, and to
take no notice of it; but to suffer those Greeks and Romans that
were not in the wars to be ignorant of these things, and to read
either flatteries or fictions, while the Parthians, and the
Babylonians, and the remotest Arabians, and those of our nation
beyond Euphrates, with the Adiabeni, by my means, knew accurately
both whence the war begun, what miseries it brought upon us, and
after what manner it ended.

3. It is true, these writers have the confidence to call their
accounts histories; wherein yet they seem to me to fail of their
own purpose, as well as to relate nothing that is sound. For they
have a mind to demonstrate the greatness of the Romans, while
they still diminish and lessen the actions of the Jews, as not
discerning how it cannot be that those must appear to be great
who have only conquered those that were little. Nor are they
ashamed to overlook the length of the war, the multitude of the
Roman forces who so greatly suffered in it, or the might of the
commanders, whose great labors about Jerusalem will be deemed
inglorious, if what they achieved be reckoned but a small matter. 
4. However, I will not go to the other extreme, out of opposition
to those men who extol the Romans nor will I determine to raise
the actions of my countrymen too high; but I will prosecute the
actions of both parties with accuracy. Yet shall I suit my
language to the passions I am under, as to the affairs I
describe, and must be allowed to indulge some lamentations upon
the miseries undergone by my own country. For that it was a
seditious temper of our own that destroyed it, and that they were
the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us,
who unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our
holy temple, Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a
witness, who, daring the entire war, pitied the people who were
kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the
taking of the city, and allowed time to the siege, in order to
let the authors have opportunity for repentance. But if any one
makes an unjust accusation against us, when we speak so
passionately about the tyrants, or the robbers, or sorely bewail
the misfortunes of our country, let him indulge my affections
herein, though it be contrary to the rules for writing history;
because it had so come to pass, that our city Jerusalem had
arrived at a higher degree of felicity than any other city under
the Roman government, and yet at last fell into the sorest of
calamities again. Accordingly, it appears to me that the
misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they
be compared to these of the Jews (3) are not so considerable as
they were; while the authors of them were not foreigners neither.
This makes it impossible for me to contain my lamentations. But
if any one be inflexible in his censures of me, let him attribute
the facts themselves to the historical part, and the lamentations
to the writer himself only.

5. However, I may justly blame the learned men among the Greeks,
who, when such great actions have been done in their own times,
which, upon the comparison, quite eclipse the old wars, do yet
sit as judges of those affairs, and pass bitter censures upon the
labors of the best writers of antiquity; which moderns, although
they may be superior to the old writers in eloquence, yet are
they inferior to them in the execution of what they intended to
do. While these also write new histories about the Assyrians and
Medes, as if the ancient writers had not described their affairs
as they ought to have done; although these be as far inferior to
them in abilities as they are different in their notions from
them. For of old every one took upon them to write what happened
in his own time; where their immediate concern in the actions
made their promises of value; and where it must be reproachful to
write lies, when they must be known by the readers to be such.
But then, an undertaking to preserve the memory Of what hath not
been before recorded, and to represent the affairs of one's own
time to those that come afterwards, is really worthy of praise
and commendation. Now he is to be esteemed to have taken good
pains in earnest, not who does no more than change the
disposition and order of other men's works, but he who not only
relates what had not been related before, but composes an entire
body of history of his own: accordingly, I have been at great
charges, and have taken very great pains [about this history],
though I be a foreigner; and do dedicate this work, as a memorial
of great actions, both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians. But
for some of our own principal men, their mouths are wide open,
and their tongues loosed presently, for gain and law-suits, but
quite muzzled up when they are to write history, where they must
speak truth and gather facts together with a great deal of pains;
and so they leave the writing such histories to weaker people,
and to such as are not acquainted with the actions of princes.
Yet shall the real truth of historical facts be preferred by us,
how much soever it be neglected among the Greek historians. 
6. To write concerning the Antiquities of the Jews, who they were
[originally], and how they revolted from the Egyptians, and what
country they traveled over, and what countries they seized upon
afterward, and how they were removed out of them, I think this
not to be a fit opportunity, and, on other accounts, also
superfluous; and this because many Jews before me have composed
the histories of our ancestors very exactly; as have some of the
Greeks done it also, and have translated our histories into their
own tongue, and have not much mistaken the truth in their
histories. But then, where the writers of these affairs and our
prophets leave off, thence shall I take my rise, and begin my
history. Now as to what concerns that war which happened in my
own time, I will go over it very largely, and with all the
diligence I am able; but for what preceded mine own age, that I
shall run over briefly.

7. [For example, I shall relate] how Antiochus, who was named
Epiphanes, took Jerusalem by force, and held it three years and
three months, and was then ejected out of the country by the sons
of Asamoneus: after that, how their posterity quarreled about the
government, and brought upon their settlement the Romans and
Pompey; how Herod also, the son of Antipater, dissolved their
government, and brought Sosins upon them; as also how our people
made a sedition upon Herod's death, while Augustus was the Roman
emperor, and Quintilius Varus was in that country; and how the
war broke out in the twelfth year of Nero, with what happened to
Cestius; and what places the Jews assaulted in a hostile manner
in the first sallies of the war.

8. As also [I shall relate] how they built walls about the
neighboring cities; and how Nero, upon Cestius's defeat, was in
fear of the entire event of the war, and thereupon made Vespasian
general in this war; and how this Vespasian, with the elder of
his sons (4) made an expedition into the country of Judea; what
was the number of the Roman army that he made use of; and how
many of his auxiliaries were cut off in all Galilee; and how he
took some of its cities entirely, and by force, and others of
them by treaty, and on terms. Now, when I am come so far, I shall
describe the good order of the Romans in war, and the discipline
of their legions; the amplitude of both the Galilees, with its
nature, and the limits of Judea. And, besides this, I shall
particularly go over what is peculiar to the country, the lakes
and fountains that are in them, and what miseries happened to
every city as they were taken; and all this with accuracy, as I
saw the things done, or suffered in them. For I shall not conceal
any of the calamities I myself endured, since I shall relate them
to such as know the truth of them.

9. After this, [I shall relate] how, When the Jews' affairs were
become very bad, Nero died, and Vespasian, when he was going to
attack Jerusalem, was called back to take the government upon
him; what signs happened to him relating to his gaining that
government, and what mutations of government then happened at
Rome, and how he was unwillingly made emperor by his soldiers;
and how, upon his departure to Egypt, to take upon him the
government of the empire, the affairs of the Jews became very
tumultuous; as also how the tyrants rose up against them, and
fell into dissensions among themselves.

10. Moreover, [I shall relate] how Titus marched out of Egypt
into Judea the second time; as also how, and where, and how many
forces he got together; and in what state the city was, by the
means of the seditious, at his coming; what attacks he made, and
how many ramparts he cast up; of the three walls that encompassed
the city, and of their measures; of the strength of the city, and
the structure of the temple and holy house; and besides, the
measures of those edifices, and of the altar, and all accurately
determined. A description also of certain of their festivals, and
seven purifications of purity, (5) and the sacred ministrations
of the priests, with the garments of the priests, and of the high
priests; and of the nature of the most holy place of the temple;
without concealing any thing, or adding any thing to the known
truth of things.

11. After this, I shall relate the barbarity of the tyrants
towards the people of their own nation, as well as the indulgence
of the Romans in sparing foreigners; and how often Titus, out of
his desire to preserve the city and the temple, invited the
seditious to come to terms of accommodation. I shall also
distinguish the sufferings of the people, and their calamities;
how far they were afflicted by the sedition, and how far by the
famine, and at length were taken. Nor shall I omit to mention the
misfortunes of the deserters, nor the punishments inflicted on
the captives; as also how the temple was burnt, against the
consent of Caesar; and how many sacred things that had been laid
up in the temple were snatched out of the fire; the destruction
also of the entire city, with the signs and wonders that went
before it; and the taking the tyrants captives, and the multitude
of those that were made slaves, and into what different
misfortunes they were every one distributed. Moreover, what the
Romans did to the remains of the wall; and how they demolished
the strong holds that were in the country; and how Titus went
over the whole country, and settled its affairs; together with
his return into Italy, and his triumph.]

12. I have comprehended all these things in seven books, and have
left no occasion for complaint or accusation to such as have been
acquainted with this war; and I have written it down for the sake
of those that love truth, but not for those that please
themselves [with fictitious relations]. And I will begin my
account of these things with what I call my First Chapter. 

WAR PREFACE FOOTNOTES

(1) I have already observed more than once, that this History of
the Jewish War was Josephus's first work, and published about
A.D. 75, when he was but thirty-eight years of age; and that when
he wrote it, he was not thoroughly acquainted with several
circumstances of history from the days of Antiochus Epiphanes,
with which it begins, till near his own times, contained in the
first and former part of the second book, and so committed many
involuntary errors therein. That he published his Antiquities
eighteen years afterward, in the thirteenth year of Domitian,
A.D. 93, when he was much more completely acquainted with those
ancient times, and after he had perused those most authentic
histories, the First Book of Maccabees, and the Chronicles of the
Priesthood of John Hyrcanus, etc. That accordingly he then
reviewed those parts of this work, and gave the public a more
faithful, complete, and accurate account of the facts therein
related; and honestly corrected the errors he bad before run
into.

(2) Who these Upper Barbarians, remote from the sea, were,
Josephus himself will inform us, sect. 2, viz. the Parthians and
Babylonians, and remotest Arabians [of the Jews among them];
besides the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the Adiabeni, or
Assyrians. Whence we also learn that these Parthians,
Babylonians, the remotest Arabians, [or at least the Jews among
them,] as also the Jews beyond Euphrates, and the Adiabeni, or
Assyrians, understood Josephus's Hebrew, or rather Chaldaic,
books of The Jewish War, before they were put into the Greek
language.

(3) That these calamities of the Jews, who were our Savior's
murderers, were to be the greatest that had ever been s nee the
beginning of the world, our Savior had directly foretold, Matthew
24:21; Mark 13:19; Luke 21:23, 24; and that they proved to be
such accordingly, Josephus is here a most authentic witness.

(4) Titus.

(5) These seven, or rather five, degrees of purity, or
purification, are enumerated hereafter, B. V. ch. 5. sect. 6. The
Rabbins make ten degrees of them, as Reland there informs us.

BOOK I.

Containing The Interval Of One Hundred And Sixty-Seven Years. 
From The Taking Of Jerusalem By Antiochus Epiphanes, To The Death
Of Herod The Great.

CHAPTER 1.

How The City Jerusalem Was Taken, And The Temple Pillaged [By
Antiochus Epiphanes]. As Also Concerning The Actions Of The
Maccabees, Matthias And Judas; And Concerning The Death Of Judas. 
1. At the same time that Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, had
a quarrel with the sixth Ptolemy about his right to the whole
country of Syria, a great sedition fell among the men of power in
Judea, and they had a contention about obtaining the government;
while each of those that were of dignity could not endure to be
subject to their equals. However, Onias, one of the high priests,
got the better, and cast the sons of Tobias out of the city; who
fled to Antiochus, and besought him to make use of them for his
leaders, and to make an expedition into Judea. The king being
thereto disposed beforehand, complied with them, and came upon
the Jews with a great army, and took their city by force, and
slew a great multitude of those that favored Ptolemy, and sent
out his soldiers to plunder them without mercy. He also spoiled
the temple, and put a stop to the constant practice of offering a
daily sacrifice of expiation for three years and six months. But
Onias, the high priest, fled to Ptolemy, and received a place
from him in the Nomus of Heliopolis, where he built a city
resembling Jerusalem, and a temple that was like its temple (1)
concerning which we shall speak more in its proper place
hereafter.

2. Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected
taking the city, or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter
he had made there; but being overcome with his violent passions,
and remembering what he had suffered during the siege, he
compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to
keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swine's flesh
upon the altar; against which they all opposed themselves, and
the most approved among them were put to death. Bacchides also,
who was sent to keep the fortresses, having these wicked
commands, joined to his own natural barbarity, indulged all sorts
of the extremest wickedness, and tormented the worthiest of the
inhabitants, man by man, and threatened their city every day with
open destruction, till at length he provoked the poor sufferers
by the extremity of his wicked doings to avenge themselves. 
3. Accordingly Matthias, the son of Asamoneus, one of the priests
who lived in a village called Modin, armed himself, together with
his own family, which had five sons of his in it, and slew
Bacchides with daggers; and thereupon, out of the fear of the
many garrisons [of the enemy], he fled to the mountains; and so
many of the people followed him, that he was encouraged to come
down from the mountains, and to give battle to Antiochus's
generals, when he beat them, and drove them out of Judea. So he
came to the government by this his success, and became the prince
of his own people by their own free consent, and then died,
leaving the government to Judas, his eldest son.

4. Now Judas, supposing that Antiochus would not lie still,
gathered an army out of his own countrymen, and was the first
that made a league of friendship with the Romans, and drove
Epiphanes out of the country when he had made a second expedition
into it, and this by giving him a great defeat there; and when he
was warmed by this great success, he made an assault upon the
garrison that was in the city, for it had not been cut off
hitherto; so he ejected them out of the upper city, and drove the
soldiers into the lower, which part of the city was called the
Citadel. He then got the temple under his power, and cleansed the
whole place, and walled it round about, and made new vessels for
sacred ministrations, and brought them into the temple, because
the former vessels had been profaned. He also built another
altar, and began to offer the sacrifices; and when the city had
already received its sacred constitution again, Antiochus died;
whose son Antiochus succeeded him in the kingdom, and in his
hatred to the Jews also.

5. So this Antiochus got together fifty thousand footmen, and
five thousand horsemen, and fourscore elephants, and marched
through Judea into the mountainous parts. He then took Bethsura,
which was a small city; but at a place called Bethzacharis, where
the passage was narrow, Judas met him with his army. However,
before the forces joined battle, Judas's brother Eleazar, seeing
the very highest of the elephants adorned with a large tower, and
with military trappings of gold to guard him, and supposing that
Antiochus himself was upon him, he ran a great way before his own
army, and cutting his way through the enemy's troops, he got up
to the elephant; yet could he not reach him who seemed to be the
king, by reason of his being so high; but still he ran his weapon
into the belly of the beast, and brought him down upon himself,
and was crushed to death, having done no more than attempted
great things, and showed that he preferred glory before life. Now
he that governed the elephant was but a private man; and had he
proved to be Antiochus, Eleazar had performed nothing more by
this bold stroke than that it might appear he chose to die, when
he had the bare hope of thereby doing a glorious action; nay,
this disappointment proved an omen to his brother [Judas] how the
entire battle would end. It is true that the Jews fought it out
bravely for a long time, but the king's forces, being superior in
number, and having fortune on their side, obtained the victory.
And when a great many of his men were slain, Judas took the rest
with him, and fled to the toparchy of Gophna. So Antiochus went
to Jerusalem, and staid there but a few days, for he wanted
provisions, and so he went his way. He left indeed a garrison
behind him, such as he thought sufficient to keep the place, but
drew the rest of his army off, to take their winter-quarters in
Syria.

6. Now, after the king was departed, Judas was not idle; for as
many of his own nation came to him, so did he gather those that
had escaped out of the battle together, and gave battle again to
Antiochus's generals at a village called Adasa; and being too
hard for his enemies in the battle, and killing a great number of
them, he was at last himself slain also. Nor was it many days
afterward that his brother John had a plot laid against him by
Antiochus's party, and was slain by them.

CHAPTER 2.

Concerning The Successors Of Judas, Who Were Jonathan And Simon,
And John Hyrcanus.

1. When Jonathan, who was Judas's brother, succeeded him, he
behaved himself with great circumspection in other respects, with
relation to his own people; and he corroborated his authority by
preserving his friendship with the Romans. He also made a league
with Antiochus the son. Yet was not all this sufficient for his
security; for the tyrant Trypho, who was guardian to Antiochus's
son, laid a plot against him; and besides that, endeavored to
take off his friends, and caught Jonathan by a wile, as he was
going to Ptolemais to Antiochus, with a few persons in his
company, and put him in bonds, and then made an expedition
against the Jews; but when he was afterward driven away by Simon,
who was Jonathan's brother, and was enraged at his defeat, he put
Jonathan to death.

2. However, Simon managed the public affairs after a courageous
manner, and took Gazara, and Joppa, and Jamnia, which were cities
in his neighborhood. He also got the garrison under, and
demolished the citadel. He was afterward an auxiliary to
Antiochus, against Trypho, whom he besieged in Dora, before he
went on his expedition against the Medes; yet could not he make
the king ashamed of his ambition, though he had assisted him in
killing Trypho; for it was not long ere Antiochus sent Cendebeus
his general with an army to lay waste Judea, and to subdue Simon;
yet he, though he was now in years, conducted the war as if he
were a much younger man. He also sent his sons with a band of
strong men against Antiochus, while he took part of the army
himself with him, and fell upon him from another quarter. He also
laid a great many men in ambush in many places of the mountains,
and was superior in all his attacks upon them; and when he had
been conqueror after so glorious a manner, he was made high
priest, and also freed the Jews from the dominion of the
Macedonians, after one hundred and seventy years of the empire
[of Seleucus].

3. This Simon also had a plot laid against him, and was slain at
a feast by his son-in-law Ptolemy, who put his wife and two sons
into prison, and sent some persons to kill John, who was also
called Hyrcanus. (2) But when the young man was informed of their
coming beforehand, he made haste to get to the city, as having a
very great confidence in the people there, both on account of the
memory of the glorious actions of his father, and of the hatred
they could not but bear to the injustice of Ptolemy. Ptolemy also
made an attempt to get into the city by another gate; but was
repelled by the people, who had just then admitted of Hyrcanus;
so he retired presently to one of the fortresses that were about
Jericho, which was called Dagon. Now when Hyrcanus had received
the high priesthood, which his father had held before, and had
offered sacrifice to God, he made great haste to attack Ptolemy,
that he might afford relief to his mother and brethren.

4. So he laid siege to the fortress, and was superior to Ptolemy
in other respects, but was overcome by him as to the just
affection [he had for his relations]; for when Ptolemy was
distressed, he brought forth his mother, and his brethren, and
set them upon the wall, and beat them with rods in every body's
sight, and threatened, that unless he would go away immediately,
he would throw them down headlong; at which sight Hyrcanus's
commiseration and concern were too hard for his anger. But his
mother was not dismayed, neither at the stripes she received, nor
at the death with which she was threatened; but stretched out her
hands, and prayed her son not to be moved with the injuries that
she suffered to spare the wretch; since it was to her better to
die by the means of Ptolemy, than to live ever so long, provided
he might be punished for the injuries he done to their family.
Now John's case was this: When he considered the courage of his
mother, and heard her entreaty, he set about his attacks; but
when he saw her beaten, and torn to pieces with the stripes, he
grew feeble, and was entirely overcome by his affections. And as
the siege was delayed by this means, the year of rest came on,
upon which the Jews rest every seventh year as they do on every
seventh day. On this year, therefore, Ptolemy was freed from
being besieged, and slew the brethren of John, with their mother,
and fled to Zeno, who was also called Cotylas, who was tyrant of
Philadelphia.

5. And now Antiochus was so angry at what he had suffered from
Simon, that he made an expedition into Judea, and sat down before
Jerusalem and besieged Hyrcanus; but Hyrcanus opened the
sepulcher of David, who was the richest of all kings, and took
thence about three thousand talents in money, and induced
Antiochus, by the promise of three thousand talents, to raise the
siege. Moreover, he was the first of the Jews that had money
enough, and began to hire foreign auxiliaries also.

6. However, at another time, when Antiochus was gone upon an
expedition against the Medes, and so gave Hyrcanus an opportunity
of being revenged upon him, he immediately made an attack upon
the cities of Syria, as thinking, what proved to be the case with
them, that he should find them empty of god troops. So he took
Medaba and Samea, with the towns in their neighborhood, as also
Shechem, and Gerizzim; and besides these, [he subdued] the nation
of the Cutheans, who dwelt round about that temple which was
built in imitation of the temple at Jerusalem; he also took a
great many other cities of Idumea, with Adoreon and Marissa. 
7. He also proceeded as far as Samaria, where is now the city
Sebaste, which was built by Herod the king, and encompassed it
all round with a wall, and set his sons, Aristobulus and
Antigonus, over the siege; who pushed it on so hard, that a
famine so far prevailed within the city, that they were forced to
eat what never was esteemed food. They also invited Antiochus,
who was called Cyzicenus, to come to their assistance; whereupon
he got ready, and complied with their invitation, but was beaten
by Aristobulus and Antigonus; and indeed he was pursued as far as
Scythopolis by these brethren, and fled away from them. So they
returned back to Samaria, and shut the multitude again within the
wall; and when they had taken the city, they demolished it, and
made slaves of its inhabitants. And as they had still great
success in their undertakings, they did not suffer their zeal to
cool, but marched with an army as far as Scythopolis, and made an
incursion upon it, and laid waste all the country that lay within
Mount Carmel.

8. But then these successes of John and of his sons made them be
envied, and occasioned a sedition in the country; and many there
were who got together, and would not be at rest till they brake
out into open war, in which war they were beaten. So John lived
the rest of his life very happily, and administered the
government after a most extraordinary manner, and this for
thirty-three entire years together. He died, leaving five sons
behind him. He was certainly a very happy man, and afforded no
occasion to have any complaint made of fortune on his account. He
it was who alone had three of the most desirable things in the
world, - the government of his nation, and the high priesthood,
and the gift of prophecy. For the Deity conversed with him, and
he was not ignorant of any thing that was to come afterward;
insomuch that he foresaw and foretold that his two eldest sons
would not continue masters of the government; and it will highly
deserve our narration to describe their catastrophe, and how far
inferior these men were to their father in felicity.

CHAPTER 3.

How Aristobulus Was The First That Put A Diadem About His Head;
And After He Had Put His Mother And Brother To Death, Died
Himself, When He Had Reigned No More Than A Year.

1. For after the death of their father, the elder of them,
Aristobulus, changed the government into a kingdom, and was the
first that put a diadem upon his head, four hundred seventy and
one years and three months after our people came down into this
country, when they were set free from the Babylonian slavery.
Now, of his brethren, he appeared to have an affection for
Antigonus, who was next to him, and made him his equal; but for
the rest, he bound them, and put them in prison. He also put his
mother in bonds, for her contesting the government with him; for
John had left her to be the governess of public affairs. He also
proceeded to that degree of barbarity as to cause her to be pined
to death in prison.

2. But vengeance circumvented him in the affair of his brother
Antigonus, whom he loved, and whom he made his partner in the
kingdom; for he slew him by the means of the calumnies which ill
men about the palace contrived against him. At first, indeed,
Aristobulus would not believe their reports, partly out of the
affection he had for his brother, and partly because he thought
that a great part of these tales were owing to the envy of their
relaters: however, as Antigonus came once in a splendid manner
from the army to that festival, wherein our ancient custom is to
make tabernacles for God, it happened, in those days, that
Aristobulus was sick, and that, at the conclusion of the feast,
Antigonus came up to it, with his armed men about him; and this
when he was adorned in the finest manner possible; and that, in a
great measure, to pray to God on the behalf of his brother. Now
at this very time it was that these ill men came to the king, and
told him in what a pompous manner the armed men came, and with
what insolence Antigonus marched, and that such his insolence was
too great for a private person, and that accordingly he was come
with a great band of men to kill him; for that he could not
endure this bare enjoyment of royal honor, when it was in his
power to take the kingdom himself.

3. Now Aristobulus, by degrees, and unwillingly, gave credit to
these accusations; and accordingly he took care not to discover
his suspicion openly, though he provided to be secure against any
accidents; so he placed the guards of his body in a certain dark
subterranean passage; for he lay sick in a place called formerly
the Citadel, though afterwards its name was changed to Antonia;
and he gave orders that if Antigonus came unarmed, they should
let him alone; but if he came to him in his armor, they should
kill him. He also sent some to let him know beforehand that he
should come unarmed. But, upon this occasion, the queen very
cunningly contrived the matter with those that plotted his ruin,
for she persuaded those that were sent to conceal the king's
message; but to tell Antigonus how his brother had heard he had
got a very the suit of armor made with fine martial ornaments, in
Galilee; and because his present sickness hindered him from
coming and seeing all that finery, he very much desired to see
him now in his armor; because, said he, in a little time thou art
going away from me.

4. As soon as Antigonus heard this, the good temper of his
brother not allowing him to suspect any harm from him, he came
along with his armor on, to show it to his brother; but when he
was going along that dark passage which w{s called Strato's
Tower, he was slain by the body guards, and became an eminent
instance how calumny destroys all good-will and natural
affection, and how none of our good affections are strong enough
to resist envy perpetually.

5. And truly any one would be surprised at Judas upon this
occasion. He was of the sect of the Essens, and had never failed
or deceived men in his predictions before. Now this man saw
Antigonus as he was passing along by the temple, and cried out to
his acquaintance, (they were not a few who attended upon him as
his scholars,) "O strange!" said he, "it is good for me to die
now, since truth is dead before me, and somewhat that I have
foretold hath proved false; for this Antigonus is this day alive,
who ought to hare died this day; and the place where he ought to
be slain, according to that fatal decree, was Strato's Tower,
which is at the distance of six hundred furlongs from this place;
and yet four hours of this day are over already; which point of
time renders the prediction impossible to be fill filled." And
when the old man had said this, he was dejected in his mind, and
so continued. But in a little time news came that Antigonus was
slain in a subterraneous place, which was itself also called
Strato's Tower, by the same name with that Cesarea which lay by
the sea-side; and this ambiguity it was which caused the
prophet's disorder.

6. Hereupon Aristobulus repented of the great crime he had been
guilty of, and this gave occasion to the increase of his
distemper. He also grew worse and worse, and his soul was
constantly disturbed at the thoughts of what he had done, till
his very bowels being torn to pieces by the intolerable grief he
was under, he threw up a great quantity of blood. And as one of
those servants that attended him carried out that blood, he, by
some supernatural providence, slipped and fell down in the very
place where Antigonus had been slain; and so he spilt some of the
murderer's blood upon the spots of the blood of him that had been
murdered, which still appeared. Hereupon a lamentable cry arose
among the spectators, as if the servant had spilled the blood on
purpose in that place; and as the king heard that cry, he
inquired what was the cause of it; and while nobody durst tell
him, he pressed them so much the more to let him know what was
the matter; so at length, when he had threatened them, and forced
them to speak out, they told; whereupon he burst into tears, and
groaned, and said, "So I perceive I am not like to escape the
all-seeing eye of God, as to the great crimes I have committed;
but the vengeance of the blood of my kinsman pursues me hastily.
O thou most impudent body! how long wilt thou retain a soul that
ought to die on account of that punishment it ought to suffer for
a mother and a brother slain! How long shall I myself spend my
blood drop by drop? let them take it all at once; and let their
ghosts no longer be disappointed by a few parcels of my bowels
offered to them." As soon as he had said these words, he
presently died, when he had reigned no longer than a year. 
CHAPTER 4.

What Actions Were Done By Alexander Janneus, Who Reigned
Twenty-Seven Years.

1. And now the king's wife loosed the king's brethren, and made
Alexander king, who appeared both elder in age, and more moderate
in his temper than the rest; who, when he came to the government,
slew one of his brethren, as affecting to govern himself; but had
the other of them in great esteem, as loving a quiet life,
without meddling with public affairs.

2. Now it happened that there was a battle between him and
Ptolemy, who was called Lathyrus, who had taken the city Asochis.
He indeed slew a great many of his enemies, but the victory
rather inclined to Ptolemy. But when this Ptolemy was pursued by
his mother Cleopatra, and retired into Egypt, Alexander besieged
Gadara, and took it; as also he did Amathus, which was the
strongest of all the fortresses that were about Jordan, and
therein were the most precious of all the possessions of
Theodorus, the son of Zeno. Whereupon Theodopus marched against
him, and took what belonged to himself as well as the king's
baggage, and slew ten thousand of the Jews. However, Alexander
recovered this blow, and turned his force towards the maritime
parts, and took Raphia and Gaza, with Anthedon also, which was
afterwards called Agrippias by king Herod.

3. But when he had made slaves of the citizens of all these
cities, the nation of the Jews made an insurrection against him
at a festival; for at those feasts seditions are generally begun;
and it looked as if he should not be able to escape the plot they
had laid for him, had not his foreign auxiliaries, the Pisidians
and Cilicians, assisted him; for as to the Syrians, he never
admitted them among his mercenary troops, on account of their
innate enmity against the Jewish nation. And when he had slain
more than six thousand of the rebels, he made an incursion into
Arabia; and when he had taken that country, together with the
Gileadires and Moabites, he enjoined them to pay him tribute, and
returned to Areathus; and as Theodorus was surprised at his great
success, he took the fortress, and demolished it.

4. However, when he fought with Obodas, king of the Arabians, who
had laid an ambush for him near Golan, and a plot against him, he
lost his entire army, which was crowded together in a deep
valley, and broken to pieces by the multitude of camels. And when
he had made his escape to Jerusalem, he provoked the multitude,
which hated him before, to make an insurrection against him, and
this on account of the greatness of the calamity that he was
under. However, he was then too hard for them; and, in the
several battles that were fought on both sides, he slew not fewer
than fifty thousand of the Jews in the interval of six years. Yet
had he no reason to rejoice in these victories, since he did but
consume his own kingdom; till at length he left off fighting, and
endeavored to come to a composition with them, by talking with
his subjects. But this mutability and irregularity of his conduct
made them hate him still more. And when he asked them why they so
hated him, and what he should do in order to appease them, they
said, by killing himself; for that it would be then all they
could do to be reconciled to him, who had done such tragical
things to them, even when he was dead. At the same time they
invited Demetrius, who was called Eucerus, to assist them; and as
he readily complied with their requests, in hopes of great
advantages, and came with his army, the Jews joined with those
their auxiliaries about Shechem.

5. Yet did Alexander meet both these forces with one thousand
horsemen, and eight thousand mercenaries that were on foot. He
had also with him that part of the Jews which favored him, to the
number of ten thousand; while the adverse party had three
thousand horsemen, and fourteen thousand footmen. Now, before
they joined battle, the kings made proclamation, and endeavored
to draw off each other's soldiers, and make them revolt; while
Demetrius hoped to induce Alexander's mercenaries to leave him,
and Alexander hoped to induce the Jews that were with Demetrius
to leave him. But since neither the Jews would leave off their
rage, nor the Greeks prove unfaithful, they came to an
engagement, and to a close fight with their weapons. In which
battle Demetrius was the conqueror, although Alexander's
mercenaries showed the greatest exploits, both in soul and body.
Yet did the upshot of this battle prove different from what was
expected, as to both of them; for neither did those that invited
Demetrius to come to them continue firm to him, though he was
conqueror; and six thousand Jews, out of pity to the change of
Alexander's condition, when he was fled to the mountains, came
over to him. Yet could not Demetrius bear this turn of affairs;
but supposing that Alexander was already become a match for him
again, and that all the nation would [at length] run to him, he
left the country, and went his way.

6. However, the rest of the [Jewish] multitude did not lay aside
their quarrels with him, when the [foreign] auxiliaries were
gone; but they had a perpetual war with Alexander, until he had
slain the greatest part of them, and driven the rest into the
city Berneselis; and when he had demolished that city, he carried
the captives to Jerusalem. Nay, his rage was grown so
extravagant, that his barbarity proceeded to the degree of
impiety; for when he had ordered eight hundred to be hung upon
crosses in the midst of the city, he had the throats of their
wives and children cut before their eyes; and these executions he
saw as he was drinking and lying down with his concubines. Upon
which so deep a surprise seized on the people, that eight
thousand of his opposers fled away the very next night, out of
all Judea, whose flight was only terminated by Alexander's death;
so at last, though not till late, and with great difficulty, he,
by such actions, procured quiet to his kingdom, and left off
fighting any more.

7. Yet did that Antiochus, who was also called Dionysius, become
an origin of troubles again. This man was the brother of
Demetrius, and the last of the race of the Seleucidse. (3)
Alexander was afraid of him, when he was marching against the
Arabians; so he cut a deep trench between Antipatris, which was
near the mountains, and the shores of Joppa; he also erected a
high wall before the trench, and built wooden towers, in order to
hinder any sudden approaches. But still he was not able to
exclude Antiochus, for he burnt the towers, and filled up the
trenches, and marched on with his army. And as he looked upon
taking his revenge on Alexander, for endeavoring to stop him, as
a thing of less consequence, he marched directly against the
Arabians, whose king retired into such parts of the country as
were fittest for engaging the enemy, and then on the sudden made
his horse turn back, which were in number ten thousand, and fell
upon Antiochus's army while they were in disorder, and a terrible
battle ensued. Antiochus's troops, so long as he was alive,
fought it out, although a mighty slaughter was made among them by
the Arabians; but when he fell, for he was in the forefront, in
the utmost danger, in rallying his troops, they all gave ground,
and the greatest part of his army were destroyed, either in the
action or the flight; and for the rest, who fled to the village
of Cana, it happened that they were all consumed by want of
necessaries, a few only excepted.

8. About this time it was that the people of Damascus, out of
their hatred to Ptolemy, the son of Menhens, invited Aretas [to
take the government], and made him king of Celesyria. This man
also made an expedition against Judea, and beat Alexander in
battle; but afterwards retired by mutual agreement. But
Alexander, when he had taken Pella, marched to Gerasa again, out
of the covetous desire he had of Theodorus's possessions; and
when he had built a triple wall about the garrison, he took the
place by force. He also demolished Golan, and Seleucia, and what
was called the Valley of Antiochus; besides which, he took the
strong fortress of Gamala, and stripped Demetrius, who was
governor therein, of what he had, on account of the many crimes
laid to his charge, and then returned into Judea, after he had
been three whole years in this expedition. And now he was kindly
received of the nation, because of the good success he had. So
when he was at rest from war, he fell into a distemper; for he
was afflicted with a quartan ague, and supposed that, by
exercising himself again in martial affairs, he should get rid of
this distemper; but by making such expeditions at unseasonable
times, and forcing his body to undergo greater hardships than it
was able to bear, he brought himself to his end. He died,
therefore, in the midst of his troubles, after he had reigned
seven and twenty years.

CHAPTER 5.

Alexandra Reigns Nine Years, During Which Time The Pharisees Were
The Real Rulers Of The Nation.

1. Now Alexander left the kingdom to Alexandra his wife, and
depended upon it that the Jews would now very readily submit to
her, because she had been very averse to such cruelty as he had
treated them with, and had opposed his violation of their laws,
and had thereby got the good-will of the people. Nor was he
mistaken as to his expectations; for this woman kept the
dominion, by the opinion that the people had of her piety; for
she chiefly studied the ancient customs of her country, and cast
those men out of the government that offended against their holy
laws. And as she had two sons by Alexander, she made Hyrcanus the
elder high priest, on account of his age, as also, besides that,
on account of his inactive temper, no way disposing him to
disturb the public. But she retained the younger, Aristobulus,
with her as a private person, by reason of the warmth of his
temper.

2. And now the Pharisees joined themselves to her, to assist her
in the government. These are a certain sect of the Jews that
appear more religious than others, and seem to interpret the laws
more accurately. low Alexandra hearkened to them to an
extraordinary degree, as being herself a woman of great piety
towards God. But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves
into her favor by little and little, and became themselves the
real administrators of the public affairs: they banished and
reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed [men] at their
pleasure; (4) and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of
the royal authority, whilst the expenses and the difficulties of
it belonged to Alexandra. She was a sagacious woman in the
management of great affairs, and intent always upon gathering
soldiers together; so that she increased the army the one half,
and procured a great body of foreign troops, till her own nation
became not only very powerful at home, but terrible also to
foreign potentates, while she governed other people, and the
Pharisees governed her.

3. Accordingly, they themselves slew Diogenes, a person of
figure, and one that had been a friend to Alexander; and accused
him as having assisted the king with his advice, for crucifying
the eight hundred men [before mentioned.] They also prevailed
with Alexandra to put to death the rest of those who had
irritated him against them. Now she was so superstitious as to
comply with their desires, and accordingly they slew whom they
pleased themselves. But the principal of those that were in
danger fled to Aristobulus, who persuaded his mother to spare the
men on account of their dignity, but to expel them out of the
city, unless she took them to be innocent; so they were suffered
to go unpunished, and were dispersed all over the country. But
when Alexandra sent out her army to Damascus, under pretense that
Ptolemy was always oppressing that city, she got possession of
it; nor did it make any considerable resistance. She also
prevailed with Tigranes, king of Armenia, who lay with his troops
about Ptolemais, and besieged Cleopatra, (5) by agreements and
presents, to go away. Accordingly, Tigranes soon arose from the
siege, by reason of those domestic tumults which happened upon
Lucullus's expedition into Armenia.

4. In the mean time, Alexandra fell sick, and Aristobulus, her
younger son, took hold of this opportunity, with his domestics,
of which he had a great many, who were all of them his friends,
on account of the warmth of their youth, and got possession of
all the fortresses. He also used the sums of money he found in
them to get together a number of mercenary soldiers, and made
himself king; and besides this, upon Hyrcanus's complaint to his
mother, she compassionated his case, and put Aristobulus's wife
and sons under restraint in Antonia, which was a fortress that
joined to the north part of the temple. It was, as I have already
said, of old called the Citadel; but afterwards got the name of
Antonia, when Antony was [lord of the East], just as the other
cities, Sebaste and Agrippias, had their names changed, and these
given them from Sebastus and Agrippa. But Alexandra died before
she could punish Aristobulus for his disinheriting his brother,
after she had reigned nine years.

CHAPTER 6.

When Hyrcanus Who Was Alexander's Heir, Receded From His Claim To
The Crown Aristobulus Is Made King; And Afterward The Same
Hyrcanus By The Means Of Antipater, Is Brought Back By Abetas. At
Last Pompey Is Made The Arbitrator Of The Dispute Between The
Brothers.

1. Now Hyrcanus was heir to the kingdom, and to him did his
mother commit it before she died; but Aristobulus was superior to
him in power and magnanimity; and when there was a battle between
them, to decide the dispute about the kingdom, near Jericho, the
greatest part deserted Hyrcanus, and went over to Aristobulus;
but Hyrcanus, with those of his party who staid with him, fled to
Antonia, and got into his power the hostages that might he for
his preservation (which were Aristobulus's wife, with her
children); but they came to an agreement before things should
come to extremities, that Aristobulus should be king, and
Hyrcanus should resign that up, but retain all the rest of his
dignities, as being the king's brother. Hereupon they were
reconciled to each other in the temple, and embraced one another
in a very kind manner, while the people stood round about them;
they also changed their houses, while Aristobulus went to the
royal palace, and Hyrcanus retired to the house of Aristobulus. 
2. Now those other people which were at variance with Aristobulus
were afraid upon his unexpected obtaining the government; and
especially this concerned Antipater (6) whom Aristobulus hated of
old. He was by birth an Idumean, and one of the principal of that
nation, on account of his ancestors and riches, and other
authority to him belonging: he also persuaded Hyrcanus to fly to
Aretas, the king of Arabia, and to lay claim to the kingdom; as
also he persuaded Aretas to receive Hyrcanus, and to bring him
back to his kingdom: he also cast great reproaches upon
Aristobulus, as to his morals, and gave great commendations to
Hyrcanus, and exhorted Aretas to receive him, and told him how
becoming a filing it would be for him, who ruled so great a
kingdom, to afford his assistance to such as are injured;
alleging that Hyrcanus was treated unjustly, by being deprived of
that dominion which belonged to him by the prerogative of his
birth. And when he had predisposed them both to do what he would
have them, he took Hyrcanus by night, and ran away from the city,
and, continuing his flight with great swiftness, he escaped to
the place called Petra, which is the royal seat of the king of
Arabia, where he put Hyrcanus into Aretas's hand; and by
discoursing much with him, and gaining upon him with many
presents, he prevailed with him to give him an army that might
restore him to his kingdom. This army consisted of fifty thousand
footmen and horsemen, against which Aristobulus was not able to
make resistance, but was deserted in his first onset, and was
driven to Jerusalem; he also had been taken at first by force, if
Scaurus, the Roman general, had not come and seasonably
interposed himself, and raised the siege. This Scaurus was sent
into Syria from Armenia by Pompey the Great, when he fought
against Tigranes; so Scaurus came to Damascus, which had been
lately taken by Metellus and Lollius, and caused them to leave
the place; and, upon his hearing how the affairs of Judea stood,
he made haste thither as to a certain booty.

3. As soon, therefore, as he was come into the country, there
came ambassadors from both the brothers, each of them desiring
his assistance; but Aristobulus's three hundred talents had more
weight with him than the justice of the cause; which sum, when
Scaurus had received, he sent a herald to Hyrcanus and the
Arabians, and threatened them with the resentment of the Romans
and of Pompey, unless they would raise the siege. So Aretas was
terrified, and retired out of Judea to Philadelphia, as did
Scaurus return to Damascus again; nor was Aristobulus satisfied
with escaping [out of his brother's hands,] but gathered all his
forces together, and pursued his enemies, and fought them at a
place called Papyron, and slew about six thousand of them, and,
together with them Antipater's brother Phalion.

4. When Hyrcanus and Antipater were thus deprived of their hopes
from the Arabians, they transferred the same to their
adversaries; and because Pompey had passed through Syria, and was
come to Damascus, they fled to him for assistance; and, without
any bribes,  they made the same equitable pleas that they had
used to Aretas, and besought him to hate the violent behavior of
Aristobulus, and to bestow the kingdom on him to whom it justly
belonged, both on account of his good character and on account of
his superiority in age. However, neither was Aristobulus wanting
to himself in this case, as relying on the bribes that Scaurus
had received: he was also there himself, and adorned himself
after a manner the most agreeable to royalty that he was able.
But he soon thought it beneath him to come in such a servile
manner, and could not endure to serve his own ends in a way so
much more abject than he was used to; so he departed from
Diospolis.

5. At this his behavior Pompey had great indignation; Hyrcanus
also and his friends made great intercessions to Pompey; so he
took not only his Roman forces, but many of his Syrian
auxiliaries, and marched against Aristobulus. But when he had
passed by Pella and Scythopolis, and was come to Corea, where you
enter into the country of Judea, when you go up to it through the
Mediterranean parts, he heard that Aristobulus was fled to
Alexandrium, which is a strong hold fortified with the utmost
magnificence, and situated upon a high mountain; and he sent to
him, and commanded him to come down. Now his inclination was to
try his fortune in a battle, since he was called in such an
imperious manner, rather than to comply with that call. However,
he saw the multitude were in great fear, and his friends exhorted
him to consider what the power of the Romans was, and how it was
irresistible; so he complied with their advice, and came down to
Pompey; and when he had made a long apology for himself, and for
the justness of his cause in taking the government, he returned
to the fortress. And when his brother invited him again [to plead
his cause], he came down and spake about the justice of it, and
then went away without any hinderance from Pompey; so he was
between hope and fear. And when he came down, it was to prevail
with Pompey to allow him the government entirely; and when he
went up to the citadel, it was that he might not appear to debase
himself too low. However, Pompey commanded him to give up his
fortified places, and forced him to write to every one of their
governors to yield them up; they having had this charge given
them, to obey no letters but what were of his own hand-writing.
Accordingly he did what he was ordered to do; but had still an
indignation at what was done, and retired to Jerusalem, and
prepared to fight with Pompey.

6. But Pompey did not give him time to make any preparations [for
a siege], but followed him at his heels; he was also obliged to
make haste in his attempt, by the death of Mithridates, of which
he was informed about Jericho. Now here is the most fruitful
country of Judea, which bears a vast number of palm trees (7)
besides the balsam tree, whose sprouts they cut with sharp
stones, and at the incisions they gather the juice, which drops
down like tears. So Pompey pitched his camp in that place one
night, and then hasted away the next morning to Jerusalem; but
Aristobulus was so aftrighted at his approach, that he came and
met him by way of supplication. He also promised him money, and
that he would deliver up both himself and the city into his
disposal, and thereby mitigated the anger of Pompey. Yet did not
he perform any of the conditions he had agreed to; for
Aristobulus's party would not so much as admit Gabinius into the
city, who was sent to receive the money that he had promised. 
CHAPTER 7.

How Pompey Had The City Of Jerusalem Delivered Up To Him But Took
The Temple By Force. How He Went Into The Holy Of Holies; As Also
What Were His Other Exploits In Judea.

1. At this treatment Pompey was very angry, and took Aristobulus
into custody. And when he was come to the city, he looked about
where he might make his attack; for he saw the walls were so
firm, that it would be hard to overcome them; and that the valley
before the walls was terrible; and that the temple, which was
within that valley, was itself encompassed with a very strong
wall, insomuch that if the city were taken, that temple would be
a second place of refuge for the enemy to retire to.

2. Now as be was long in deliberating about this matter, a
sedition arose among the people within the city; Aristobulus's
party being willing to fight, and to set their king at liberty,
while the party of Hyrcanus were for opening the gates to Pompey;
and the dread people were in occasioned these last to be a very
numerous party, when they looked upon the excellent order the
Roman soldiers were in. So Aristobulus's party was worsted, and
retired into the temple, and cut off the communication between
the temple and the city, by breaking down the bridge that joined
them together, and prepared to make an opposition to the utmost;
but as the others had received the Romans into the city, and had
delivered up the palace to him, Pompey sent Piso, one of his
great officers, into that palace with an army, who distributed a
garrison about the city, because he could not persuade any one of
those that had fled to the temple to come to terms of
accommodation; he then disposed all things that were round about
them so as might favor their attacks, as having Hyrcanus's party
very ready to afford them both counsel and assistance.

3. But Pompey himself filled up the ditch that was oil the north
side of the temple, and the entire valley also, the army itself
being obliged to carry the materials for that purpose. And indeed
it was a hard thing to fill up that valley, by reason of its
immense depth, especially as the Jews used all the means possible
to repel them from their superior situation; nor had the Romans
succeeded in their endeavors, had not Pompey taken notice of the
seventh days, on which the Jews abstain from all sorts of work on
a religious account, and raised his bank, but restrained his
soldiers from fighting on those days; for the Jews only acted
defensively on sabbath days. But as soon as Pompey had filled up
the valley, he erected high towers upon the bank, and brought
those engines which they had fetched from Tyre near to the wall,
and tried to batter it down; and the slingers of stones beat off
those that stood above them, and drove them away; but the towers
on this side of the city made very great resistance, and were
indeed extraordinary both for largeness and magnificence.

4. Now here it was that, upon the many hardships which the Romans
underwent, Pompey could not but admire not only at the other
instances of the Jews' fortitude, but especially that they did
not at all intermit their religious services, even when they were
encompassed with darts on all sides; for, as if the city were in
full peace, their daily sacrifices and purifications, and every
branch of their religious worship, was still performed to God
with the utmost exactness. Nor indeed when the temple was
actually taken, and they were every day slain about the altar,
did they leave off the instances of their Divine worship that
were appointed by their law; for it was in the third month of the
siege before the Romans could even with great difficulty
overthrow one of the towers, and get into the temple. Now he that
first of all ventured to get over the wall, was Faustus Cornelius
the son of Sylla; and next after him were two centurions, Furius
and Fabius; and every one of these was followed by a cohort of
his own, who encompassed the Jews on all sides, and slew them,
some of them as they were running for shelter to the temple, and
others as they, for a while, fought in their own defense.

5. And now did many of the priests, even when they saw their
enemies assailing them with swords in their hands, without any
disturbance, go on with their Divine worship, and were slain
while they were offering their drink-offerings, and burning their
incense, as preferring the duties about their worship to God
before their own preservation. The greatest part of them were
slain by their own countrymen, of the adverse faction, and an
innumerable multitude threw themselves down precipices; nay, some
there were who were so distracted among the insuperable
difficulties they were under, that they set fire to the buildings
that were near to the wall, and were burnt together with them.
Now of the Jews were slain twelve thousand; but of the Romans
very few were slain, but a greater number was wounded.

6. But there was nothing that affected the nation so much, in the
calamities they were then under, as that their holy place, which
had been hitherto seen by none, should be laid open to strangers;
for Pompey, and those that were about him, went into the temple
itself (8) whither it was not lawful for any to enter but the
high priest, and saw what was reposited therein, the candlestick
with its lamps, and the table, and the pouring vessels, and the
censers, all made entirely of gold, as also a great quantity of
spices heaped together, with two thousand talents of sacred
money. Yet did not he touch that money, nor any thing else that
was there reposited; but he commanded the ministers about the
temple, the very next day after he had taken it, to cleanse it,
and to perform their accustomed sacrifices. Moreover, he made
Hyrcanus high priest, as one that not only in other respects had
showed great alacrity, on his side, during the siege, but as he
had been the means of hindering the multitude that was in the
country from fighting for Aristobulus, which they were otherwise
very ready to have done; by which means he acted the part of a
good general, and reconciled the people to him more by
benevolence than by terror. Now, among the Captives,
Aristobulus's father-in-law was taken, who was also his uncle: so
those that were the most guilty he punished with decollatlon; but
rewarded Faustus, and those with him that had fought so bravely,
with glorious presents, and laid a tribute upon the country, and
upon Jerusalem itself.

7. He also took away from the nation all those cities that they
had formerly taken, and that belonged to Celesyria, and made them
subject to him that was at that time appointed to be the Roman
president there; and reduced Judea within its proper bounds. He
also rebuilt Gadara, (9) that had been demolished by the Jews, in
order to gratify one Demetrius, who was of Gadara, and was one of
his own freed-men. He also made other cities free from their
dominion, that lay in the midst of the country, such, I mean, as
they had not demolished before that time; Hippos, and
Scythopolis, as also Pella, and Samaria, and Marissa; and besides
these Ashdod, and Jamnia, and Arethusa; and in like manner dealt
he with the maritime cities, Gaza, and Joppa, and Dora, and that
which was anciently called Strato's Tower, but was afterward
rebuilt with the most magnificent edifices, and had its name
changed to Cesarea, by king Herod. All which he restored to their
own citizens, and put them under the province of Syria; which
province, together with Judea, and the countries as far as Egypt
and Euphrates, he committed to Scaurus as their governor, and
gave him two legions to support him; while he made all the haste
he could himself to go through Cilicia, in his way to Rome,
having Aristobulus and his children along with him as his
captives. They were two daughters and two sons; the one of which
sons, Alexander, ran away as he was going; but the younger,
Antigonus, with his sisters, were carried to Rome.

CHAPTER 8.

Alexander, The Son Of Aristobulus, Who Ran Away From Pompey,
Makes An Expedition Against Hyrcanus; But Being Overcome By
Gabinius He Delivers Up The Fortresses To Him. After This
Aristobulus Escapes From Rome And Gathers An Army Together; But
Being Beaten By The Romans, He Is Brought Back To Rome; With
Other Things Relating To Gabinius, Crassus And Cassius.

1. In the mean time, Scaurus made an expedition into Arabia, but
was stopped by the difficulty of the places about Petra. However,
he laid waste the country about Pella, though even there he was
under great hardship; for his army was afflicted with famine. In
order to supply which want, Hyrcanus afforded him some
assistance, and sent him provisions by the means of Antipater;
whom also Scaurus sent to Aretas, as one well acquainted with
him, to induce him to pay him money to buy his peace. The king of
Arabia complied with the proposal, and gave him three hundred
talents; upon which Scaurus drew his army out of Arabia (10) 
2. But as for Alexander, that son of Aristobulus who ran away
from Pompey, in some time he got a considerable band of men
together, and lay heavy upon Hyrcanus, and overran Judea, and was
likely to overturn him quickly; and indeed he had come to
Jerusalem, and had ventured to rebuild its wall that was thrown
down by Pompey, had not Gabinius, who was sent as successor to
Scaurus into Syria, showed his bravery, as in many other points,
so in making an expedition against Alexander; who, as he was
afraid that he would attack him, so he got together a large army,
composed of ten thousand armed footmen, and fifteen hundred
horsemen. He also built walls about proper places; Alexandrium,
and Hyrcanium, and Machorus, that lay upon the mountains of
Arabia.

3. However, Gabinius sent before him Marcus Antonius, and
followed himself with his whole army; but for the select body of
soldiers that were about Antipater, and another body of Jews
under the command of Malichus and Pitholaus, these joined
themselves to those captains that were about Marcus Antonius, and
met Alexander; to which body came Oabinius with his main army
soon afterward; and as Alexander was not able to sustain the
charge of the enemies' forces, now they were joined, he retired.
But when he was come near to Jerusalem, he was forced to fight,
and lost six thousand men in the battle; three thousand of which
fell down dead, and three thousand were taken alive; so he fled
with the remainder to Alexandrium.

4. Now when Gabinius was come to Alexandrium, because he found a
great many there en-camped, he tried, by promising them pardon
for their former offenses, to induce them to come over to him
before it came to a fight; but when they would hearken to no
terms of accommodation, he slew a great number of them, and shut
up a great number of them in the citadel. Now Marcus Antonius,
their leader, signalized himself in this battle, who, as he
always showed great courage, so did he never show it so much as
now; but Gabinius, leaving forces to take the citadel, went away
himself, and settled the cities that had not been demolished, and
rebuilt those that had been destroyed. Accordingly, upon his
injunctions, the following cities were restored: Scythopolis, and
Samaria, and Anthedon, and Apollonia, and Jamnia, and Raphia, and
Mariassa, and Adoreus, and Gamala, and Ashdod, and many others;
while a great number of men readily ran to each of them, and
became their inhabitants.

5. When Gabinius had taken care of these cities, he returned to
Alexandrium, and pressed on the siege. So when Alexander
despaired of ever obtaining the government, he sent ambassadors
to him, and prayed him to forgive what he had offended him in,
and gave up to him the remaining fortresses, Hyrcanium and
Macherus, as he put Alexandrium into his hands afterwards; all
which Gabinius demolished, at the persuasion of Alexander's
mother, that they might not be receptacles of men in a second
war. She was now there in order to mollify Gabinius, out of her
concern for her relations that were captives at Rome, which were
her husband and her other children. After this Gabinius brought
Hyrcanus to Jerusalem, and committed the care of the temple to
him; but ordained the other political government to be by an
aristocracy. He also parted the whole nation into five
conventions, assigning one portion to Jerusalem, another to
Gadara, that another should belong to Amathus, a fourth to
Jericho, and to the fifth division was allotted Sepphoris, a city
of Galilee. So the people were glad to be thus freed from
monarchical government, and were governed for the future by all
aristocracy.

6. Yet did Aristobulus afford another foundation for new
disturbances. He fled away from Rome, and got together again many
of the Jews that were desirous of a change, such as had borne an
affection to him of old; and when he had taken Alexandrium in the
first place, he attempted to build a wall about it; but as soon
as Gabinius had sent an army against him under Siscuria, and
Antonius, and Servilius, he was aware of it, and retreated to
Macherus. And as for the unprofitable multitude, he dismissed
them, and only marched on with those that were armed, being to
the number of eight thousand, among whom was Pitholaus, who had
been the lieutenant at Jerusalem, but deserted to Aristobulus
with a thousand of his men; so the Romans followed him, and when
it came to a battle, Aristobulus's party for a long time fought
courageously; but at length they were overborne by the Romans,
and of them five thousand fell down dead, and about two thousand
fled to a certain little hill, but the thousand that remained
with Aristobulus brake through the Roman army, and marched
together to Macherus; and when the king had lodged the first
night upon its ruins, he was in hopes of raising another army, if
the war would but cease a while; accordingly, he fortified that
strong hold, though it was done after a poor manner. But the
Romans falling upon him, he resisted, even beyond his abilities,
for two days, and then was taken, and brought a prisoner to
Gabinius, with Antigonus his son, who had fled away together with
him from Rome; and from Gabinius he was carried to Rome again.
Wherefore the senate put him under confinement, but returned his
children back to Judea, because Gabinius informed them by letters
that he had promised Aristobulus's mother to do so, for her
delivering the fortresses up to him.

7. But now as Gabinius was marching to the war against the
Parthians, he was hindered by Ptolemy, whom, upon his return from
Euphrates, he brought back into Egypt, making use of Hyrcanus and
Antipater to provide every thing that was necessary for this
expedition; for Antipater furnished him with money, and weapons,
and corn, and auxiliaries; he also prevailed with the Jews that
were there, and guarded the avenues at Pelusium, to let them
pass. But now, upon Gabinius's absence, the other part of Syria
was in motion, and Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, brought the
Jews to revolt again. Accordingly, he got together a very great
army, and set about killing all the Romans that were in the
country; hereupon Gabinius was afraid, (for he was come back
already out of Egypt, and obliged to come back quickly by these
tumults,) and sent Antipater, who prevailed with some of the
revolters to be quiet. However, thirty thousand still continued
with Alexander, who was himself eager to fight also; accordingly,
Gabinius went out to fight, when the Jews met him; and as the
battle was fought near Mount Tabor, ten thousand of them were
slain, and the rest of the multitude dispersed themselves, and
fled away. So Gabinius came to Jerusalem, and settled the
government as Antipater would have it; thence he marched, and
fought and beat the Nabateans: as for Mithridates and Orsanes,
who fled out of Parthin, he sent them away privately, but gave it
out among the soldiers that they had run away.

8. In the mean time, Crassus came as successor to Gabinius in
Syria. He took away all the rest of the gold belonging to the
temple of Jerusalem, in order to furnish himself for his
expedition against the Parthians. He also took away the two
thousand talents which Pompey had not touched; but when he had
passed over Euphrates, he perished himself, and his army with
him; concerning which affairs this is not a proper time to speak
[more largely].

9. But now Cassius, after Crassus, put a stop to the Parthians,
who were marching in order to enter Syria. Cassius had fled into
that province, and when he had taken possession of the same, he
made a hasty march into Judea; and, upon his taking Taricheae, he
carried thirty thousand Jews into slavery. He also slew
Pitholaus, who had supported the seditious followers of
Aristobulus; and it was Antipater who advised him so to do. Now
this Antipater married a wife of an eminent family among the
Arabisus, whose name was Cypros, and had four sons born to him by
her, Phasaelus and Herod, who was afterwards king, and, besides
these, Joseph and Pheroras; and he had a daughter whose name was
Salome. Now as he made himself friends among the men of power
every where, by the kind offices he did them, and the hospitable
manner that he treated them; so did he contract the greatest
friendship with the king of Arabia, by marrying his relation;
insomuch that when he made war with Aristobulus, he sent and
intrusted his children with him. So when Cassius had forced
Alexander to come to terms and to be quiet, he returned to
Euphrates, in order to prevent the Parthians from repassing it;
concerning which matter we shall speak elsewhere. (11)

CHAPTER 9.

Aristobulus Is Taken Off By Pompey's Friends, As Is His Son
Alexander By Scipio. Antipater Cultivates A Friendship With
Caesar, After Pompey's Death; He Also Performs Great Actions In
That War, Wherein He Assisted Mithridates.

1. Now, upon the flight of Pompey and of the senate beyond the
Ionian Sea, Caesar got Rome and the empire under his power, and
released Aristobulus from his bonds. He also committed two
legions to him, and sent him in haste into Syria, as hoping that
by his means he should easily conquer that country, and the parts
adjoining to Judea. But envy prevented any effect of
Aristobulus's alacrity, and the hopes of Caesar; for he was taken
off by poison given him by those of Pompey's party; and, for a
long while, he had not so much as a burial vouchsafed him in his
own country; but his dead body lay [above ground], preserved in
honey, until it was sent to the Jews by Antony, in order to be
buried in the royal sepulchers.

2. His son Alexander also was beheaded by Sci-pio at Antioch, and
that by the command of Pompey, and upon an accusation laid
against him before his tribunal, for the mischiefs he had done to
the Romans. But Ptolemy, the son of Menneus, who was then ruler
of Chalcis, under Libanus, took his brethren to him by sending
his son Philippio for them to Ascalon, who took Antigonus, as
well as his sisters, away from Aristobulus's wife, and brought
them to his father; and falling in love with the younger
daughter, he married her, and was afterwards slain by his father
on her account; for Ptolemy himself, after he had slain his son,
married her, whose name was Alexandra; on the account of which
marriage he took the greater care of her brother and sister. 
3. Now, after Pompey was dead, Antipater changed sides, and
cultivated a friendship with Caesar. And since Mithridates of
Pergamus, with the forces he led against Egypt, was excluded from
the avenues about Pelusium, and was forced to stay at Asealon, he
persuaded the Arabians, among whom he had lived, to assist him,
and came himself to him, at the head of three thousand armed men.
He also encouraged the men of power in Syria to come to his
assistance, as also of the inhabitants of Libanus, Ptolemy, and
Jamblicus, and another Ptolemy; by which means the cities of that
country came readily into this war; insomuch that Mithridates
ventured now, in dependence upon the additional strength that he
had gotten by Antipater, to march forward to Pelusium; and when
they refused him a passage through it, he besieged the city; in
the attack of which place Antipater principally signalized
himself, for he brought down that part of the wall which was over
against him, and leaped first of all into the city, with the men
that were about him.

4. Thus was Pelusium taken. But still, as they were marching on,
those Egyptian Jews that inhabited the country called the country
of Onias stopped them. Then did Antipater not only persuade them
not to stop them, but to afford provisions for their army; on
which account even the people about Memphis would not fight
against them, but of their own accord joined Mithridates.
Whereupon he went round about Delta, and fought the rest of the
Egyptians at a place called the Jews' Camp; nay, when he was in
danger in the battle with all his right wing, Antipater wheeled
about, and came along the bank of the river to him; for he had
beaten those that opposed him as he led the left wing. After
which success he fell upon those that pursued Mithridates, and
slew a great many of them, and pursued the remainder so far that
he took their camp, while he lost no more than fourscore of his
own men; as Mithridates lost, during the pursuit that was made
after him, about eight hundred. He was also himself saved
unexpectedly, and became an unreproachable witness to Caesar of
the great actions of Antipater.

5. Whereupon Caesar encouraged Antipater to undertake other
hazardous enterprises for him, and that by giving him great
commendations and hopes of reward. In all which enterprises he
readily exposed himself to many dangers, and became a most
courageous warrior; and had many wounds almost all over his body,
as demonstrations of his valor. And when Caesar had settled the
affairs of Egypt, and was returning into Syria again, he gave him
the privilege of a Roman citizen, and freedom from taxes, and
rendered him an object of admiration by the honors and marks of
friendship he bestowed upon him. On this account it was that he
also confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood.

CHAPTER 10.

Caesar Makes Antipater Procurator Of Judea; As Does Antipater
Appoint Phasaelus To Be Governor Of Jerusalem, And Herod Governor
Of Galilee; Who, In Some Time, Was Called To Answer For Himself
[Before The Sanhedrim], Where He Is Acquitted. Sextus Caesar Is
Treacherously Killed By Bassus And Is Succeeded By Marcus. 
1. About this time it was that Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus,
came to Caesar, and became, in a surprising manner, the occasion
of Antipater's further advancement; for whereas he ought to have
lamented that his father appeared to have been poisoned on
account of his quarrels with Pompey, and to have complained of
Scipio's barbarity towards his brother, and not to mix any
invidious passion when he was suing for mercy; besides those
things, he came before Caesar, and accused Hyrcanus and
Antipater, how they had driven him and his brethren entirely out
of their native country, and had acted in a great many instances
unjustly and extravagantly with relation to their nation; and
that as to the assistance they had sent him into Egypt, it was
not done out of good-will to him, but out of the fear they were
in from former quarrels, and in order to gain pardon for their
friendship to [his enemy] Pompey.

2. Hereupon Antipater threw away his garments, and showed the
multitude of the wounds he had, and said, that as to his
good-will to Caesar, he had no occasion to say a word, because
his body cried aloud, though he said nothing himself; that he
wondered at Antigonus's boldness, while he was himself no other
than the son of an enemy to the Romans, and of a fugitive, and
had it by inheritance from his father to be fond of innovations
and seditions, that he should undertake to accuse other men
before the Roman governor, and endeavor to gain some advantages
to himself, when he ought to be contented that he was suffered to
live; for that the reason of his desire of governing public
affairs was not so much because he was in want of it, but
because, if he could once obtain the same, he might stir up a
sedition among the Jews, and use what he should gain from the
Romans to the disservice of those that gave it him.

3. When Caesar heard this, he declared Hyrcanus to be the most
worthy of the high priesthood, and gave leave to Antipater to
choose what authority he pleased; but he left the determination
of such dignity to him that bestowed the dignity upon him; so he
was constituted procurator of all Judea, and obtained leave,
moreover, to rebuild (12) those walls of his country that had
been thrown down. These honorary grants Caesar sent orders to
have engraved in the Capitol, that they might stand there as
indications of his own justice, and of the virtue of Antipater. 
4. But as soon as Antipater had conducted Caesar out of Syria he
returned to Judea, and the first thing he did was to rebuild that
wall of his own country [Jerusalem] which Pompey had overthrown,
and then to go over the country, and to quiet the tumults that
were therein; where he partly threatened, and partly advised,
every one, and told them that in case they would submit to
Hyrcanus, they would live happily and peaceably, and enjoy what
they possessed, and that with universal peace and quietness; but
that in case they hearkened to such as had some frigid hopes by
raising new troubles to get themselves some gain, they should
then find him to be their lord instead of their procurator; and
find Hyrcanus to be a tyrant instead of a king; and both the
Romans and Caesar to be their enemies, instead of rulers; for
that they would not suffer him to be removed from the government,
whom they had made their governor. And, at the same time that he
said this, he settled the affairs of the country by himself,
because he saw that Hyrcanus was inactive, and not fit to manage
the affairs of the kingdom. So he constituted his eldest son,
Phasaelus, governor of Jerusalem, and of the parts about it; he
also sent his next son, Herod, who was very young, (13) with
equal authority into Galilee.

5. Now Herod was an active man, and soon found proper materials
for his active spirit to work upon. As therefore he found that
Hezekias, the head of the robbers, ran over the neighboring parts
of Syria with a great band of men, he caught him and slew him,
and many more of the robbers with him; which exploit was chiefly
grateful to the Syrians, insomuch that hymns were sung in Herod's
commendation, both in the villages and in the cities, as having
procured their quietness, and having preserved what they
possessed to them; on which occasion he became acquainted with
Sextus Caesar, a kinsman of the great Caesar, and president of
Syria. A just emulation of his glorious actions excited Phasaelus
also to imitate him. Accordingly, he procured the good-will of
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, by his own management of the city
affairs, and did not abuse his power in any disagreeable manner;
whence it came to pass that the nation paid Antipater the
respects that were due only to a king, and the honors they all
yielded him were equal to the honors due to an absolute lord; yet
did he not abate any part of that good-will or fidelity which he
owed to Hyrcanus.

6. However, he found it impossible to escape envy in such his
prosperity; for the glory of these young men affected even
Hyrcanus himself already privately, though he said nothing of it
to any body; but what he principally was grieved at was the great
actions of Herod, and that so many messengers came one before
another, and informed him of the great reputation he got in all
his undertakings. There were also many people in the royal palace
itself who inflamed his envy at him; those, I mean, who were
obstructed in their designs by the prudence either of the young
men, or of Antipater. These men said, that by committing the
public affairs to the management of Antipater and of his sons, he
sat down with nothing but the bare name of a king, without any of
its authority; and they asked him how long he would so far
mistake himself, as to breed up kings against his own interest;
for that they did not now conceal their government of affairs any
longer, but were plainly lords of the nation, and had thrust him
out of his authority; that this was the case when Herod slew so
many men without his giving him any command to do it, either by
word of mouth, or by his letter, and this in contradiction to the
law of the Jews; who therefore, in case he be not a king, but a
private man, still ought to come to his trial, and answer it to
him, and to the laws of his country, which do not permit any one
to be killed till he hath been condemned in judgment.

7. Now Hyrcanus was, by degrees, inflamed with these discourses,
and at length could bear no longer, but he summoned Herod to take
his trial. Accordingly, by his father's advice, and as soon as
the affairs of Galilee would give him leave, he came up to
[Jerusalem], when he had first placed garrisons in Galilee;
however, he came with a sufficient body of soldiers, so many
indeed that he might not appear to have with him an army able to
overthrow Hyrcanus's government, nor yet so few as to expose him
to the insults of those that envied him. However, Sextus Caesar
was in fear for the young man, lest he should be taken by his
enemies, and brought to punishment; so he sent some to denounce
expressly to Hyrcanus that he should acquit Herod of the capital
charge against him; who acquitted him accordingly, as being
otherwise inclined also so to do, for he loved Herod.

8. But Herod, supposing that he had escaped punishment without
the consent of the king, retired to Sextus, to Damascus, and got
every thing ready, in order not to obey him if he should summon
him again; whereupon those that were evil-disposed irritated
Hyrcanus, and told him that Herod was gone away in anger, and was
prepared to make war upon him; and as the king believed what they
said, he knew not what to do, since he saw his antagonist was
stronger than he was himself. And now, since Herod was made
general of Coelesyria and Samaria by Sextus Caesar, he was
formidable, not only from the good-will which the nation bore
him, but by the power he himself had; insomuch that Hyrcanus fell
into the utmost degree of terror, and expected he would presently
march against him with his army.

9. Nor was he mistaken in the conjecture he made; for Herod got
his army together, out of the anger he bare him for his
threatening him with the accusation in a public court, and led it
to Jerusalem, in order to throw Hyrcanus down from his kingdom;
and this he had soon done, unless his father and brother had gone
out together and broken the force of his fury, and this by
exhorting him to carry his revenge no further than to threatening
and affrighting, but to spare the king, under whom he had been
advanced to such a degree of power; and that he ought not to be
so much provoked at his being tried, as to forget to be thankful
that he was acquitted; nor so long to think upon what was of a
melancholy nature, as to be ungrateful for his deliverance; and
if we ought to reckon that God is the arbitrator of success in
war, an unjust cause is of more disadvantage than an army can be
of advantage; and that therefore he ought not to be entirely
confident of success in a case where he is to fight against his
king, his supporter, and one that had often been his benefactor,
and that had never been severe to him, any otherwise than as he
had hearkened to evil counselors, and this no further than by
bringing a shadow of injustice upon him. So Herod was prevailed
upon by these arguments, and supposed that what he had already
done was sufficient for his future hopes, and that he had enough
shown his power to the nation.

10. In the mean time, there was a disturbance among the Romans
about Apamia, and a civil war occasioned by the treacherous
slaughter of Sextus Caesar, by Cecilius Bassus, which he
perpetrated out of his good-will to Pompey; he also took the
authority over his forces; but as the rest of Caesar's commanders
attacked Bassus with their whole army, in order to punish him for
the murder of Caesar, Antipater also sent them assistance by his
sons, both on account of him that was murdered, and on account of
that Caesar who was still alive, both of which were their
friends; and as this war grew to be of a considerable length,
Marcus came out of Italy as successor to Sextus.

CHAPTER 11.

Herod Is Made Procurator Of All Syria; Malichus Is Afraid Of Him,
And Takes Antipater Off By Poison; Whereupon The Tribunes Of The
Soldiers Are Prevailed With To Kill Him.

1. There, was at this time a mighty war raised among the Romans
upon the sudden and treacherous slaughter of Caesar by Cassius
and Brutus, after he had held the government for three years and
seven months. (14) Upon this murder there were very great
agitations, and the great men were mightily at difference one
with another, and every one betook himself to that party where
they had the greatest hopes of their own, of advancing
themselves. Accordingly, Cassius came into Syria, in order to
receive the forces that were at Apamia, where he procured a
reconciliation between Bassus and Marcus, and the legions which
were at difference with him; so he raised the siege of Apamia,
and took upon him the command of the army, and went about
exacting tribute of the cities, and demanding their money to such
a degree as they were not able to bear.

2. So he gave command that the Jews should bring in seven hundred
talents; whereupon Antipater, out of his dread of Cassius's
threats, parted the raising of this sum among his sons, and among
others of his acquaintance, and to be done immediately; and among
them he required one Malichus, who was at enmity with him, to do
his part also, which necessity forced him to do. Now Herod, in
the first place, mitigated the passion of Cassius, by bringing
his share out of Galilee, which was a hundred talents, on which
account he was in the highest favor with him; and when he
reproached the rest for being tardy, he was angry at the cities
themselves; so he made slaves of Gophna and Emmaus, and two
others of less note; nay, he proceeded as if he would kill
Malichus, because he had not made greater haste in exacting his
tribute; but Antipater prevented the ruin of this man, and of the
other cities, and got into Cassius's favor by bringing in a
hundred talents immediately. (15)

3. However, when Cassius was gone Malichus forgot the kindness
that Antipater had done him, and laid frequent plots against him
that had saved him, as making haste to get him out of the way,
who was an obstacle to his wicked practices; but Antipater was so
much afraid of the power and cunning of the man, that he went
beyond Jordan, in order to get an army to guard himself against
his treacherous designs; but when Malichus was caught in his
plot, he put upon Antipater's sons by his impudence, for he
thoroughly deluded Phasaelus, who was the guardian of Jerusalem,
and Herod who was intrusted with the weapons of war, and this by
a great many excuses and oaths, and persuaded them to procure his
reconciliation to his father. Thus was he preserved again by
Antipater, who dissuaded Marcus, the then president of Syria,
from his resolution of killing Malichus, on account of his
attempts for innovation.

4. Upon the war between Cassius and Brutus on one side, against
the younger Caesar [Augustus] and Antony on the other, Cassius
and Marcus got together an army out of Syria; and because Herod
was likely to have a great share in providing necessaries, they
then made him procurator of all Syria, and gave him an army of
foot and horse. Cassius premised him also, that after the war was
over, he would make him king of Judea. But it so happened that
the power and hopes of his son became the cause of his perdition;
for as Malichus was afraid of this, he corrupted one of the
king's cup-bearers with money to give a poisoned potion to
Antipater; so he became a sacrifice to Malichus's wickedness, and
died at a feast. He was a man in other respects active in the
management of affairs, and one that recovered the government to
Hyrcanus, and preserved it in his hands.

5. However, Malichus, when lie was suspected ef poisoning
Antipater, and when the multitude was angry with him for it,
denied it, and made the people believe he was not guilty. He also
prepared to make a greater figure, and raised soldiers; for he
did not suppose that Herod would be quiet, who indeed came upon
him with an army presently, in order to revenge his father's
death; but, upon hearing the advice of his brother Phasaelus, not
to punish him in an open manner, lest the multitude should fall
into a sedition, he admitted of Malichus's apology, and professed
that he cleared him of that suspicion; he also made a pompous
funeral for his father.

6. So Herod went to Samaria, which was then in a tumult, and
settled the city in peace; after which at the [Pentecost]
festival, he returned to Jerusalem, having his armed men with
him: hereupon Hyrcanus, at the request of Malichus, who feared
his reproach, forbade them to introduce foreigners to mix
themselves with the people of the country while they were
purifying themselves; but Herod despised the pretense, and him
that gave that command, and came in by night. Upon which Malithus
came to him, and bewailed Antipater; Herod also made him believe
[he admitted of his lamentations as real], although he had much
ado to restrain his passion at him; however, he did himself
bewail the murder of his father in his letters to Cassius, who,
on other accounts, also hated Malichus. Cassius sent him word
back that he should avenge his father's death upon him, and
privately gave order to the tribunes that were under him, that
they should assist Herod in a righteous action he was about. 
7. And because, upon the taking of Laodicea by Cassius, the men
of power were gotten together from all quarters, with presents
and crowns in their hands, Herod allotted this time for the
punishment of Malichus. When Malichus suspected that, and was at
Tyre, he resolved to withdraw his son privately from among the
Tyrians, who was a hostage there, while he got ready to fly away
into Judea; the despair he was in of escaping excited him to
think of greater things; for he hoped that he should raise the
nation to a revolt from the Romans, while Cassius was busy about
the war against Antony, and that he should easily depose
Hyrcanus, and get the crown for himself.

8. But fate laughed at the hopes he had; for Herod foresaw what
he was so zealous about, and invited both Hyrcanus and him to
supper; but calling one of the principal servants that stood by
him to him, he sent him out, as though it were to get things
ready for supper, but in reality to give notice beforehand about
the plot that was laid against him; accordingly they called to
mind what orders Cassius had given them, and went out of the city
with their swords in their hands upon the sea-shore, where they
encompassed Malichus round about, and killed him with many
wounds. Upon which Hyrcanus was immediately aftrighted, till he
swooned away and fell down at the surprise he was in; and it was
with difficulty that he was recovered, when he asked who it was
that had killed Malichus. And when one of the tribunes replied
that it was done by the command of Cassius," Then," said he,
"Cassius hath saved both me and my country, by cutting off one
that was laying plots against them both." Whether he spake
according to his own sentiments, or whether his fear was such
that he was obliged to commend the action by saying so, is
uncertain; however, by this method Herod inflicted punishment
upon Malichus.

CHAPTER 12.

Phasaelus Is Too Hard For Felix; Herod Also Overcomes Antigonus
In Rattle; And The Jews Accuse Both Herod And Phasaelus But
Antonius Acquits Them, And Makes Them Tetrarchs.

1. When Cassius was gone out of Syria, another sedition arose at
Jerusalem, wherein Felix assaulted Phasaelus with an army, that
he might revenge the death of Malichus upon Herod, by falling
upon his brother. Now Herod happened then to be with Fabius, the
governor of Damascus, and as he was going to his brother's
assistance, he was detained by sickness; in the mean time,
Phasaelus was by himself too hard for Felix, and reproached
Hyrcanus on account of his ingratitude, both for what assistance
he had afforded Maliehus, and for overlooking Malichus's brother,
when he possessed himself of the fortresses; for he had gotten a
great many of them already, and among them the strongest of them
all, Masada.

2. However, nothing could be sufficient for him against the force
of Herod, who, as soon as he was recovered, took the other
fortresses again, and drove him out of Masada in the posture of a
supplicant; he also drove away Marion, the tyrant of the Tyrians,
out of Galilee, when he had already possessed himself of three
fortified places; but as to those Tyrians whom he had caught, he
preserved them all alive; nay, some of them he gave presents to,
and so sent them away, and thereby procured good-will to himself
from the city, and hatred to the tyrant. Marion had indeed
obtained that tyrannical power of Cassius, who set tyrants over
all Syria (16) and out of hatred to Herod it was that he assisted
Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, and principally on Fabius's
account, whom Antigonus had made his assistant by money, and had
him accordingly on his side when he made his descent; but it was
Ptolemy, the kinsman of Antigonus, that supplied all that he
wanted.

3. When Herod had fought against these in the avenues of Judea,
he was conqueror in the battle, and drove away Antigonus, and
returned to Jerusalem, beloved by every body for the glorious
action he had done; for those who did not before favor him did
join themselves to him now, because of his marriage into the
family of Hyrcanus; for as he had formerly married a wife out of
his own country of no ignoble blood, who was called Doris, of
whom he begat Antipater; so did he now marry Mariamne, the
daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, and the
granddaughter of Hyrcanus, and was become thereby a relation of
the king.

4. But when Caesar and Antony had slain Cassius near Philippi,
and Caesar was gone to Italy, and Antony to Asia, amongst the
rest of the cities which sent ambassadors to Antony unto
Bithynia, the great men of the Jews came also, and accused
Phasaelus and Herod, that they kept the government by force, and
that Hyrcanus had no more than an honorable name. Herod appeared
ready to answer this accusation; and having made Antony his
friend by the large sums of money which he gave him, he brought
him to such a temper as not to hear the others speak against him;
and thus did they part at this time.

5. However, after this, there came a hundred of the principal men
among the Jews to Daphne by Antioch to Antony, who was already in
love with Cleopatra to the degree of slavery; these Jews put
those men that were the most potent, both in dignity and
eloquence, foremost, and accused the brethren. (17) But Messala
opposed them, and defended the brethren, and that while Hyrcanus
stood by him, on account of his relation to them. When Antony had
heard both sides, he asked Hyrcanus which party was the fittest
to govern, who replied that Herod and his party were the fittest.
Antony was glad of that answer, for he had been formerly treated
in an hospitable and obliging manner by his father Antipater,
when he marched into Judea with Gabinius; so he constituted the
brethren tetrarchs, and committed to them the government of
Judea.

6. But when the ambassadors had indignation at this procedure,
Antony took fifteen of them, and put them into custody, whom he
was also going to kill presently, and the rest he drove away with
disgrace; on which occasion a still greater tumult arose at
Jerusalem; so they sent again a thousand ambassadors to Tyre,
where Antony now abode, as he was marching to Jerusalem; upon
these men who made a clamor he sent out the governor of Tyre, and
ordered him to punish all that he could catch of them, and to
settle those in the administration whom he had made tetrarchs. 
7. But before this Herod, and Hyrcanus went out upon the
sea-shore, and earnestly desired of these ambassadors that they
would neither bring ruin upon themselves, nor war upon their
native country, by their rash contentions; and when they grew
still more outrageous, Antony sent out armed men, and slew a
great many, and wounded more of them; of whom those that were
slain were buried by Hyrcanus, as were the wounded put under the
care of physicians by him; yet would not those that had escaped
be quiet still, but put the affairs of the city into such
disorder, and so provoked Antony, that he slew those whom he had
in bonds also.

CHAPTER 13.

The Parthians Bring Antigonus Back Into Judea, And Cast Hyrcanus
And Phasaelus Into Prison. The Flight Of Herod, And The Taking Of
Jerusalem And What Hyrcanus And Phasaelus Suffered.

1. Now two years afterward, when Barzapharnes, a governor among
the Parthians, and Paeorus, the king's son, had possessed
themselves of Syria, and when Lysanias had already succeeded upon
the death of his father Ptolemy, the son of Menneus, in the
government [of Chalcis], he prevailed with the governor, by a
promise of a thousand talents, and five hundred women, to bring
back Antigonus to his kingdom, and to turn Hyrcanus out of it.
Pacorus was by these means induced so to do, and marched along
the sea-coast, while he ordered Barzapharnes to fall upon the
Jews as he went along the Mediterranean part of the country; but
of the maritime people, the Tyrians would not receive Pacorus,
although those of Ptolemais and Sidon had received him; so he
committed a troop of his horse to a certain cup-bearer belonging
to the royal family, of his own name [Pacorus], and gave him
orders to march into Judea, in order to learn the state of
affairs among their enemies, and to help Antigonus when he should
want his assistance.

2. Now as these men were ravaging Carmel, many of the Jews ran
together to Antigonus, and showed themselves ready to make an
incursion into the country; so he sent them before into that
place called Drymus, [the woodland (18) ] to seize upon the
place; whereupon a battle was fought between them, and they drove
the enemy away, and pursued them, and ran after them as far as
Jerusalem, and as their numbers increased, they proceeded as far
as the king's palace; but as Hyrcanus and Phasaelus received them
with a strong body of men, there happened a battle in the
market-place, in which Herod's party beat the enemy, and shut
them up in the temple, and set sixty men in the houses adjoining
as a guard to them. But the people that were tumultuous against
the brethren came in, and burnt those men; while Herod, in his
rage for killing them, attacked and slew many of the people, till
one party made incursions on the other by turns, day by day, in
the way of ambushes, and slaughters were made continually among
them.

3. Now when that festival which we call Pentecost was at hand,
all the places about the temple, and the whole city, was full of
a multitude of people that were come out of the country, and
which were the greatest part of them armed also, at which time
Phasaelus guarded the wall, and Herod, with a few, guarded the
royal palace; and when he made an assault upon his enemies, as
they were out of their ranks, on the north quarter of the city,
he slew a very great number of them, and put them all to flight;
and some of them he shut up within the city, and others within
the outward rampart. In the mean time, Antigonus desired that
Pacorus might be admitted to be a reconciler between them; and
Phasaelus was prevailed upon to admit the Parthian into the city
with five hundred horse, and to treat him in an hospitable
manner, who pretended that he came to quell the tumult, but in
reality he came to assist Antigonus; however, he laid a plot for
Phasaelus, and persuaded him to go as an ambassador to
Barzapharnes, in order to put an end to the war, although Herod
was very earnest with him to the contrary, and exhorted him to
kill the plotter, but not expose himself to the snares he had
laid for him, because the barbarians are naturally perfidious.
However, Pacorus went out and took Hyrcanus with him, that he
might be the less suspected; he also (19) left some of the
horsemen, called the Freemen, with Herod, and conducted Phasaelus
with the rest.

4. But now, when they were come to Galilee, they found that the
people of that country had revolted, and were in arms, who came
very cunningly to their leader, and besought him to conceal his
treacherous intentions by an obliging behavior to them;
accordingly, he at first made them presents; and afterward, as
they went away, laid ambushes for them; and when they were come
to one of the maritime cities called Ecdippon, they perceived
that a plot was laid for them; for they were there informed of
the promise of a thousand talents, and how Antigonus had devoted
the greatest number of the women that were there with them, among
the five hundred, to the Parthians; they also perceived that an
ambush was always laid for them by the barbarians in the night
time; they had also been seized on before this, unless they had
waited for the seizure of Herod first at Jerusalem, because if he
were once informed of this treachery of theirs, he would take
care of himself; nor was this a mere report, but they saw the
guards already not far off them.

5. Nor would Phasaelus think of forsaking Hyrcanus and flying
away, although Ophellius earnestly persuaded him to it; for this
man had learned the whole scheme of the plot from Saramalla, the
richest of all the Syrians. But Phasaelus went up to the
Parfilian governor, and reproached him to his face for laying
this treacherous plot against them, and chiefly because he had
done it for money; and he promised him that he would give him
more money for their preservation, than Antigonus had promised to
give for the kingdom. But the sly Parthian endeavored to remove
all this suspicion by apologies and by oaths, and then went [to
the other] Pacorus; immediately after which those Parthians who
were left, and had it in charge, seized upon Phasaelus and
Hyrcanus, who could do no more than curse their perfidiousness
and their perjury.

6. In the mean time, the cup-bearer was sent [back], and laid a
plot how to seize upon Herod, by deluding him, and getting him
out of the city, as he was commanded to do. But Herod suspected
the barbarians from the beginning; and having then received
intelligence that a messenger, who was to bring him the letters
that informed him of the treachery intended, had fallen among the
enemy, he would not go out of the city; though Pacorus said very
positively that he ought to go out, and meet the messengers that
brought the letters, for that the enemy had not taken them, and
that the contents of them were not accounts of any plots upon
them, but of what Phasaelus had done; yet had he heard from
others that his brother was seized; and Alexandra (20) the
shrewdest woman in the world, Hyrcanus's daughter, begged of him
that he would not go out, nor trust himself to those barbarians,
who now were come to make an attempt upon him openly.

7. Now as Pacorus and his friends were considering how they might
bring their plot to bear privately, because it was not possible
to circumvent a man of so great prudence by openly attacking him,
Herod prevented them, and went off with the persons that were the
most nearly related to him by night, and this without their
enemies being apprized of it. But as soon as the Parthians
perceived it, they pursued after them; and as he gave orders for
his mother, and sister, and the young woman who was betrothed to
him, with her mother, and his youngest brother, to make the best
of their way, he himself, with his servants, took all the care
they could to keep off the barbarians; and when at every assault
he had slain a great many of them, he came to the strong hold of
Masada.

8. Nay, he found by experience that the Jews fell more heavily
upon him than did the Parthians, and created him troubles
perpetually, and this ever since he was gotten sixty furlongs
from the city; these sometimes brought it to a sort of a regular
battle. Now in the place where Herod beat them, and killed a
great number of them, there he afterward built a citadel, in
memory of the great actions he did there, and adorned it with the
most costly palaces, and erected very strong fortifications, and
called it, from his own name, Herodium. Now as they were in their
flight, many joined themselves to him every day; and at a place
called Thressa of Idumea his brother Joseph met him, and advised
him to ease himself of a great number of his followers, because
Masada would not contain so great a multitude, which were above
nine thousand. Herod complied with this advice, and sent away the
most cumbersome part of his retinue, that they might go into
Idumea, and gave them provisions for their journey; but he got
safe to the fortress with his nearest relations, and retained
with him only the stoutest of his followers; and there it was
that he left eight hundred of his men as a guard for the women,
and provisions sufficient for a siege; but he made haste himself
to Petra of Arabia.

9. As for the Parthians in Jerusalem, they betook themselves to
plundering, and fell upon the houses of those that were fled, and
upon the king's palace, and spared nothing but Hyrcanus's money,
which was not above three hundred talents. They lighted on other
men's money also, but not so much as they hoped for; for Herod
having a long while had a suspicion of the perfidiousness of the
barbarians, had taken care to have what was most splendid among
his treasures conveyed into Idumea, as every one belonging to him
had in like manner done also. But the Parthians proceeded to that
degree of injustice, as to fill all the country with war without
denouncing it, and to demolish the city Marissa, and not only to
set up Antigonus for king, but to deliver Phasaelus and Hyrcanus
bound into his. hands, in order to their being tormented by him.
Antigonus himself also bit off Hyrcanus's ears with his own
teeth, as he fell down upon his knees to him, that so he might
never be able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high
priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated were to be
complete, and without blemish.

10. However, he failed in his purpose of abusing Phasaelus, by
reason of his courage; for though he neither had the command of
his sword nor of his hands, he prevented all abuses by dashing
his head against a stone; so he demonstrated himself to be
Herod's own brother, and Hyrcanus a most degenerate relation, and
died with great bravery, and made the end of his life agreeable
to the actions of it. There is also another report about his end,
viz. that he recovered of that stroke, and that a surgeon, who
was sent by Antigonus to heal him, filled the wound with
poisonous ingredients, and so killed him; whichsoever of these
deaths he came to, the beginning of it was glorious. It is also
reported that before he expired he was informed by a certain poor
woman how Herod had escaped out of their hands, and that he said
thereupon, "I now die with comfort, since I leave behind me one
alive that will avenge me of mine enemies."

11. This was the death of Phasaelus; but the Parthians, although
they had failed of the women they chiefly desired, yet did they
put the government of Jerusalem into the hands of Antigonus, and
took away Hyrcanus, and bound him, and carried him to Parthia. 
CHAPTER 14.

When Herod Is Rejected In Arabia, He Makes Haste To Rome Where
Antony And Caesar Join Their Interest To Make Him King .

1. Now Herod did the more zealously pursue his journey into
Arabia, as making haste to get money of the king, while his
brother was yet alive; by which money alone it was that he hoped
to prevail upon the covetous temper of the barbarians to spare
Phasaelus; for he reasoned thus with himself,: - that if the
Arabian king was too forgetful of his father's friendship with
him, and was too covetous to make him a free gift, he would
however borrow of him as much as might redeem his brother, and
put into his hands, as a pledge, the son of him that was to be
redeemed. Accordingly he led his brother's son along with him,
who was of the age of seven years. Now he was ready to give three
hundred talents for his brother, and intended to desire the
intercession of the Tyrians, to get them accepted; however, fate
had been too quick for his diligence; and since Phasaelus was
dead, Herod's brotherly love was now in vain. Moreover, he was
not able to find any lasting friendship among the Arabians; for
their king, Malichus, sent to him immediately, and commanded him
to return back out of his country, and used the name of the
Parthians as a pretense for so doing, as though these had
denounced to him by their ambassadors to cast Herod out of
Arabia; while in reality they had a mind to keep back what they
owed to Antipater, and not be obliged to make requitals to his
sons for the free gifts the father had made them. He also took
the impudent advice of those who, equally with himself, were
willing to deprive Herod of what Antipater had deposited among
them; and these men were the most potent of all whom he had in
his kingdom.

2. So when Herod had found that the Arabians were his enemies,
and this for those very reasons whence he hoped they would have
been the most friendly, and had given them such an answer as his
passion suggested, he returned back, and went for Egypt. Now he
lodged the first evening at one of the temples of that country,
in order to meet with those whom he left behind; but on the next
day word was brought him, as he was going to Rhinocurura, that
his brother was dead, and how he came by his death; and when he
had lamented him as much as his present circumstances could bear,
he soon laid aside such cares, and proceeded on his journey. But
now, after some time, the king of Arabia repented of what he had
done, and sent presently away messengers to call him back: Herod
had prevented them, and was come to Pelusium, where he could not
obtain a passage from those that lay with the fleet, so he
besought their captains to let him go by them; accordingly, out
of the reverence they bore to the fame and dignity of the man,
they conducted him to Alexandria; and when he came into the city,
he was received by Cleopatra with great splendor, who hoped he
might be persuaded to be commander of her forces in the
expedition she was now about; but he rejected the queen's
solicitations, and being neither aftrighted at the height of that
storm which. then happened, nor at the tumults that were now in
Italy, he sailed for Rome.

3. But as he was in peril about Pamphylia, and obliged to cast
out the greatest part of the ship's lading, he with difficulty
got safe to Rhodes, a place which had been grievously harassed in
the war with Cassius. He was there received by his friends,
Ptolemy and Sappinius; and although he was then in want of money,
he fitted up a three-decked ship of very great magnitude, wherein
he and his friends sailed to Brundusium, (21) and went thence to
Rome with all speed; where he first of all went to Antony, on
account of the friendship his father had with him, and laid
before him the calamities of himself and his family; and that he
had left his nearest relations besieged in a fortress, and had
sailed to him through a storm, to make supplication to him for
assistance.

4. Hereupon Antony was moved to compassion at the change that had
been made in Herod's affairs, and this both upon his calling to
mind how hospitably he had been treated by Antipater, but more
especially on account of Herod's own virtue; so he then resolved
to get him made king of the Jews, whom he had himself formerly
made tetrarch. The contest also that he had with Antigonus was
another inducement, and that of no less weight than the great
regard he had for Herod; for he looked upon Antigonus as a
seditious person, and an enemy of the Romans; and as for Caesar,
Herod found him better prepared than Antony, as remembering very
fresh the wars he had gone through together with his father, the
hospitable treatment he had met with from him, and the entire
good-will he had showed to him; besides the activity which he saw
in Herod himself. So he called the senate together, wherein
Messalas, and after him Atratinus, produced Herod before them,
and gave a full account of the merits of his father, and his own
good-will to the Romans. At the same time they demonstrated that
Antigonus was their enemy, not only because he soon quarreled
with them, but because he now overlooked the Romans, and took the
government by the means of the Parthians. These reasons greatly
moved the senate; at which juncture Antony came in, and told them
that it was for their advantage in the Parthian war that Herod
should be king; so they all gave their votes for it. And when the
senate was separated, Antony and Caesar went out, with Herod
between them; while the consul and the rest of the magistrates
went before them, in order to offer sacrifices, and to lay the
decree in the Capitol. Antony also made a feast for Herod on the
first day of his reign.

CHAPTER 15.

Antigonus Besieges Those That Were In Masada, Whom Herod Frees
From Confinement When He Came Back From Rome, And Presently
Marches To Jerusalem Where He Finds Silo Corrupted By Bribes. 
1. Now during this time Antigonus besieged those that were in
Masada, who had all other necessaries in sufficient quantity, but
were in want of water; on which account Joseph, Herod's brother,
was disposed to run away to the Arabians, with two hundred of his
own friends, because he had heard that Malichus repented of his
offenses with regard to Herod; and he had been so quick as to
have been gone out of the fortress already, unless, on that very
night when he was going away, there had fallen a great deal of
rain, insomuch that his reservoirs were full of water, and so he
was under no necessity of running away. After which, therefore,
they made an irruption upon Antigonus's party, and slew a great
many of them, some in open battles, and some in private ambush;
nor had they always success in their attempts, for sometimes they
were beaten, and ran away.

2. In the mean time Ventidius, the Roman general, was sent out of
Syria, to restrain the incursions of the Parthians; and after he
had done that, he came into Judea, in pretense indeed to assist
Joseph and his party, but in reality to get money of Antigonus;,
and when he had pitched his camp very near to Jerusalem, as soon
as he had got money enough, he went away with the greatest part
of his forces; yet still did he leave Silo with some part of
them, lest if he had taken them all away, his taking of bribes
might have been too openly discovered. Now Antigonus hoped that
the Parthians would come again to his assistance, and therefore
cultivated a good understanding with Silo in the mean time, lest
any interruption should be given to his hopes.

3. Now by this time Herod had sailed out of Italy, and was come
to Ptolemais; and as soon as he had gotten together no small army
of foreigners, and of his own countrymen, he marched through
Galilee against Antigonus, wherein he was assisted by Ventidius
and Silo, both whom Dellius, (22) a person sent by Antony,
persuaded to bring Herod [into his kingdom]. Now Ventidius was at
this time among the cities, and composing the disturbances which
had happened by means of the Parthians, as was Silo in Judea
corrupted by the bribes that Antigonus had given him; yet was not
Herod himself destitute of power, but the number of his forces
increased every day as he went along, and all Galilee, with few
exceptions, joined themselves to him. So he proposed to himself
to set about his most necessary enterprise, and that was Masada,
in order to deliver his relations from the siege they endured.
But still Joppa stood in his way, and hindered his going thither;
for it was necessary to take that city first, which was in the
enemies' hands, that when he should go to Jerusalem, no fortress
might be left in the enemies' power behind him. Silo also
willingly joined him, as having now a plausible occasion of
drawing off his forces [from Jerusalem]; and when the Jews
pursued him, and pressed upon him, [in his retreat,] Herod made
all excursion upon them with a small body of his men, and soon
put them to flight, and saved Silo when he was in distress. 
4. After this Herod took Joppa, and then made haste to Masada to
free his relations. Now, as he was marching, many came in to him,
induced by their friendship to his father, some by the reputation
he had already gained himself, and some in order to repay the
benefits they had received from them both; but still what engaged
the greatest number on his side, was the hopes from him when he
should be established in his kingdom; so that he had gotten
together already an army hard to be conquered. But Antigonus laid
an ambush for him as he marched out, in which he did little or no
harm to his enemies. However, he easily recovered his relations
again that were in Masada, as well as the fortress Ressa, and
then marched to Jerusalem, where the soldiers that were with Silo
joined themselves to his own, as did many out of the city, from a
dread of his power.

5. Now when he had pitched his camp on the west side of the city,
the guards that were there shot their arrows and threw their
darts at them, while others ran out in companies, and attacked
those in the forefront; but Herod commanded proclamation to be
made at the wall, that he was come for the good of the people and
the preservation of the city, without any design to be revenged
on his open enemies, but to grant oblivion to them, though they
had been the most obstinate against him. Now the soldiers that
were for Antigonus made a contrary clamor, and did neither permit
any body to hear that proclamation, nor to change their party; so
Antigonus gave order to his forces to beat the enemy from the
walls; accordingly, they soon threw their darts at them from the
towers, and put them to flight.

6. And here it was that Silo discovered he had taken bribes; for
he set many of the soldiers to clamor about their want of
necessaries, and to require their pay, in order to buy themselves
food, and to demand that he would lead them into places
convenient for their winter quarters; because all the parts about
the city were laid waste by the means of Antigonus's army, which
had taken all things away. By this he moved the army, and
attempted to get them off the siege; but Herod went to the
captains that were under Silo, and to a great many of the
soldiers, and begged of them not to leave him, who was sent
thither by Caesar, and Antony, and the senate; for that he would
take care to have their wants supplied that very day. After the
making of which entreaty, he went hastily into the country, and
brought thither so great an abundance of necessaries, that he cut
off all Silo's pretenses; and in order to provide that for the
following days they should not want supplies, he sent to the
people that were about Samaria (which city had joined itself to
him) to bring corn, and wine, and oil, and cattle to Jericho.
When Antigonus heard of this, be sent some of his party with
orders to hinder, and lay ambushes for these collectors of corn.
This command was obeyed, and a great multitude of armed men were
gathered together about Jericho, and lay upon the mountains, to
watch those that brought the provisions. Yet was Herod not idle,
but took with him ten cohorts, five of them were Romans, and five
were Jewish cohorts, together with some mercenary troops
intermixed among them, and besides those a few horsemen, and came
to Jericho; and when he came, he found the city deserted, but
that there were five hundred men, with their wives and children,
who had taken possession of the tops of the mountains; these he
took, and dismissed them, while the Romans fell upon the rest of
the city, and plundered it, having found the houses full of all
sorts of good things. So the king left a garrison at Jericho, and
came back, and sent the Roman army into those cities which were
come over to him, to take their winter quarters there, viz. into
Judea, [or Idumea,] and Galilee, and Samaria. Antigonus also by
bribes obtained of Silo to let a part of his army be received at
Lydda, as a compliment to Antonius.

CHAPTER 16.

Herod Takes Sepphoris And Subdues The Robbers That Were In The
Caves ; He After That Avenges Himself Upon Macheras, As Upon An
Enemy Of His And Goes To Antony As He Was Besieging Samosata. 
1. So the Romans lived in plenty of all things, and rested from
war. However, Herod did not lie at rest, but seized upon Idumea,
and kept it, with two thousand footmen, and four hundred
horsemen; and this he did by sending his brother Joseph thither,
that no innovation might be made by Antigonus. He also removed
his mother, and all his relations, who had been in Masada, to
Samaria; and when he had settled them securely, he marched to
take the remaining parts of Galilee, and to drive away the
garrisons placed there by Antigonus.

2. But when Herod had reached Sepphoris, (23) in a very great
snow, he took the city without any difficulty; the guards that
should have kept it flying away before it was assaulted; where he
gave an opportunity to his followers that had been in distress to
refresh themselves, there being in that city a great abundance of
necessaries. After which he hasted away to the robbers that were
in the caves, who overran a great part of the country, and did as
great mischief to its inhabitants as a war itself could have
done. Accordingly, he sent beforehand three cohorts of footmen,
and one troop of horsemen, to the village Arbela, and came
himself forty days afterwards (24) with the rest of his forces
Yet were not the enemy aftrighted at his assault but met him in
arms; for their skill was that of warriors, but their boldness
was the boldness of robbers: when therefore it came to a pitched
battle, they put to flight Herod's left wing with their right
one; but Herod, wheeling about on the sudden from his own right
wing, came to their assistance, and both made his own left wing
return back from its flight, and fell upon the pursuers, and
cooled their courage, till they could not bear the attempts that
were made directly upon them, and so turned back and ran away. 
3. But Herod followed them, and slew them as he followed them,
and destroyed a great part of them, till those that remained were
scattered beyond the river [Jordan;] and Galilee was freed from
the terrors they had been under, excepting from those that
remained, and lay concealed in caves, which required longer time
ere they could be conquered. In order to which Herod, in the
first place, distributed the fruits of their former labors to the
soldiers, and gave every one of them a hundred and fifty drachmae
of silver, and a great deal more to their commanders, and sent
them into their winter quarters. He also sent to his youngest
brother Pheroas, to take care of a good market for them, where
they might buy themselves provisions, and to build a wall about
Alexandrium; who took care of both those injunctions accordingly. 
4. In the mean time Antony abode at Athens, while Ventidius
called for Silo and Herod to come to the war against the
Parthians, but ordered them first to settle the affairs of Judea;
so Herod willingly dismissed Silo to go to Ventidius, but he made
an expedition himself against those that lay in the caves. Now
these caves were in the precipices of craggy mountains, and could
not be come at from any side, since they had only some winding
pathways, very narrow, by which they got up to them; but the rock
that lay on their front had beneath it valleys of a vast depth,
and of an almost perpendicular declivity; insomuch that the king
was doubtful for a long time what to do, by reason of a kind of
impossibility there was of attacking the place. Yet did he at
length make use of a contrivance that was subject to the utmost
hazard; for he let down the most hardy of his men in chests, and
set them at the mouths of the dens. Now these men slew the
robbers and their families, and when they made resistance, they
sent in fire upon them [and burnt them]; and as Herod was
desirous of saving some of them, he had proclamation made, that
they should come and deliver themselves up to him; but not one of
them came willingly to him; and of those that were compelled to
come, many preferred death to captivity. And here a certain old
man, the father of seven children, whose children, together with
their mother, desired him to give them leave to go out, upon the
assurance and right hand that was offered them, slew them after
the following manner: He ordered every one of them to go out,
while he stood himself at the cave's mouth, and slew that son of
his perpetually who went out. Herod was near enough to see this
sight, and his bowels of compassion were moved at it, and he
stretched out his right hand to the old man, and besought him to
spare his children; yet did not he relent at all upon what he
said, but over and above reproached Herod on the lowness of his
descent, and slew his wife as well as his children; and when he
had thrown their dead bodies down the precipice, he at last threw
himself down after them.

5. By this means Herod subdued these caves, and the robbers that
were in them. He then left there a part of his army, as many as
he thought sufficient to prevent any sedition, and made Ptolemy
their general, and returned to Samaria; he led also with him
three thousand armed footmen, and six hundred horsemen, against
Antigonus. Now here those that used to raise tumults in Galilee,
having liberty so to do upon his departure, fell unexpectedly
upon Ptolemy, the general of his forces, and slew him; they also
laid the country waste, and then retired to the bogs, and to
places not easily to be found. But when Herod was informed of
this insurrection, he came to the assistance of the country
immediately, and destroyed a great number of the seditions, and
raised the sieges of all those fortresses they had besieged; he
also exacted the tribute of a hundred talents of his enemies, as
a penalty for the mutations they had made in the country.

6. By this time (the Parthians being already driven out of the
country, and Pacorus slain) Ventidius, by Antony's command, sent
a thousand horsemen, and two legions, as auxiliaries to Herod,
against Antigonus. Now Antigonus besought Macheras, who was their
general, by letter, to come to his assistance, and made a great
many mournful complaints about Herod's violence, and about the
injuries he did to the kingdom; and promised to give him money
for such his assistance; but he complied not with his invitation
to betray his trust, for he did not contemn him that sent him,
especially while Herod gave him more money [than the other
offered]. So he pretended friendship to Antigonus, but came as a
spy to discover his affairs; although he did not herein comply
with Herod, who dissuaded him from so doing. But Antigonus
perceived what his intentions were beforehand, and excluded him
out of the city, and defended himself against him as against an
enemy, from the walls; till Macheras was ashamed of what he had
done, and retired to Emmaus to Herod; and as he was in a rage at
his disappointment, he slew all the Jews whom he met with,
without sparing those that were for Herod, but using them all as
if they were for Antigonus.

7. Hereupon Herod was very angry at him, and was going to fight
against Macheras as his enemy; but he restrained his indignation,
and marched to Antony to accuse Macheras of maladministration.
But Macheras was made sensible of his offenses, and followed
after the king immediately, and earnestly begged and obtained
that he would be reconciled to him. However, Herod did not desist
from his resolution of going to Antony; but when he heard that he
was besieging Samosata (25) with a great army, which is a strong
city near to Euphrates, he made the greater haste; as observing
that this was a proper opportunity for showing at once his
courage, and for doing what would greatly oblige Antony. Indeed,
when he came, he soon made an end of that siege, and slew a great
number of the barbarians, and took from them a large prey;
insomuch that Antony, who admired his courage formerly, did now
admire it still more. Accordingly, he heaped many more honors
upon him, and gave him more assured hopes that he should gain his
kingdom; and now king Antiochus was forced to deliver up
Samosata.

CHAPTER 17.

The Death Of Joseph [Herod's Brother] Which Had Been Signified To
Herod In Dreams. How Herod Was Preserved Twice After A Wonderful
Manner. He Cuts Off The Head Of Pappus, Who Was The Murderer Of
His Brother And Sends That Head To [His Other Brother] Pheroras,
And In No Long Time He Besieges Jerusalem And Marries Mariamne. 
1. In the mean time, Herod's affairs in Judea were in an ill
state. He had left his brother Joseph with full power, but had
charged him to make no attempts against Antigonus till his
return; for that Macheras would not be such an assistant as he
could depend on, as it appeared by what he had done already; but
as soon as Joseph heard that his brother was at a very great
distance, he neglected the charge he had received, and marched
towards Jericho with five cohorts, which Macheras sent with him.
This movement was intended for seizing on the corn, as it was now
in the midst of summer; but when his enemies attacked him in the
mountains, and in places which were difficult to pass, he was
both killed himself, as he was very bravely fighting in the
battle, and the entire Roman cohorts were destroyed; for these
cohorts were new-raised men, gathered out of Syria, and here was
no mixture of those called veteran soldiers among them, who might
have supported those that were unskillful in war.

2. This victory was not sufficient for Antigonus; but he
proceeded to that degree of rage, as to treat the dead body of
Joseph barbarously; for when he had got possession of the bodies
of those that were slain, he cut off his head, although his
brother Pheroras would have given fifty talents as a price of
redemption for it. And now the affairs of Galilee were put in
such disorder after this victory of Antigonus's, that those of
Antigonus's party brought the principal men that were on Herod's
side to the lake, and there drowned them. There was a great
change made also in Idumea, where Macheras was building a wall
about one of the fortresses, which was called Gittha. But Herod
had not yet been informed of these things; for after the taking
of Samosata, and when Antony had set Sosius over the affairs of
Syria, and had given him orders to assist Herod against
Antigonus, he departed into Egypt; but Sosius sent two legions
before him into Judea to assist Herod, and followed himself soon
after with the rest of his army.

3. Now when Herod was at Daphne, by Antioch, he had some dreams
which clearly foreboded his brother's death; and as he leaped out
of his bed in a disturbed manner, there came messengers that
acquainted him with that calamity. So when he had lamented this
misfortune for a while, he put off the main part of his mourning,
and made haste to march against his enemies; and when he had
performed a march that was above his strength, and was gone as
far as Libanus, he got him eight hundred men of those that lived
near to that mountain as his assistants, and joined with them one
Roman legion, with which, before it was day, he made an irruption
into Galilee, and met his enemies, and drove them back to the
place which they had left. He also made an immediate and
continual attack upon the fortress. Yet was he forced by a most
terrible storm to pitch his camp in the neighboring villages
before he could take it. But when, after a few days' time, the
second legion, that came from Antony, joined themselves to him,
the enemy were aftrighted at his power, and left their
fortifications ill the night time.

4. After this he marched through Jericho, as making what haste he
could to be avenged on his brother's murderers; where happened to
him a providential sign, out of which, when he had unexpectedly
escaped, he had the reputation of being very dear to God; for
that evening there feasted with him many of the principal men;
and after that feast was over, and all the guests were gone out,
the house fell down immediately. And as he judged this to be a
common signal of what dangers he should undergo, and how he
should escape them in the war that he was going about, he, in the
morning, set forward with his army, when about six thousand of
his enemies came running down from the mountains, and began to
fight with those in his forefront; yet durst they not be so very
bold as to engage the Romans hand to hand, but threw stones and
darts at them at a distance; by which means they wounded a
considerable number; in which action Herod's own side was wounded
with a dart.

5. Now as Antigonus had a mind to appear to exceed Herod, not
only in the courage, but in the number of his men, he sent
Pappus, one of his companions, with an army against Samaria,
whose fortune it was to oppose Macheras; but Herod overran the
enemy's country, and demolished five little cities, and destroyed
two thousand men that were in them, and burned their houses, and
then returned to his camp; but his head-quarters were at the
village called Cana.

6. Now a great multitude of Jews resorted to him every day, both
out of Jericho and the other parts of the country. Some were
moved so to do out of their hatred to Antigonus, and some out of
regard to the glorious actions Herod had done; but others were
led on by an unreasonable desire of change; so he fell upon them
immediately. As for Pappus and his party, they were not terrified
either at their number or at their zeal, but marched out with
great alacrity to fight them; and it came to a close fight. Now
other parts of their army made resistance for a while; but Herod,
running the utmost hazard, out of the rage he was in at the
murder of his brother, that he might be avenged on those that had
been the authors of it, soon beat those that opposed him; and
after he had beaten them, he always turned his force against
those that stood to it still, and pursued them all; so that a
great slaughter was made, while some were forced back into that
village whence they came out; he also pressed hard upon the
hindermost, and slew a vast number of them; he also fell into the
village with the enemy, where every house was filled with armed
men, and the upper rooms were crowded above with soldiers for
their defense; and when he had beaten those that were on the
outside, he pulled the houses to pieces, and plucked out those
that were within; upon many he had the roofs shaken down, whereby
they perished by heaps; and as for those that fled out of the
ruins, the soldiers received them with their swords in their
hands; and the multitude of those slain and lying on heaps was so
great, that the conquerors could not pass along the roads. Now
the enemy could not bear this blow, so that when the multitude of
them which was gathered together saw that those in the village
were slain, they dispersed themselves, and fled away; upon the
confidence of which victory, Herod had marched immediately to
Jerusalem, unless he tad been hindered by the depth of winter's
[coming on]. This was the impediment that lay in the way of this
his entire glorious progress, and was what hindered Antigonus
from being now conquered, who was already disposed to forsake the
city.

7. Now when at the evening Herod had already dismissed his
friends to refresh themselves after their fatigue, and when he
was gone himself, while he was still hot in his armor, like a
common soldier, to bathe himself, and had but one servant that
attended him, and before he was gotten into the bath, one of the
enemies met him in the face with a sword in his hand, and then a
second, and then a third, and after that more of them; these were
men who had run away out of the battle into the bath in their
armor, and they had lain there for some time in, great terror,
and in privacy; and when they saw the king, they trembled for
fear, and ran by him in a flight, although he was naked, and
endeavored to get off into the public road. Now there was by
chance nobody else at hand that might seize upon these men; and
for Herod, he was contented to have come to no harm himself, so
that they all got away in safety.

8. But on the next day Herod had Pappus's head cut off, who was
the general for Antigonus, and was slain in the battle, and sent
it to his brother Pheroras, by way of punishment for their slain
brother; for he was the man that slew Joseph. Now as winter was
going off, Herod marched to Jerusalem, and brought his army to
the wall of it; this was the third year since he had been made
king at Rome; so he pitched his camp before the temple, for on
that side it might be besieged, and there it was that Pompey took
the city. So he parted the work among the army, and demolished
the suburbs, end raised three banks, and gave orders to have
towers built upon those banks, and left the most laborious of his
acquaintance at the works. But he went himself to Samaria, to
take the daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, to wife,
who had been betrothed to him before, as we have already said;
and thus he accomplished this by the by, during the siege of the
city, for he had his enemies in great contempt already.

9. When he had thus married Mariamne, he came back to Jerusalem
with a greater army. Sosius also joined him with a large army,
both of horsemen and footmen, which he sent before him through
the midland parts, while he marched himself along Phoenicia; and
when the whole army was gotten together, which were eleven
regiments of footmen, and six thousand horsemen, besides the
Syrian auxiliaries, which were no small part of the army, they
pitched their camp near to the north wall. Herod's dependence was
upon the decree of the senate, by which he was made king; and
Sosius relied upon Antony, who sent the army that was under him
to Herod's assistance.

CHAPTER 18.

How Herod And Sosius Took Jerusalem By Force; And What Death
Antigonus Came To. Also Concerning Cleopatra's Avaricious Temper. 
1. Now the multitude of the Jews that were in the city were
divided into several factions; for the people that crowded about
the temple, being the weaker part of them, gave it out that, as
the times were, he was the happiest and most religious man who
should die first. But as to the more bold and hardy men, they got
together in bodies, and fell a robbing others after various
manners, and these particularly plundered the places that were
about the city, and this because there was no food left either
for the horses or the men; yet some of the warlike men, who were
used to fight regularly, were appointed to defend the city during
the siege, and these drove those that raised the banks away from
the wall; and these were always inventing some engine or another
to be a hinderance to the engines of the enemy; nor had they so
much success any way as in the mines under ground.

2. Now as for the robberies which were committed, the king
contrived that ambushes should be so laid, that they might
restrain their excursions; and as for the want of provisions, he
provided that they should be brought to them from great
distances. He was also too hard for the Jews, by the Romans'
skill in the art of war; although they were bold to the utmost
degree, now they durst not come to a plain battle with the
Romans, which was certain death; but through their mines under
ground they would appear in the midst of them on the sudden, and
before they could batter down one wall, they built them another
in its stead; and to sum up all at once, they did not show any
want either of painstaking or of contrivances, as having resolved
to hold out to the very last. Indeed, though they had so great an
army lying round about them, they bore a siege of five months,
till some of Herod's chosen men ventured to get upon the wall,
and fell into the city, as did Sosius's centurions after them;
and now they first of all seized upon what was about the temple;
and upon the pouring in of the army, there was slaughter of vast
multitudes every where, by reason of the rage the Romans were in
at the length of this siege, and by reason that the Jews who were
about Herod earnestly endeavored that none of their adversaries
might remain; so they were cut to pieces by great multitudes, as
they were crowded together in narrow streets, and in houses, or
were running away to the temple; nor was there any mercy showed
either to infants, or to the aged, or to the weaker sex; insomuch
that although the king sent about and desired them to spare the
people, nobody could be persuaded to withhold their right hand
from slaughter, but they slew people of all ages, like madmen.
Then it was that Antigonus, without any regard to his former or
to his present fortune, came down from the citadel, and fell at
Sosius's feet, who without pitying him at all, upon the change of
his condition, laughed at him beyond measure, and called him
Antigona. (26) Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him
go free, but put him into bonds, and kept him in custody.

3. But Herod's concern at present, now he had gotten his enemies
under his power, was to restrain the zeal of his foreign
auxiliaries; for the multitude of the strange people were very
eager to see the temple, and what was sacred in the holy house
itself; but the king endeavored to restrain them, partly by his
exhortations, partly by his threatenings, nay, partly by force,
as thinking the victory worse than a defeat to him, if any thing
that ought not to be seen were seen by them. He also forbade, at
the same time, the spoiling of the city, asking Sosius in the
most earnest manner, whether the Romans, by thus emptying the
city of money and men, had a mind to leave him king of a desert,
- and told him that he judged the dominion of the habitable earth
too small a compensation for the slaughter of so many citizens.
And when Sosius said that it was but just to allow the soldiers
this plunder as a reward for what they suffered during the siege,
Herod made answer, that he would give every one of the soldiers a
reward out of his own money. So he purchased the deliverance of
his country, and performed his promises to them, and made
presents after a magnificent manner to each soldier, and
proportionably to their commanders, and with a most royal bounty
to Sosius himself, whereby nobody went away but in a wealthy
condition. Hereupon Sosius dedicated a crown of gold to God, and
then went away from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to
Antony; then did the axe bring him to his end, (27) who still had
a fond desire of life, and some frigid hopes of it to the last,
but by his cowardly behavior well deserved to die by it.

4. Hereupon king Herod distinguished the multitude that was in
the city; and for those that were of his side, he made them still
more his friends by the honors he conferred on them; but for
those of Antigonus's party, he slew them; and as his money ran
low, he turned all the ornaments he had into money, and sent it
to Antony, and to those about him. Yet could he not hereby
purchase an exemption from all sufferings; for Antony was now
bewitched by his love to Cleopatra, and was entirely conquered by
her charms. Now Cleopatra had put to death all her kindred, till
no one near her in blood remained alive, and after that she fell
a slaying those no way related to her. So she calumniated the
principal men among the Syrians to Antony, and persuaded him to
have them slain, that so she might easily gain to be mistress of
what they had; nay, she extended her avaricious humor to the Jews
and Arabians, and secretly labored to have Herod and Malichus,
the kings of both those nations, slain by his order.

5. Now is to these her injunctions to Antony, he complied in
part; for though he esteemed it too abominable a thing to kill
such good and great kings, yet was he thereby alienated from the
friendship he had for them. He also took away a great deal of
their country; nay, even the plantation of palm trees at Jericho,
where also grows the balsam tree, and bestowed them upon her; as
also all the cities on this side the river Eleutherus, Tyre and
Sidon (28) excepted. And when she was become mistress of these,
and had conducted Antony in his expedition against the Parthians
as far as Euphrates, she came by Apamia and Damascus into Judea
and there did Herod pacify her indignation at him by large
presents. He also hired of her those places that had been torn
away from his kingdom, at the yearly rent of two hundred talents.
He conducted her also as far as Pelusium, and paid her all the
respects possible. Now it was not long after this that Antony was
come back from Parthia, and led with him Artabazes, Tigranes's
son, captive, as a present for Cleopatra; for this Parthian was
presently given her, with his money, and all the prey that was
taken with him.

CHAPTER 19.

How Antony At The Persuasion Of Cleopatra Sent Herod To Fight
Against The Arabians; And Now After Several Battles, He At Length
Got The Victory. As Also Concerning A Great Earthquake.

1. Now when the war about Actium was begun, Herod prepared to
come to the assistance of Antony, as being already freed from his
troubles in Judea, and having gained Hyrcania, which was a place
that was held by Antigonus's sister. However, he was cunningly
hindered from partaking of the hazards that Antony went through
by Cleopatra; for since, as we have already noted, she had laid a
plot against the kings [of Judea and Arabia], she prevailed with
Antony to commit the war against the Arabians to Herod; that so,
if he got the better, she might become mistress of Arabia, or, if
he were worsted, of Judea; and that she might destroy one of
those kings by the other.

2. However, this contrivance tended to the advantage of Herod;
for at the very first he took hostages from the enemy, and got
together a great body of horse, and ordered them to march against
them about Diespous; and he conquered that army, although it
fought resolutely against him. After which defeat, the Arabians
were in great motion, and assembled themselves together at
Kanatha, a city of Celesyria, in vast multitudes, and waited for
the Jews. And when Herod was come thither, he tried to manage
this war with particular prudence, and gave orders that they
should build a wall about their camp; yet did not the multitude
comply with those orders, but were so emboldened by their
foregoing victory, that they presently attacked the Arabians, and
beat them at the first onset, and then pursued them; yet were
there snares laid for Herod in that pursuit; while Athenio, who
was one of Cleopatra's generals, and always an antagonist to
Herod, sent out of Kanatha the men of that country against him;
for, upon this fresh onset, the Arabians took courage, and
returned back, and both joined their numerous forces about stony
places, that were hard to be gone over, and there put Herod's men
to the rout, and made a great slaughter of them; but those that
escaped out of the battle fled to Ormiza, where the Arabians
surrounded their camp, and took it, with all the men in it. 
3. In a little time after this calamity, Herod came to bring them
succors; but he came too late. Now the occasion of that blow was
this, that the officers would not obey orders; for had not the
fight begun so suddenly, Athenio had not found a proper season
for the snares he laid for Herod: however, he was even with the
Arabians afterward, and overran their country, and did them more
harm than their single victory could compensate. But as he was
avenging himself on his enemies, there fell upon him another
providential calamity; for in the seventh (29) year of his reign,
when the war about Actium was at the height, at the beginning of
the spring, the earth was shaken, and destroyed an immense number
of cattle, with thirty thousand men; but the army received no
harm, because it lay in the open air. In the mean time, the fame
of this earthquake elevated the Arabians to greater courage, and
this by augmenting it to a fabulous height, as is constantly the
case in melancholy accidents, and pretending that all Judea was
overthrown. Upon this supposal, therefore, that they should
easily get a land that was destitute of inhabitants into their
power, they first sacrificed those ambassadors who were come to
them from the Jews, and then marched into Judea immediately. Now
the Jewish nation were affrighted at this invasion, and quite
dispirited at the greatness of their calamities one after
another; whom yet Herod got together, and endeavored to encourage
to defend themselves by the following speech which he made to
them:

4. "The present dread you are under seems to me to have seized
upon you very unreasonably. It is true, you might justly be
dismayed at that providential chastisement which hath befallen
you; but to suffer yourselves to be equally terrified at the
invasion of men is unmanly. As for myself, I am so far from being
aftrighted at our enemies after this earthquake, that I imagine
that God hath thereby laid a bait for the Arabians, that we may
be avenged on them; for their present invasion proceeds more from
our accidental misfortunes, than that they have any great
dependence on their weapons, or their own fitness for action. Now
that hope which depends not on men's own power, but on others'
ill success, is a very ticklish thing; for there is no certainty
among men, either in their bad or good fortunes; but we may
easily observe that fortune is mutable, and goes from one side to
another; and this you may readily learn from examples among
yourselves; for when you were once victors in the former fight,
your enemies overcame you at last; and very likely it will now
happen so, that these who think themselves sure of beating you
will themselves be beaten. For when men are very confident, they
are not upon their guard, while fear teaches men to act with
caution; insomuch that I venture to prove from your very
timorousness that you ought to take courage; for when you were
more bold than you ought to have been, and than I would have had
you, and marched on, Athenio's treachery took place; but your
present slowness and seeming dejection of mind is to me a pledge
and assurance of victory. And indeed it is proper beforehand to
be thus provident; but when we come to action, we ought to erect
our minds, and to make our enemies, be they ever so wicked,
believe that neither any human, no, nor any providential
misfortune, can ever depress the courage of Jews while they are
alive; nor will any of them ever overlook an Arabian, or suffer
such a one to become lord of his good things, whom he has in a
manner taken captive, and that many times also. And do not you
disturb yourselves at the quaking of inanimate creatures, nor do
you imagine that this earthquake is a sign of another calamity;
for such affections of the elements are according to the course
of nature, nor does it import any thing further to men, than what
mischief it does immediately of itself. Perhaps there may come
some short sign beforehand in the case of pestilences, and
famines, and earthquakes; but these calamities themselves have
their force limited by themselves [without foreboding any other
calamity]. And indeed what greater mischief can the war, though
it should be a violent one, do to us than the earthquake hath
done? Nay, there is a signal of our enemies' destruction visible,
and that a very great one also; and this is not a natural one,
nor derived from the hand of foreigners neither, but it is this,
that they have barbarously murdered our ambassadors, contrary to
the common law of mankind; and they have destroyed so many, as if
they esteemed them sacrifices for God, in relation to this war.
But they will not avoid his great eye, nor his invincible right
hand; and we shall be revenged of them presently, in case we
still retain any of the courage of our forefathers, and rise up
boldly to punish these covenant-breakers. Let every one therefore
go on and fight, not so much for his wife or his children, or for
the danger his country is in, as for these ambassadors of ours;
those dead ambassadors will conduct this war of ours better than
we ourselves who are alive. And if you will be ruled by me, I
will myself go before you into danger; for you know this well
enough, that your courage is irresistible, unless you hurt
yourselves by acting rashly. (30)

5. When Herod had encouraged them by this speech, and he saw with
what alacrity they went, he offered sacrifice to God; and after
that sacrifice, he passed over the river Jordan with his army,
and pitched his camp about Philadelphia, near the enemy, and
about a fortification that lay between them. He then shot at them
at a distance, and was desirous to come to an engagement
presently; for some of them had been sent beforehand to seize
upon that fortification: but the king sent some who immediately
beat them out of the fortification, while he himself went in the
forefront of the army, which he put in battle-array every day,
and invited the Arabians to fight. But as none of them came out
of their camp, for they were in a terrible fright, and their
general, Elthemus, was not able to say a word for fear, - so
Herod came upon them, and pulled their fortification to pieces,
by which means they were compelled to come out to fight, which
they did in disorder, and so that the horsemen and foot-men were
mixed together. They were indeed superior to the Jews in number,
but inferior in their alacrity, although they were obliged to
expose themselves to danger by their very despair of victory. 
6. Now while they made opposition, they had not a great number
slain; but as soon as they turned their backs, a great many were
trodden to pieces by the Jews, and a great many by themselves,
and so perished, till five thousand were fallen down dead in
their flight, while the rest of the multitude prevented their
immediate death, by crowding into the fortification. Herod
encompassed these around, and besieged them; and while they were
ready to be taken by their enemies in arms, they had another
additional distress upon them, which was thirst and want of
water; for the king was above hearkening to their ambassadors;
and when they offered five hundred talents, as the price of their
redemption, he pressed still harder upon them. And as they were
burnt up by their thirst, they came out and voluntarily delivered
themselves up by multitudes to the Jews, till in five days' time
four thousand of them were put into bonds; and on the sixth day
the multitude that were left despaired of saving themselves, and
came out to fight: with these Herod fought, and slew again about
seven thousand, insomuch that he punished Arabia so severely, and
so far extinguished the spirits of the men, that he was chosen by
the nation for their ruler.

CHAPTER 20.

Herod Is Confirmed In His Kingdom By Caesar, And Cultivates A
Friendship With The Emperor By Magnificent Presents; While Caesar
Returns His Kindness By Bestowing On Him That Part Of His Kingdom
Which Had Been Taken Away From It By Cleopatra With The Addition
Of Zenodoruss Country Also.

1. But now Herod was under immediate concern about a most
important affair, on account of his friendship with Antony, who
was already overcome at Actium by Caesar; yet he was more afraid
than hurt; for Caesar did not think he had quite undone Antony,
while Herod continued his assistance to him. However, the king
resolved to expose himself to dangers: accordingly he sailed to
Rhodes, where Caesar then abode, and came to him without his
diadem, and in the habit and appearance of a private person, but
in his behavior as a king. So he concealed nothing of the truth,
but spike thus before his face: "O Caesar, as I was made king of
the Jews by Antony, so do I profess that I have used my royal
authority in the best manner, and entirely for his advantage; nor
will I conceal this further, that thou hadst certainly found me
in arms, and an inseparable companion of his, had not the
Arabians hindered me. However, I sent him as many auxiliaries as
I was able, and many ten thousand [cori] of corn. Nay, indeed, I
did not desert my benefactor after the bow that was given him at
Actium; but I gave him the best advice I was able, when I was no
longer able to assist him in the war; and I told him that there
was but one way of recovering his affairs, and that was to kill
Cleopatra; and I promised him that, if she were once dead, I
would afford him money and walls for his security, with an army
and myself to assist him in his war against thee: but his
affections for Cleopatra stopped his ears, as did God himself
also who hath bestowed the government on thee. I own myself also
to be overcome together with him; and with his last fortune I
have laid aside my diadem, and am come hither to thee, having my
hopes of safety in thy virtue; and I desire that thou wilt first
consider how faithful a friend, and not whose friend, I have
been."

2. Caesar replied to him thus: "Nay, thou shalt not only be in
safety, but thou shalt be a king; and that more firmly than thou
wast before; for thou art worthy to reign over a great many
subjects, by reason of the fastness of thy friendship; and do
thou endeavor to be equally constant in thy friendship to me,
upon my good success, which is what I depend upon from the
generosity of thy disposition. However, Antony hath done well in
preferring Cleopatra to thee; for by this means we have gained
thee by her madness, and thus thou hast begun to be my friend
before I began to be thine; on which account Quintus Didius hath
written to me that thou sentest him assistance against the
gladiators. I do therefore assure thee that I will confirm the
kingdom to thee by decree: I shall also endeavor to do thee some
further kindness hereafter, that thou mayst find no loss in the
want of Antony."

3. When Caesar had spoken such obliging things to the king, and
had put the diadem again about his head, he proclaimed what he
had bestowed on him by a decree, in which he enlarged in the
commendation of the man after a magnificent manner. Whereupon
Herod obliged him to be kind to him by the presents he gave him,
and he desired him to forgive Alexander, one of Antony's friends,
who was become a supplicant to him. But Caesar's anger against
him prevailed, and he complained of the many and very great
offenses the man whom he petitioned for had been guilty of; and
by that means he rejected his petition. After this Caesar went
for Egypt through Syria, when Herod received him with royal and
rich entertainments; and then did he first of all ride along with
Caesar, as he was reviewing his army about Ptolemais, and feasted
him with all his friends, and then distributed among the rest of
the army what was necessary to feast them withal. He also made a
plentiful provision of water for them, when they were to march as
far as Pelusium, through a dry country, which he did also in like
manner at their return thence; nor were there any necessaries
wanting to that army. It was therefore the opinion, both of
Caesar and of his soldiers, that Herod's kingdom was too small
for those generous presents he made them; for which reason, when
Caesar was come into Egypt, and Cleopatra and Antony were dead,
he did not only bestow other marks of honor upon him, but made an
addition to his kingdom, by giving him not only the country which
had been taken from him by Cleopatra, but besides that, Gadara,
and Hippos, and Samaria; and moreover, of the maritime cities,
Gaza (31) and Anthedon, and Joppa, and Strato's Tower. He also
made him a present of four hundred Galls [Galatians] as a guard
for his body, which they had been to Cleopatra before. Nor did
any thing so strongly induce Caesar to make these presents as the
generosity of him that received them.

4. Moreover, after the first games at Actium, he added to his
kingdom both the region called Trachonitis, and what lay in its
neighborhood, Batanea, and the country of Auranitis; and that on
the following occasion: Zenodorus, who had hired the house of
Lysanias, had all along sent robbers out of Trachonitis among the
Damascenes; who thereupon had recourse to Varro, the president of
Syria, and desired of him that he would represent the calamity
they were in to Caesar. When Caesar was acquainted with it, he
sent back orders that this nest of robbers should be destroyed.
Varro therefore made an expedition against them, and cleared the
land of those men, and took it away from Zenodorus. Caesar did
also afterward bestow it on Herod, that it might not again become
a receptacle for those robbers that had come against Damascus. He
also made him a procurator of all Syria, and this on the tenth
year afterward, when he came again into that province; and this
was so established, that the other procurators could not do any
thing in the administration without his advice: but when
Zenodorus was dead, Caesar bestowed on him all that land which
lay between Trachonitis and Galilee. Yet, what was still of more
consequence to Herod, he was beloved by Caesar next after
Agrippa, and by Agrippa next after Caesar; whence he arrived at a
very great degree of felicity. Yet did the greatness of his soul
exceed it, and the main part of his magnanimity was extended to
the promotion of piety.

CHAPTER 21.

Of The [Temple And] Cities That Were Built By Herod And Erected
From The Very Foundations; As Also Of Those Other Edifices That
Were Erected By Him; And What Magnificence He Showed To
Foreigners; And How Fortune Was In All Things Favorable To Him. 
1. Accordingly, in the fifteenth year of his reign, Herod rebuilt
the temple, and encompassed a piece of land about it with a wall,
which land was twice as large as that before enclosed. The
expenses he laid out upon it were vastly large also, and the
riches about it were unspeakable. A sign of which you have in the
great cloisters that were erected about the temple, and the
citadel which was on its north side. The cloisters he built from
the foundation, but the citadel (32) he repaired at a vast
expense; nor was it other than a royal palace, which he called
Antonia, in honor of Antony. He also built himself a palace in
the Upper city, containing two very large and most beautiful
apartments; to which the holy house itself could not be compared
[in largeness]. The one apartment he named Caesareum, and the
other Agrippium, from his [two great] friends.

2. Yet did he not preserve their memory by particular buildings
only, with their names given them, but his generosity went as far
as entire cities; for when he had built a most beautiful wall
round a country in Samaria, twenty furlongs long, and had brought
six thousand inhabitants into it, and had allotted to it a most
fruitful piece of land, and in the midst of this city, thus
built, had erected a very large temple to Caesar, and had laid
round about it a portion of sacred land of three furlongs and a
half, he called the city Sebaste, from Sebastus, or Augustus, and
settled the affairs of the city after a most regular manner. 
3. And when Caesar had further bestowed upon him another
additional country, he built there also a temple of white marble,
hard by the fountains of Jordan: the place is called Panium,
where is a top of a mountain that is raised to an immense height,
and at its side, beneath, or at its bottom, a dark cave opens
itself; within which there is a horrible precipice, that descends
abruptly to a vast depth; it contains a mighty quantity of water,
which is immovable; and when any body lets down any thing to
measure the depth of the earth beneath the water, no length of
cord is sufficient to reach it. Now the fountains of Jordan rise
at the roots of this cavity outwardly; and, as some think, this
is the utmost origin of Jordan: but we shall speak of that matter
more accurately in our following history.

4. But the king erected other places at Jericho also, between the
citadel Cypros and the former palace, such as were better and
more useful than the former for travelers, and named them from
the same friends of his. To say all at once, there was not any
place of his kingdom fit for the purpose that was permitted to be
without somewhat that was for Caesar's honor; and when he had
filled his own country with temples, he poured out the like
plentiful marks of his esteem into his province, and built many
cities which he called Cesareas.

5. And when he observed that there was a city by the sea-side
that was much decayed, (its name was Strato's Tower,) but that
the place, by the happiness of its situation, was capable of
great improvements from his liberality, he rebuilt it all with
white stone, and adorned it with several most splendid palaces,
wherein he especially demonstrated his magnanimity; for the case
was this, that all the sea-shore between Dora and Joppa, in the
middle, between which this city is situated, had no good haven,
insomuch that every one that sailed from Phoenicia for Egypt was
obliged to lie in the stormy sea, by reason of the south winds
that threatened them; which wind, if it blew but a little fresh,
such vast waves are raised, and dash upon the rocks, that upon
their retreat the sea is in a great ferment for a long way. But
the king, by the expenses he was at, and the liberal disposal of
them, overcame nature, and built a haven larger than was the
Pyrecum (33) [at Athens]; and in the inner retirements of the
water he built other deep stations [for the ships also].

6. Now although the place where he built was greatly opposite to
his purposes, yet did he so fully struggle with that difficulty,
that the firmness of his building could not easily be conquered
by the sea; and the beauty and ornament of the works were such,
as though he had not had any difficulty in the operation; for
when he had measured out as large a space as we have before
mentioned, he let down stones into twenty fathom water, the
greatest part of which were fifty feet in length, and nine in
depth, and ten in breadth, and some still larger. But when the
haven was filled up to that depth, he enlarged that wall which
was thus already extant above the sea, till it was two hundred
feet wide; one hundred of which had buildings before it, in order
to break the force of the waves, whence it was called Procumatia,
or the first breaker of the waves; but the rest of the space was
under a stone wall that ran round it. On this wall were very
large towers, the principal and most beautiful of which was
called Drusium, from Drusus, who was son-in-law to Caesar. 
7. There were also a great number of arches, where the mariners
dwelt; and all the places before them round about was a large
valley, or walk, for a quay [or landing-place] to those that came
on shore; but the entrance was on the north, because the north
wind was there the most gentle of all the winds. At the mouth of
the haven were on each side three great Colossi, supported by
pillars, where those Colossi that are on your left hand as you
sail into the port are supported by a solid tower; but those on
the right hand are supported by two upright stones joined
together, which stones were larger than that tower which was on
the other side of the entrance. Now there were continual edifices
joined to the haven, which were also themselves of white stone;
and to this haven did the narrow streets of the city lead, and
were built at equal distances one from another. And over against
the mouth of the haven, upon an elevation, there was a temple for
Caesar, which was excellent both in beauty and largeness; and
therein was a Colossus of Caesar, not less than that of Jupiter
Olympius, which it was made to resemble. The other Colossus of
Rome was equal to that of Juno at Argos. So he dedicated the city
to the province, and the haven to the sailors there; but the
honor of the building he ascribed to Caesar, (34) and named it
Cesarea accordingly.

8. He also built the other edifices, the amphitheater, and
theater, and market-place, in a manner agreeable to that
denomination; and appointed games every fifth year, and called
them, in like manner, Caesar's Games; and he first himself
proposed the largest prizes upon the hundred ninety-second
olympiad; in which not only the victors themselves, but those
that came next to them, and even those that came in the third
place, were partakers of his royal bounty. He also rebuilt
Anthedon, a city that lay on the coast, and had been demolished
in the wars, and named it Agrippeum. Moreover, he had so very
great a kindness for his friend Agrippa, that he had his name
engraved upon that gate which he had himself erected in the
temple.

9. Herod was also a lover of his father, if any other person ever
was so; for he made a monument for his father, even that city
which he built in the finest plain that was in his kingdom, and
which had rivers and trees in abundance, and named it Antipatris.
He also built a wall about a citadel that lay above Jericho, and
was a very strong and very fine building, and dedicated it to his
mother, and called it Cypros. Moreover, he dedicated a tower that
was at Jerusalem, and called it by the name of his brother
Phasaelus, whose structure, largeness, and magnificence we shall
describe hereafter. He also built another city in the valley that
leads northward from Jericho, and named it Phasaelis.

10. And as he transmitted to eternity his family and friends, so
did he not neglect a memorial for himself, but built a fortress
upon a mountain towards Arabia, and named it from himself,
Herodium (35) and he called that hill that was of the shape of a
woman's breast, and was sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, by
the same name. He also bestowed much curious art upon it, with
great ambition, and built round towers all about the top of it,
and filled up the remaining space with the most costly palaces
round about, insomuch that not only the sight of the inner
apartments was splendid, but great wealth was laid out on the
outward walls, and partitions, and roofs also. Besides this, he
brought a mighty quantity of water from a great distance, and at
vast charges, and raised an ascent to it of two hundred steps of
the whitest marble, for the hill was itself moderately high, and
entirely factitious. He also built other palaces about the roots
of the hill, sufficient to receive the furniture that was put
into them, with his friends also, insomuch that, on account of
its containing all necessaries, the fortress might seem to be a
city, but, by the bounds it had, a palace only.

11. And when he had built so much, he showed the greatness of his
soul to no small number of foreign cities. He built palaces for
exercise at Tripoli, and Damascus, and Ptolemais; he built a wall
about Byblus, as also large rooms, and cloisters, and temples,
and market-places at Berytus and Tyre, with theatres at Sidon and
Damascus. He also built aqueducts for those Laodiceans who lived
by the sea-side; and for those of Ascalon he built baths and
costly fountains, as also cloisters round a court, that were
admirable both for their workmanship and largeness. Moreover, he
dedicated groves and meadows to some people; nay, not a few
cities there were who had lands of his donation, as if they were
parts of his own kingdom. He also bestowed annual revenues, and
those for ever also, on the settlements for exercises, and
appointed for them, as well as for the people of Cos, that such
rewards should never be wanting. He also gave corn to all such as
wanted it, and conferred upon Rhodes large sums of money for
building ships; and this he did in many places, and frequently
also. And when Apollo's temple had been burnt down, he rebuilt it
at his own charges, after a better manner than it was before.
What need I speak of the presents he made to the Lycians and
Samnians? or of his great liberality through all Ionia? and that
according to every body's wants of them. And are not the
Athenians, and Lacedemonians, and Nicopolitans, and that Pergamus
which is in Mysia, full of donations that Herod presented them
withal? And as for that large open place belonging to Antioch in
Syria, did not he pave it with polished marble, though it were
twenty furlongs long? and this when it was shunned by all men
before, because it was full of dirt and filthiness, when he
besides adorned the same place with a cloister of the same
length.

12. It is true, a man may say, these were favors peculiar to
those particular places on which he bestowed his benefits; but
then what favors he bestowed on the Eleans was a donation not
only in common to all Greece, but to all the habitable earth, as
far as the glory of the Olympic games reached. For when he
perceived that they were come to nothing, for want of money, and
that the only remains of ancient Greece were in a manner gone, he
not only became one of the combatants in that return of the
fifth-year games, which in his sailing to Rome he happened to be
present at, but he settled upon them revenues of money for
perpetuity, insomuch that his memorial as a combatant there can
never fail. It would be an infinite task if I should go over his
payments of people's debts, or tributes, for them, as he eased
the people of Phasaelis, of Batanea, and of the small cities
about Cilicia, of those annual pensions they before paid.
However, the fear he was in much disturbed the greatness of his
soul, lest he should be exposed to envy, or seem to hunt after
greater filings than he ought, while he bestowed more liberal
gifts upon these cities than did their owners themselves.

13. Now Herod had a body suited to his soul, and was ever a most
excellent hunter, where he generally had good success, by the
means of his great skill in riding horses; for in one day he
caught forty wild beasts: (36) that country breeds also bears,
and the greatest part of it is replenished with stags and wild
asses. He was also such a warrior as could not be withstood: many
men, therefore, there are who have stood amazed at his readiness
in his exercises, when they saw him throw the javelin directly
forward, and shoot the arrow upon the mark. And then, besides
these performances of his depending on his own strength of mind
and body, fortune was also very favorable to him; for he seldom
failed of success in his wars; and when he failed, he was not
himself the occasion of such failings, but he either vas betrayed
by some, or the rashness of his own soldiers procured his defeat. 
CHAPTER 22.

The Murder Of Aristobulus And Hyrcanus, The High Priests, As Also
Of Mariamne The Queen.

1. However, fortune was avenged on Herod in his external great
successes, by raising him up domestical troubles; and he began to
have wild disorders in his family, on account of his wife, of
whom he was so very fond. For when he came to the government, he
sent away her whom he had before married when he was a private
person, and who was born at Jerusalem, whose name was Doris, and
married Mariamne, the daughter of Alexander, the son of
Aristobulus; on whose account disturbances arose in his family,
and that in part very soon, but chiefly after his return from
Rome. For, first of all, he expelled Antipater the son of Doris,
for the sake of his sons by Mariamne, out of the city, and
permitted him to come thither at no other times than at the
festivals. After this he slew his wife's grandfather, Hyrcanus,
when he was returned out of Parthin to him, under this pretense,
that he suspected him of plotting against him. Now this Hyrcanus
had been carried captive to Barzapharnes, when he overran Syria;
but those of his own country beyond Euphrates were desirous he
would stay with them, and this out of the commiseration they had
for his condition; and had he complied with their desires, when
they exhorted him not to go over the river to lierod, he had not
perished: but the marriage of his granddaughter [to Herod] was
his temptation; for as he relied upon him, and was over-fond of
his own country, he came back to it. Herod's provocation was
this, - not that Hyrcanus made any attempt to gain the kingdom,
but that it was fitter for him to be their king than for Herod. 
2. Now of the five children which Herod had by Mariamne, two of
them were daughters, and three were sons; and the youngest of
these sons was educated at Rome, and there died; but the two
eldest he treated as those of royal blood, on account of the
nobility of their mother, and because they were not born till he
was king. But then what was stronger than all this was the love
that he bare to Mariamne, and which inflamed him every day to a
great degree, and so far conspired with the other motives, that
he felt no other troubles, on account of her he loved so
entirely. But Mariamne's hatred to him was not inferior to his
love to her. She had indeed but too just a cause of indignation
from what he had done, while her boldness proceeded from his
affection to her; so she openly reproached him with what he had
done to her grandfather Hyrcanus, and to her brother Aristobulus;
for he had not spared this Aristobulus, though he were but a
child; for when he had given him the high priesthood at the age
of seventeen, he slew him quickly after he had conferred that
dignity upon him; but when Aristobulus had put on the holy
vestments, and had approached to the altar at a festival, the
multitude, in great crowds, fell into tears; whereupon the child
was sent by night to Jericho, and was there dipped by the Galls,
at Herod's command, in a pool till he was drowned.

3. For these reasons Mariamne reproached Herod, and his sister
and mother, after a most contumelious manner, while he was dumb
on account of his affection for her; yet had the women great
indignation at her, and raised a calumny against her, that she
was false to his bed; which thing they thought most likely to
move Herod to anger. They also contrived to have many other
circumstances believed, in order to make the thing more credible,
and accused her of having sent her picture into Egypt to Antony,
and that her lust was so extravagant, as to have thus showed
herself, though she was absent, to a man that ran mad after
women, and to a man that had it in his power to use violence to
her. This charge fell like a thunderbolt upon Herod, and put him
into disorder; and that especially, because his love to her
occasioned him to be jealous, and because he considered with
himself that Cleopatra was a shrewd woman, and that on her
account Lysanias the king was taken off, as well as Malichus the
Arabian; for his fear did not only extend to the dissolving of
his marriage, but to the danger of his life.

4. When therefore he was about to take a journey abroad, he
committed his wife to Joseph, his sister Salome's husband, as to
one who would be faithful to him, and bare him good-will on
account of their kindred; he also gave him a secret injunction,
that if Antony slew him, he should slay her. But Joseph, without
any ill design, and only in order to demonstrate the king's love
to his wife, how he could not bear to think of being separated
from her, even by death itself, discovered this grand secret to
her; upon which, when Herod was come back, and as they talked
together, and he confirmed his love to her by many oaths, and
assured her that he had never such an affection for any other
woman as he had for her, - " Yes," says she, "thou didst, to be
sure, demonstrate thy love to me by the injunctions thou gavest
Joseph, when thou commandedst him to kill me." (37)

5. When he heard that this grand secret was discovered, he was
like a distracted man, and said that Joseph would never have
disclosed that injunction of his, unless he had debauched her.
His passion also made him stark mad, and leaping out of his bed,
he ran about the palace after a wild manner; at which time his
sister Salome took the opportunity also to blast her reputation,
and confirmed his suspicion about Joseph; whereupon, out of his
ungovernable jealousy and rage, he commanded both of them to be
slain immediately; but as soon as ever his passion was over, he
repented of what he had done, and as soon as his anger was worn
off, his affections were kindled again. And indeed the flame of
his desires for her was so ardent, that he could not think she
was dead, but would appear, under his disorders, to speak to her
as if she were still alive, till he were better instructed by
time, when his grief and trouble, now she was dead, appeared as
great as his affection had been for her while she was living. 
CHAPTER 23.

Calumnies Against The Sons Of Mariamne. Antipateris Preferred
Before Them. They Are Accused Before Caesar, And Herod Is
Reconciled To Them.

1. Now Mariamne's sons were heirs to that hatred which had been
borne their mother; and when they considered the greatness of
Herod's crime towards her, they were suspicious of him as of an
enemy of theirs; and this first while they were educated at Rome,
but still more when they were returned to Judea. This temper of
theirs increased upon them as they grew up to be men; and when
they were Come to an age fit for marriage, the one of them
married their aunt Salome's daughter, which Salome had been the
accuser of their mother; the other married the daughter of
Archclaus, king of Cappadocia. And now they used boldness in
speaking, as well as bore hatred in their minds. Now those that
calumniated them took a handle from such their boldness, and
certain of them spake now more plainly to the king that there
were treacherous designs laid against him by both his sons; and
he that was son-in-law to Archelaus, relying upon his
father-in-law, was preparing to fly away, in order to accuse
Herod before Caesar; and when Herod's head had been long enough
filled with these calumnies, he brought Antipater, whom he had by
Doris, into favor again, as a defense to him against his other
sons, and began all the ways he possibly could to prefer him
before them.

2. But these sons were not able to bear this change in their
affairs; but when they saw him that was born of a mother of no
family, the nobility of their birth made them unable to contain
their indignation; but whensoever they were uneasy, they showed
the anger they had at it. And as these sons did day after day
improve in that their anger, Antipater already exercised all his
own abilities, which were very great, in flattering his father,
and in contriving many sorts of calumnies against his brethren,
while he told some stories of them himself, and put it upon other
proper persons to raise other stories against them, till at
length he entirely cut his brethren off from all hopes of
succeeding to the kingdom; for he was already publicly put into
his father's will as his successor. Accordingly, he was sent with
royal ornaments, and other marks of royalty, to Caesar, excepting
the diadem. He was also able in time to introduce his mother
again into Mariamne's bed. The two sorts of weapons he made use
of against his brethren were flattery and calumny, whereby he
brought matters privately to such a pass, that the king had
thoughts of putting his sons to death.

3. So the father drew Alexander as far as Rome, and. charged him
with an attempt of poisoning him before Caesar. Alexander could
hardly speak for lamentation; but having a judge that was more
skillful than Antipater, and more wise than Herod, he modestly
avoided laying any imputation upon his father, but with great
strength of reason confuted the calumnies laid against him; and
when he had demonstrated the innocency of his brother, who was in
the like danger with himself, he at last bewailed the craftiness
of Antipater, and the disgrace they were under. He was enabled
also to justify himself, not only by a clear conscience, which he
carried within him, but by his eloquence; for he was a shrewd man
in making speeches. And upon his saying at last, that if his
father objected this crime to them, it was in his power to put
them to death, he made all the audience weep; and he brought
Caesar to that pass, as to reject the accusations, and to
reconcile their father to them immediately. But the conditions of
this reconciliation were these, that they should in all things be
obedient to their father, and that he should have power to leave
the kingdom to which of them he pleased.

4. After this the king came back from Rome, and seemed to have
forgiven his sons upon these accusations; but still so that he
was not without his suspicions of them. They were followed by
Antipater, who was the fountain-head of those accusations; yet
did not he openly discover his hatred to them, as revering him
that had reconciled them. But as Herod sailed by Cilicia, he
touched at Eleusa, (38) where Archclaus treated them in the most
obliging manner, and gave him thanks for the deliverance of his
son-in-law, and was much pleased at their reconciliation; and
this the more, because he had formerly written to his friends at
Rome that they should be assisting to Alexander at his trial. So
he conducted Herod as far as Zephyrium, and made him presents to
the value of thirty talents.

5. Now when Herod was come to Jerusalem, he gathered the people
together, and presented to them his three sons, and gave them an
apologetic account of his absence, and thanked God greatly, and
thanked Caesar greatly also, for settling his house when it was
under disturbances, and had procured concord among his sons,
which was of greater consequence than the kingdom itself, -" and
which I will render still more firm; for Caesar hath put into my
power to dispose of the government, and to appoint my successor.
Accordingly, in way of requital for his kindness, and in order to
provide for mine own advantage, I do declare that these three
sons of mine shall be kings. And, in the first place, I pray for
the approbation of God to what I am about; and, in the next
place, I desire your approbation also. The age of one of them,
and the nobility of the other two, shall procure them the
succession. Nay, indeed, my kingdom is so large that it may be
sufficient for more kings. Now do you keep those in their places
whom Caesar hath joined, and their father hath appointed; and do
not you pay undue or unequal respects to them, but to every one
according to the prerogative of their births; for he that pays
such respects unduly, will thereby not make him that is honored
beyond what his age requires so joyful, as he will make him that
is dishonored sorrowful. As for the kindred and friends that are
to converse with them, I will appoint them to each of them, and
will so constitute them, that they may be securities for their
concord; as well knowing that the ill tempers of those with whom
they converse will produce quarrels and contentions among them;
but that if these with whom they converse be of good tempers,
they will preserve their natural affections for one another. But
still I desire that not these only, but all the captains of my
army, have for the present their hopes placed on me alone; for I
do not give away my kingdom to these my sons, but give them royal
honors only; whereby it will come to pass that they will enjoy
the sweet parts of government as rulers themselves, but that the
burden of administration will rest upon myself whether I will or
not. And let every one consider what age I am of, how I have
conducted my life, and what piety I have exercised; for my age is
not so great that men may soon expect the end of my life; nor
have I indulged such a luxurious way of living as cuts men off
when they are young; and we have been so religious towards God,
that we [have reason to hope we] may arrive at a very great age.
But for such as cultivate a friendship with my sons, so as to aim
at my destruction, they shall be punished by me on their account.
I am not one who envy my own children, and therefore forbid men
to pay them great respect; but I know that such [extravagant]
respects are the way to make them insolent. And if every one that
comes near them does but revolve this in his mind, that if he
prove a good man, he shall receive a reward from me, but that if
he prove seditious, his ill-intended complaisance shall get him
nothing from him to whom it is shown, I suppose they will all be
of my side, that is, of my sons' side; for it will be for their
advantage that I reign, and that I be at concord with them. But
do you, O my good children, reflect upon the holiness of nature
itself, by whose means natural affection is preserved, even among
wild beasts; in the next place, reflect upon Caesar, who hath
made this reconciliation among us; and in the third place,
reflect upon me, who entreat you to do what I have power to
command you, - continue brethren. I give you royal garments, and
royal honors; and I pray to God to preserve what I have
determined, in case you be at concord one with another." When the
king had thus spoken, and had saluted every one of his sons after
an obliging manner, he dismissed the multitude; some of which
gave their assent to what he had said, and wished it might take
effect accordingly; but for those who wished for a change of
affairs, they pretended they did not so much as hear what he
said.

CHAPTER 24.

The Malice Of Antipater And Doris. Alexander Is Very Uneasy On
Glaphyras Account. Herod Pardons Pheroras, Whom He Suspected, And
Salome Whom He Knew To Make Mischief Among Them. Herod's Eunuchs
Are Tortured And Alexander Is Bound.

1. But now the quarrel that was between them still accompanied
these brethren when they parted, and the suspicions they had one
of the other grew worse. Alexander and Aristobulus were much
grieved that the privilege of the first-born was confirmed to
Antipater; as was Antipater very angry at his brethren that they
were to succeed him. But then this last being of a disposition
that was mutable and politic, he knew how to hold his tongue, and
used a great deal of cunning, and thereby concealed the hatred he
bore to them; while the former, depending on the nobility of
their births, had every thing upon their tongues which was in
their minds. Many also there were who provoked them further, and
many of their [seeming] friends insinuated themselves into their
acquaintance, to spy out what they did. Now every thing that was
said by Alexander was presently brought to Antipater, and from
Antipater it was brought to Herod with additions. Nor could the
young man say any thing in the simplicity of his heart, without
giving offense, but what he said was still turned to calumny
against him. And if he had been at any time a little free in his
conversation, great imputations were forged from the smallest
occasions. Antipater also was perpetually setting some to provoke
him to speak, that the lies he raised of him might seem to have
some foundation of truth; and if, among the many stories that
were given out, but one of them could be proved true, that was
supposed to imply the rest to be true also. And as to Antipater's
friends, they were all either naturally so cautious in speaking,
or had been so far bribed to conceal their thoughts, that nothing
of these grand secrets got abroad by their means. Nor should one
be mistaken if he called the life of Antipater a mystery of
wickedness; for he either corrupted Alexander's acquaintance with
money, or got into their favor by flatteries; by which two means
he gained all his designs, and brought them to betray their
master, and to steal away, and reveal what he either did or said.
Thus did he act a part very cunningly in all points, and wrought
himself a passage by his calumnies with the greatest shrewdness;
while he put on a face as if he were a kind brother to Alexander
and Aristobulus, but suborned other men to inform of what they
did to Herod. And when any thing was told against Alexander, he
would come in, and pretend [to be of his side], and would begin
to contradict what was said; but would afterward contrive matters
so privately, that the king should have an indignation at him.
His general aim was this, - to lay a plot, and to make it
believed that Alexander lay in wait to kill his father; for
nothing afforded so great a confirmation to these calumnies as
did Antipater's apologies for him.

2. By these methods Herod was inflamed, and as much as his
natural affection to the young men did every day diminish, so
much did it increase towards Antipater. The courtiers also
inclined to the same conduct, some of their own accord, and
others by the king's injunction, as particularly did Ptolemy, the
king's dearest friend, as also the king's brethren, and all his
children; for Antipater was all in all; and what was the
bitterest part of all to Alexander, Antipater's mother was also
all in all; she was one that gave counsel against them, and was
more harsh than a step-mother, and one that hated the queen's
sons more than is usual to hate sons-in-law. All men did
therefore already pay their respects to Antipater, in hopes of
advantage; and it was the king's command which alienated every
body [from the brethren], he having given this charge to his most
intimate friends, that they should not come near, nor pay any
regard, to Alexander, or to his friends. Herod was also become
terrible, not only to his domestics about the court, but to his
friends abroad; for Caesar had given such a privilege to no other
king as he had given to him, which was this, - that he might
fetch back any one that fled from him, even out of a city that
was not under his own jurisdiction. Now the young men were not
acquainted with the calumnies raised against them; for which
reason they could not guard themselves against them, but fell
under them; for their father did not make any public complaints
against either of them; though in a little time they perceived
how things were by his coldness to them, and by the great
uneasiness he showed upon any thing that troubled him. Antipater
had also made their uncle Pheroras to be their enemy, as well as
their aunt Salome, while he was always talking with her, as with
a wife, and irritating her against them. Moreover, Alexander's
wife, Glaphyra, augmented this hatred against them, by deriving
her nobility and genealogy [from great persons], and pretending
that she was a lady superior to all others in that kingdom, as
being derived by her father's side from Temenus, and by her
mother's side from Darius, the son of Hystaspes. She also
frequently reproached Herod's sister and wives with the
ignobility of their descent; and that they were every one chosen
by him for their beauty, but not for their family. Now those
wives of his were not a few; it being of old permitted to the
Jews to marry many wives, (39) and this king delighting in many;
all which hated Alexander, on account of Glaphyra's boasting and
reproaches.

3. Nay, Aristobulus had raised a quarrel between himself and
Salome, who was his mother-in-law, besides the anger he had
conceived at Glaphyra's reproaches; for he perpetually upbraided
his wife with the meanness of her family, and complained, that as
he had married a woman of a low family, so had his brother
Alexander married one of royal blood. At this Salome's daughter
wept, and told it her with this addition, that Alexander
threatened the mothers of his other brethren, that when he should
come to the crown, he would make them weave with their maidens,
and would make those brothers of his country schoolmasters; and
brake this jest upon them, that they had been very carefully
instructed, to fit them for such an employment. Hereupon Salome
could not contain her anger, but told all to Herod; nor could her
testimony be suspected, since it was against her own son-in-law
There was also another calumny that ran abroad and inflamed the
king's mind; for he heard that these sons of his were perpetually
speaking of their mother, and, among their lamentations for her,
did not abstain from cursing him; and that when he made presents
of any of Mariamne's garments to his later wives, these
threatened that in a little time, instead of royal garments, they
would clothe theft in no better than hair-cloth.

4. Now upon these accounts, though Herod was somewhat afraid of
the young men's high spirit, yet did he not despair of reducing
them to a better mind; but before he went to Rome, whither he was
now going by sea, he called them to him, and partly threatened
them a little, as a king; but for the main, he admonished them as
a father, and exhorted them to love their brethren, and told them
that he would pardon their former offenses, if they would amend
for the time to come. But they refuted the calumnies that had
been raised of them, and said they were false, and alleged that
their actions were sufficient for their vindication; and said
withal, that he himself ought to shut his ears against such
tales, and not be too easy in believing them, for that there
would never be wanting those that would tell lies to their
disadvantage, as long as any would give ear to them.

5. When they had thus soon pacified him, as being their father,
they got clear of the present fear they were in. Yet did they see
occasion for sorrow in some time afterward; for they knew that
Salome, as well as their uncle Pheroras, were their enemies; who
were both of them heavy and severe persons, and especially
Pheroras, who was a partner with Herod in all the affairs of the
kingdom, excepting his diadem. He had also a hundred talents of
his own revenue, and enjoyed the advantage of all the land beyond
Jordan, which he had received as a gift from his brother, who had
asked of Caesar to make him a tetrarch, as he was made
accordingly. Herod had also given him a wife out of the royal
family, who was no other than his own wife's sister, and after
her death had solemnly espoused to him his own eldest daughter,
with a dowry of three hundred talents; but Pheroras refused to
consummate this royal marriage, out of his affection to a
maidservant of his. Upon which account Herod was very angry, and
gave that daughter in marriage to a brother's son of his,
[Joseph,] who was slain afterward by the Parthians; but in some
time he laid aside his anger against Pheroras, and pardoned him,
as one not able to overcome his foolish passion for the
maid-servant.

6. Nay, Pheroras had been accused long before, while the queen
[Mariamne] was alive, as if he were in a plot to poison Herod;
and there came then so great a number of informers, that Herod
himself, though he was an exceeding lover of his brethren, was
brought to believe what was said, and to be afraid of it also.
And when he had brought many of those that were under suspicion
to the torture, he came at last to Pheroras's own friends; none
of which did openly confess the crime, but they owned that he had
made preparation to take her whom he loved, and run away to the
Parthians. Costobarus also, the husband of Salome, to whom the
king had given her in marriage, after her former husband had been
put to death for adultery, was instrumental in bringing about
this contrivance and flight of his. Nor did Salome escape all
calumny upon herself; for her brother Pheroras accused her that
she had made an agreement to marry Silleus, the procurator of
Obodas, king of Arabia, who was at bitter enmity with Herod; but
when she was convicted of this, and of all that Pheroras had
accused her of, she obtained her pardon. The king also pardoned
Pheroras himself the crimes he had been accused of.

7. But the storm of the whole family was removed to Alexander,
and all of it rested upon his head. There were three eunuchs who
were in the highest esteem with the king, as was plain by the
offices they were in about him; for one of them was appointed to
be his butler, another of them got his supper ready for him, and
the third put him into bed, and lay down by him. Now Alexander
had prevailed with these men, by large gifts, to let him use them
after an obscene manner; which, when it was told to the king,
they were tortured, and found guilty, and presently confessed the
criminal conversation he had with them. They also discovered the
promises by which they were induced so to do, and how they were
deluded by Alexander, who had told them that they ought not to
fix their hopes upon Herod, an old man, and one so shameless as
to color his hair, unless they thought that would make him young
again; but that they ought to fix their attention to him who was
to be his successor in the kingdom, whether he would or not; and
who in no long time would avenge himself on his enemies, and make
his friends happy and blessed, and themselves in the first place;
that the men of power did already pay respects to Alexander
privately, and that the captains of the soldiery, and the
officers, did secretly come to him.

8. These confessions did so terrify Herod, that he durst not
immediately publish them; but he sent spies abroad privately, by
night and by day, who should make a close inquiry after all that
was done and said; and when any were but suspected [of treason],
he put them to death, insomuch that the palace was full of
horribly unjust proceedings; for every body forged calumnies, as
they were themselves in a state of enmity or hatred against
others; and many there were who abused the king's bloody passion
to the disadvantage of those with whom they had quarrels, and
lies were easily believed, and punishments were inflicted sooner
than the calumnies were forged. He who had just then been
accusing another was accused himself, and was led away to
execution together with him whom he had convicted; for the danger
the king was in of his life made examinations be very short. He
also proceeded to such a degree of bitterness, that he could not
look on any of those that were not accused with a pleasant
countenance, but was in the most barbarous disposition towards
his own friends. Accordingly, he forbade a great many of them to
come to court, and to those whom he had not power to punish
actually he spake harshly. But for Antipater, he insulted
Alexander, now he was under his misfortunes, and got a stout
company of his kindred together, and raised all sorts of calumny
against him; and for the king, he was brought to such a degree of
terror by those prodigious slanders and contrivances, that he
fancied he saw Alexander coming to him with a drawn sword in his
hand. So he caused him to be seized upon immediately, and bound,
and fell to examining his friends by torture, many of whom died
[under the torture], but would discover nothing, nor say any
thing against their consciences; but some of them, being forced
to speak falsely by the pains they endured, said that Alexander,
and his brother Aristobulus, plotted against him, and waited for
an opportunity to kill him as he was hunting, and then fly away
to Rome. These accusations though they were of an incredible
nature, and only framed upon the great distress they were in,
were readily believed by the king, who thought it some comfort to
him, after he had bound his son, that it might appear he had not
done it unjustly.

CHAPTER 25.

Archelaus Procures A Reconciliation Between Alexander Pheroras,
And Herod.

1. Now as to Alexander, since he perceived it impossible to
persuade his father [that he was innocent], he resolved to meet
his calamities, how severe soever they were; so he composed four
books against his enemies, and confessed that he had been in a
plot; but declared withal that the greatest part [of the
courtiers] were in a plot with him, and chiefly Pheroras and
Salome; nay, that Salome once came and forced him to lie with her
in the night time, whether he would or no. These books were put
into Herod's hands, and made a great clamor against the men in
power. And now it was that Archelaus came hastily into Judea, as
being affrighted for his son-in-law and his daughter; and he came
as a proper assistant, and in a very prudent manner, and by a
stratagem he obliged the king not to execute what he had
threatened; for when he was come to him, he cried out, "Where in
the world is this wretched son-in-law of mine? Where shall I see
the head of him which contrived to murder his father, which I
will tear to pieces with my own hands? I will do the same also to
my daughter, who hath such a fine husband; for although she be
not a partner in the plot, yet, by being the wife of such a
creature, she is polluted. And I cannot but admire at thy
patience, against whom this plot is laid, if Alexander be still
alive; for as I came with what haste I could from Cappadocia, I
expected to find him put to death for his crimes long ago; but
still, in order to make an examination with thee about my
daughter, whom, out of regard to thee and by dignity, I had
espoused to him in marriage; but now we must take counsel about
them both; and if thy paternal affection be so great, that thou
canst not punish thy son, who hath plotted against thee, let us
change our right hands, and let us succeed one to the other in
expressing our rage upon this occasion."

2. When he had made this pompous declaration, he got Herod to
remit of his anger, though he were in disorder, who thereupon
gave him the books which Alexander had composed to be read by
him; and as he came to every head, he considered of it, together
with Herod. So Archclaus took hence the occasion for that
stratagem which he made use of, and by degrees he laid the blame
on those men whose names were in these books, and especially upon
Pheroras; and when he saw that the king believed him [to he in
earnest], he said, "We must consider whether the young man be not
himself plotted against by such a number of wicked wretches, and
not thou plotted against by the young man; for I cannot see any
occasion for his falling into so horrid a crime, since he enjoys
the advantages of royalty already, and has the expectation of
being one of thy successors; I mean this, unless there were some
persons that persuade him to it, and such persons as make an ill
use of the facility they know there is to persuade young men; for
by such persons, not only young men are sometimes imposed upon,
but old men also, and by them sometimes are the most illustrious
families and kingdoms overturned."

3. Herod assented to what he had said, and, by degrees, abated of
his anger against Alexander, but was more angry at Pheroras; for
the principal subject of the four books was Pheroras; who
perceiving that the king's inclinations changed on a sudden, and
that Archelaus's friendship could do every thing with him, and
that he had no honorable method of preserving himself, he
procured his safety by his impudence. So he left Alexander, and
had recourse to Archelaus, who told him that he did not see how
he could get him excused, now he was directly caught in so many
crimes, whereby it was evidently demonstrated that he had plotted
against the king, and had been the cause of those misfortunes
which the young man was now under, unless he would moreover leave
off his cunning knavery, and his denials of what he was charged
withal, and confess the charge, and implore pardon of his
brother, who still had a kindness for him; but that if he would
do so, he would afford him all the assistance he was able. 
4. With this advice Pheroras complied, and putting himself into
such a habit as might most move compassion, he came with black
cloth upon his body, and tears in his eyes, and threw himself
down at Herod's feet, and begged his pardon for what he had done,
and confessed that he had acted very wickedly, and was guilty of
every thing that he had been accused of, and lamented that
disorder of his mind, and distraction which his love to a woman,
he said, had brought him to. So when Archelaus had brought
Pheroras to accuse and bear witness against himself, he then made
an excuse for him, and mitigated Herod's anger towards him, and
this by using certain domestical examples; for that when he had
suffered much greater mischiefs from a brother of his own, he
prefered the obligations of nature before the passion of revenge;
because it is in kingdoms as it is in gross bodies, where some
member or other is ever swelled by the body's weight, in which
case it is not proper to cut off such member, but to heal it by a
gentle method of cure.

5. Upon Arehelaus's saying this, and much more to the same
purpose, Herod's displeasure against Pheroras was mollified; yet
did he persevere in his own indignation against Alexander, and
said he would have his daughter divorced, and taken away from
him, and this till he had brought Herod to that pass, that,
contrary to his former behavior to him, he petitioned Archelaus
for the young man, and that he would let his daughter continue
espoused to him: but Archelaus made him strongly believe that he
would permit her to be married to any one else, but not to
Alexander, because he looked upon it as a very valuable
advantage, that the relation they had contracted by that
affinity, and the privileges that went along with it, might be
preserved. And when the king said that his son would take it for
a great favor to him, if he would not dissolve that marriage,
especially since they had already children between the young man
and her, and since that wife of his was so well beloved by him,
and that as while she remains his wife she would be a great
preservative to him, and keep him from offending, as he had
formerly done; so if she should be once torn away from him, she
would be the cause of his falling into despair, because such
young men's attempts are best mollified when they are diverted
from them by settling their affections at home. So Arehelaus
complied with what Herod desired, but not without difficulty, and
was both himself reconciled to the young man, and reconciled his
father to him also. However, he said he must, by all means, be
sent to Rome to discourse with Caesar, because he had already
written a full account to him of this whole matter.

6. Thus a period was put to Archelaus's stratagem, whereby he
delivered his son-in-law out of the dangers he was in; but when
these reconciliations were over, they spent their time in
feastings and agreeable entertainments. And when Archelaus was
going away, Herod made him a present of seventy talents, with a
golden throne set with precious stones, and some eunuchs, and a
concubine who was called Pannychis. He also paid due honors to
every one of his friends according to their dignity. In like
manner did all the king's kindred, by his command, make glorious
presents to Archelaus; and so he was conducted on his way by
Herod and his nobility as far as Antioch.

CHAPTER 26.

How Eurycles (40) Calumniated The Sons Of Mariamne; And How
Euaratus Of Costs Apology For Them Had No Effect.

1. Now a little afterward there came into Judea a man that was
much superior to Arehelaus's stratagems, who did not only
overturn that reconciliation that had been so wisely made with
Alexander, but proved the occasion of his ruin. He was a
Lacedemonian, and his name was Eurycles. He was so corrupt a man,
that out of the desire of getting money, he chose to live under a
king, for Greece could not suffice his luxury. He presented Herod
with splendid gifts, as a bait which he laid in order to compass
his ends, and quickly received them back again manifold; yet did
he esteem bare gifts as nothing, unless he imbrued the kingdom in
blood by his purchases. Accordingly, he imposed upon the king by
flattering him, and by talking subtlely to him, as also by the
lying encomiums which he made upon him; for as he soon perceived
Herod's blind side, so he said and did every thing that might
please him, and thereby became one of his most intimate friends;
for both the king and all that were about him had a great regard
for this Spartan, on account of his country. (41)

2. Now as soon as this fellow perceived the rotten parts of the
family, and what quarrels the brothers had one with another, and
in what disposition the father was towards each of them, he chose
to take his lodging at the first in the house of Antipater, but
deluded Alexander with a pretense of friendship to him, and
falsely claimed to be an old acquaintance of Archelaus; for which
reason he was presently admitted into Alexander's familiarity as
a faithful friend. He also soon recommended himself to his
brother Aristobulus. And when he had thus made trial of these
several persons, he imposed upon one of them by one method, and
upon another by another. But he was principally hired by
Antipater, and so betrayed Alexander, and this by reproaching
Antipater, because, while he was the eldest son he overlooked the
intrigues of those who stood in the way of his expectations; and
by reproaching Alexander, because he who was born of a queen, and
was married to a king's daughter, permitted one that was born of
a mean woman to lay claim to the succession, and this when he had
Archelaus to support him in the most complete manner. Nor was his
advice thought to be other than faithful by the young man,
because of his pretended friendship with Archelaus; on which
account it was that Alexander lamented to him Antipater's
behavior with regard to himself, and this without concealing any
thing from him; and how it was no wonder if Herod, after he had
killed their mother, should deprive them of her kingdom. Upon
this Eurycles pretended to commiserate his condition, and to
grieve with him. He also, by a bait that he laid for him,
procured Aristobulus to say the same things. Thus did he inveigle
both the brothers to make complaints of their father, and then
went to Antipater, and carried these grand secrets to him. He
also added a fiction of his own, as if his brothers had laid a
plot against him, and were almost ready to come upon him with
their drawn swords. For this intelligence he received a great sum
of money, and on that account he commended Antipater before his
father, and at length undertook the work of bringing Alexander
and Aristobulus to their graves, and accused them before their
father. So he came to Herod, and told him that he would save his
life, as a requital for the favors he had received from him, and
would preserve his light [of life] by way of retribution for his
kind entertainment; for that a sword had been long whetted, and
Alexander's right hand had been long stretched out against him;
but that he had laid impediments in his way, prevented his speed,
and that by pretending to assist him in his design: how Alexander
said that Herod was not contented to reign in a kingdom that
belonged to others, and to make dilapidations in their mother's
government after he had killed her; but besides all this, that he
introduced a spurious successor, and proposed to give the kingdom
of their ancestors to that pestilent fellow Antipater: - that he
would now appease the ghosts of Hyrcanus and Mariamne, by taking
vengeance on him; for that it was not fit for him to take the
succession to the government from such a father without
bloodshed: that many things happen every day to provoke him so to
do, insomuch that he can say nothing at all, but it affords
occasion for calumny against him; for that if any mention be made
of nobility of birth, even in other cases, he is abused unjustly,
while his father would say that nobody, to be sure, is of noble
birth but Alexander, and that his father was inglorious for want
of such nobility. If they be at any time hunting, and he says
nothing, he gives offense; and if he commends any body, they take
it in way of jest. That they always find their father
unmercifully severe, and have no natural affection for any of
them but for Antipater; on which accounts, if this plot does not
take, he is very willing to die; but that in case he kill his
father, he hath sufficient opportunities for saving himself. In
the first place, he hath Archelaus his father-in-law to whom he
can easily fly; and in the next place, he hath Caesar, who had
never known Herod's character to this day; for that he shall not
appear then before him with that dread he used to do when his
father was there to terrify him; and that he will not then
produce the accusations that concerned himself alone, but would,
in the first place, openly insist on the calamities of their
nation, and how they are taxed to death, and in what ways of
luxury and wicked practices that wealth is spent which was gotten
by bloodshed; what sort of persons they are that get our riches,
and to whom those cities belong upon whom he bestows his favors;
that he would have inquiry made what became of his grandfather
[Hyrcanus], and his mother [Mariamne], and would openly proclaim
the gross wickedness that was in the kingdom; on which accounts
he should not be deemed a parricide.

3. When Eurycles had made this portentous speech, he greatly
commended Antipater, as the only child that had an affection for
his father, and on that account was an impediment to the other's
plot against him. Hereupon the king, who had hardly repressed his
anger upon the former accusations, was exasperated to an
incurable degree. At which time Antipater took another occasion
to send in other persons to his father to accuse his brethren,
and to tell him that they had privately discoursed with Jucundus
and Tyrannus, who had once been masters of the horse to the king,
but for some offenses had been put out of that honorable
employment. Herod was in a very great rage at these informations,
and presently ordered those men to be tortured; yet did not they
confess any thing of what the king had been informed; but a
certain letter was produced, as written by Alexander to the
governor of a castle, to desire him to receive him and
Aristobulus into the castle when he had killed his father, and to
give them weapons, and what other assistance he could, upon that
occasion. Alexander said that this letter was a forgery of
Diophantus. This Diophantus was the king's secretary, a bold man,
and cunning in counterfeiting any one's hand; and after he had
counterfeited a great number, he was at last put to death for it.
Herod did also order the governor of the castle to be tortured,
but got nothing out of him of what the accusations suggested. 
4. However, although Herod found the proofs too weak, he gave
order to have his sons kept in custody; for till now they had
been at liberty. He also called that pest of his family, and
forger of all this vile accusation, Eurycles, his savior and
benefactor, and gave him a reward of fifty talents. Upon which he
prevented any accurate accounts that could come of what he had
done, by going immediately into Cappadocia, and there he got
money of Archelaus, having the impudence to pretend that he had
reconciled Herod to Alexander. He thence passed over into Greece,
and used what he had thus wickedly gotten to the like wicked
purposes. Accordingly, he was twice accused before Caesar, that
he had filled Achaia with sedition, and had plundered its cities;
and so he was sent into banishment. And thus was he punished for
what wicked actions he had been guilty of about Aristobulus and
Alexander.

5. But it will now be worth while to put Euaratus of Cos in
opposition to this Spartan; for as he was one of Alexander's most
intimate friends, and came to him in his travels at the same time
that Eurycles came; so the king put the question to him, whether
those things of which Alexander was accused were true? He assured
him upon oath that he had never heard any such things from the
young men; yet did this testimony avail nothing for the clearing
those miserable creatures; for Herod was only disposed and most
ready to hearken to what made against them, and every one was
most agreeable to him that would believe they were guilty, and
showed their indignation at them.

CHAPTER 27.

Herod By Caesars Direction Accuses His Sons At Eurytus. They Are
Not Produced Before The Courts But Yet Are Condemned; And In A
Little Time They Are Sent To Sebaste, And Strangled There. 
1. Moreover, Salome exasperated Herod's cruelty against his sons;
for Aristobulus was desirous to bring her, who was his
mother-in-law and his aunt, into the like dangers with
themselves; so he sent to her to take care of her own safety, and
told her that the king was preparing to put her to death, on
account of the accusation that was laid against her, as if when
she formerly endeavored to marry herself to Sylleus the Arabian,
she had discovered the king's grand secrets to him, who was the
king's enemy; and this it was that came as the last storm, and
entirely sunk the young men when they were in great danger
before. For Salome came running to the king, and informed him of
what admonition had been given her; whereupon he could bear no
longer, but commanded both the young men to be bound, and kept
the one asunder from the other. He also sent Volumnius, the
general of his army, to Caesar immediately, as also his friend
Olympus with him, who carried the informations in writing along
with them. Now as soon as they had sailed to Rome, and delivered
the king's letters to Caesar, Caesar was mightily troubled at the
case of the young men; yet did not he think he ought to take the
power from the father of condemning his sons; so he wrote back to
him, and appointed him to have the power over his sons; but said
withal, that he would do well to make an examination into this
matter of the plot against him in a public court, and to take for
his assessors his own kindred, and the governors of the province.
And if those sons be found guilty, to put them to death; but if
they appear to have thought of no more than flying away from him,
that he should moderate their punishment.

2. With these directions Herod complied, and came to Berytus,
where Caesar had ordered the court to be assembled, and got the
judicature together. The presidents sat first, as Caesar's
letters had appointed, who were Saturninus and Pedanius, and
their lieutenants that were with them, with whom was the
procurator Volumnius also; next to them sat the king's kinsmen
and friends, with Salome also, and Pheroras; after whom sat the
principal men of all Syria, excepting Archelaus; for Herod had a
suspicion of him, because he was Alexander's father-in-law. Yet
did not he produce his sons in open court; and this was done very
cunningly, for he knew well enough that had they but appeared
only, they would certainly have been pitied; and if withal they
had been suffered to speak, Alexander would easily have answered
what they were accused of; but they were in custody at Platane, a
village of the Sidontans.

3. So the king got up, and inveighed against his sons, as if they
were present; and as for that part of the accusation that they
had plotted against him, he urged it but faintly, because he was
destitute of proofs; but he insisted before the assessors on the
reproaches, and jests, and injurious carriage, and ten thousand
the like offenses against him, which were heavier than death
itself; and when nobody contradicted him, he moved them to pity
his case, as though he had been condemned himself, now he had
gained a bitter victory against his sons. So he asked every one's
sentence, which sentence was first of all given by Saturninus,
and was this: That he condemned the young men, but not to death;
for that it was not fit for him, who had three sons of his own
now present, to give his vote for the destruction of the sons of
another. The two lieutenants also gave the like vote; some others
there were also who followed their example; but Volumnius began
to vote on the more melancholy side, and all those that came
after him condemned the young men to die, some out of flattery,
and some out of hatred to Herod; but none out of indignation at
their crimes. And now all Syria and Judea was in great
expectation, and waited for the last act of this tragedy; yet did
nobody, suppose that Herod would be so barbarous as to murder his
children: however, he carried them away to Tyre, and thence
sailed to Cesarea, and deliberated with himself what sort of
death the young men should suffer.

4. Now there was a certain old soldier of the king's, whose name
was Tero, who had a son that was very familiar with and a friend
to Alexander, and who himself particularly loved the young men.
This soldier was in a manner distracted, out of the excess of the
indignation he had at what was doing; and at first he cried out
aloud, as he went about, that justice was trampled under foot;
that truth was perished, and nature confounded; and that the life
of man was full of iniquity, and every thing else that passion
could suggest to a man who spared not his own life; and at last
he ventured to go to the king, and said, "Truly I think thou art
a most miserable man, when thou hearkenest to most wicked
wretches, against those that ought to be dearest to thee; since
thou hast frequently resolved that Pheroras and Salome should be
put to death, and yet believest them against thy sons; while
these, by cutting off the succession of thine own sons, leave all
wholly to Antipater, and thereby choose to have thee such a king
as may be thoroughly in their own power. However, consider
whether this death of Antipater's brethren will not make him
hated by the soldiers; for there is nobody but commiserates the
young men; and of the captains, a great many show their
indignation at it openly." Upon his saying this, he named those
that had such indignation; but the king ordered those men, with
Tero himself and his son, to be seized upon immediately.

5. At which time there was a certain barber, whose name was
Trypho. This man leaped out from among the people in a kind of
madness, and accused himself, and said, "This Tero endeavored to
persuade me also to cut thy throat with my razor, when I trimmed
thee, and promised that Alexander should give me large presents
for so doing." When Herod heard this, he examined Tero, with his
son and the barber, by the torture; but as the others denied the
accusation, and he said nothing further, Herod gave order that
Tero should be racked more severely; but his son, out of pity to
his father, promised to discover the whole to the king, if he
would grant [that his father should be no longer tortured]. When
he had agreed to this, he said that his father, at the persuasion
of Alexander, had an intention to kill him. Now some said this
was forged, in order to free his father from his torments; and
some said it was true.

6. And now Herod accused the captains and Tero in an assembly of
the people, and brought the people together in a body against
them; and accordingly there were they put to death, together with
[Trypho] the barber; they were killed by the pieces of wood and
the stones that were thrown at them. He also sent his sons to
Sebaste, a city not far from Cesarea, and ordered them to be
there strangled; and as what he had ordered was executed
immediately, so he commanded that their dead bodies should be
brought to the fortress Alexandrium, to be buried with Alexander,
their grandfather by the mother's side. And this was the end of
Alexander and Aristobulus.

CHAPTER 28.

How Antipater Is Hated Of All Men; And How The King Espouses The
Sons Of Those That Had Been Slain To His Kindred;But That
Antipater Made Him Change Them For Other Women. Of Herod's
Marriages, And Children.

1. But an intolerable hatred fell upon Antipater from the nation,
though he had now an indisputable title to the succession,
because they all knew that he was the person who contrived all
the calumnies against his brethren. However, he began to be in a
terrible fear, as he saw the posterity of those that had been
slain growing up; for Alexander had two sons by Glaphyra,
Tigranes and Alexander; and Aristobulus had Herod, and Agrippa,
and Aristobulus, his sons, with Herodias and Mariamne, his
daughters, and all by Bernice, Salome's daughter. As for
Glaphyra, Herod, as soon as he had killed Alexander, sent her
back, together with her portion, to Cappadocia. He married
Bernice, Aristobulus's daughter, to Antipater's uncle by his
mother, and it was Antipater who, in order to reconcile her to
him, when she had been at variance with him, contrived this
match; he also got into Pheroras's favor, and into the favor of
Caesar's friends, by presents, and other ways of obsequiousness,
and sent no small sums of money to Rome; Saturninus also, and his
friends in Syria, were all well replenished with the presents he
made them; yet the more he gave, the more he was hated, as not
making these presents out of generosity, but spending his money
out of fear. Accordingly, it so fell out that the receivers bore
him no more good-will than before, but that those to whom he gave
nothing were his more bitter enemies. However, he bestowed his
money every day more and more profusely, on observing that,
contrary to his expectations, the king was taking care about the
orphans, and discovering at the same time his repentance for
killing their fathers, by his commiseration of those that sprang
from them.

2. Accordingly, Herod got together his kindred and friends, and
set before them the children, and, with his eyes full of tears,
said thus to them: "It was an unlucky fate that took away from me
these children's fathers, which children are recommended to me by
that natural commiseration which their orphan condition requires;
however, I will endeavor, though I have been a most unfortunate
father, to appear a better grandfather, and to leave these
children such curators after myself as are dearest to me. I
therefore betroth thy daughter, Pheroras, to the elder of these
brethren, the children of Alexander, that thou mayst be obliged
to take care of them. I also betroth to thy son, Antipater, the
daughter of Aristobulus; be thou therefore a father to that
orphan; and my son Herod [Philip] shall have her sister, whose
grandfather, by the mother's side, was high priest. And let every
one that loves me be of my sentiments in these dispositions,
which none that hath an affection for me will abrogate. And I
pray God that he will join these children together in marriage,
to the advantage of my kingdom, and of my posterity; and may he
look down with eyes more serene upon them than he looked upon
their fathers."

3. While he spake these words he wept, and joined the children's
fight hands together; after which he embraced them every one
after an affectionate manner, and dismissed the assembly. Upon
this, Antipater was in great disorder immediately, and lamented
publicly at what was done; for he supposed that this dignity
which was conferred on these orphans was for his own destruction,
even in his father's lifetime, and that he should run another
risk of losing the government, if Alexander's sons should have
both Archelaus [a king], and Pheroras a tetrarch, to support
them. He also considered how he was himself hated by the nation,
and how they pitied these orphans; how great affection the Jews
bare to those brethren of his when they were alive, and how
gladly they remembered them now they had perished by his means.
So he resolved by all the ways possible to get these espousals
dissolved.

4. Now he was afraid of going subtlely about this matter with his
father, who was hard to be pleased, and was presently moved upon
the least suspicion: so he ventured to go to him directly, and to
beg of him before his face not to deprive him of that dignity
which he had been pleased to bestow upon him; and that he might
not have the bare name of a king, while the power was in other
persons; for that he should never be able to keep the government,
if Alexander's son was to have both his grandfather Archelaus and
Pheroras for his curators; and he besought him earnestly, since
there were so many of the royal family alive, that he would
change those [intended] marriages. Now the king had nine wives,
(42) and children by seven of them; Antipater was himself born of
Doris, and Herod Philip of Mariamne, the high priest's daughter;
Antipas also and Archelaus were by Malthace, the Samaritan, as
was his daughter Olympias, which his brother Joseph's (43) son
had married. By Cleopatra of Jerusalem he had Herod and Philip;
and by Pallas, Phasaelus; he had also two daughters, Roxana and
Salome, the one by Phedra, and the other by Elpis; he had also
two wives that had no children, the one his first cousin, and the
other his niece; and besides these he had two daughters, the
sisters of Alexander and Aristobulus, by Mariamne. Since,
therefore, the royal family was so numerous, Antipater prayed him
to change these intended marriages.

5. When the king perceived what disposition he was in towards
these orphans, he was angry at it, and a suspicion came into his
mind as to those sons whom he had put to death, whether that had
not been brought about by the false tales of Antipater; so that
at that time he made Antipater a long and a peevish answer, and
bid him begone. Yet was he afterwards prevailed upon cunningly by
his flatteries, and changed the marriages; he married
Aristobulus's daughter to him, and his son to Pheroras's
daughter.

6. Now one may learn, in this instance, how very much this
flattering Antipater could do, - even what Salome in the like
circumstances could not do; for when she, who was his sister, and
who, by the means of Julia, Caesar's wife, earnestly desired
leave to be married to Sylleus the Arabian, Herod swore he would
esteem her his bitter enemy, unless she would leave off that
project: he also caused her, against her own consent, to be
married to Alexas, a friend of his, and that one of her daughters
should be married to Alexas's son, and the other to Antipater's
uncle by the mother's side. And for the daughters the king had by
Mariamne, the one was married to Antipater, his sister's son, and
the other to his brother's son, Phasaelus.

CHAPTER 29.

Antipater Becomes Intolerable. He Is Sent To Rome, And Carries
Herod's Testament With Him; Pheroras Leaves His Brother, That He
May Keep His Wife. He Dies At Home.

1. Now when Antipater had cut off the hopes of the orphans, and
had contracted such affinities as would be most for his own
advantage, he proceeded briskly, as having a certain expectation
of the kingdom; and as he had now assurance added to his
wickedness, he became intolerable; for not being able to avoid
the hatred of all people, he built his security upon the terror
he struck into them. Pheroras also assisted him in his designs,
looking upon him as already fixed in the kingdom. There was also
a company of women in the court, which excited new disturbances;
for Pheroras's wife, together with her mother and sister, as also
Antipater's mother, grew very impudent in the palace. She also
was so insolent as to affront the king's two daughters, (44) on
which account the king hated her to a great degree; yet although
these women were hated by him, they domineered over others: there
was only Salome who opposed their good agreement, and informed
the king of their meetings, as not being for the advantage of his
affairs. And when those women knew what calumnies she had raised
against them, and how much Herod was displeased, they left off
their public meetings, and friendly entertainments of one
another; nay, on the contrary, they pretended to quarrel one with
another when the king was within hearing. The like dissimulation
did Antipater make use of; and when matters were public, he
opposed Pheroras; but still they had private cabals and merry
meetings in the night time; nor did the observation of others do
any more than confirm their mutual agreement. However, Salome
knew every thing they did, and told every thing to Herod.

2. But he was inflamed with anger at them, and chiefly at
Pheroras's wife; for Salome had principally accused her. So he
got an assembly of his friends and kindred together, and there
accused this woman of many things, and particularly of the
affronts she had offered his daughters; and that she had supplied
the Pharisees with money, by way of rewards for what they had
done against him, and had procured his brother to become his
enemy, by giving him love potions. At length he turned his speech
to Pheroras, and told him that he would give him his choice of
these two things: Whether he would keep in with his brother, or
with his wife? And when Pheroras said that he would die rather
than forsake his wife? Herod, not knowing what to do further in
that matter, turned his speech to Antipater, and charged him to
have no intercourse either with Pheroras's wife, or with Pheroras
himself, or with any one belonging to her. Now though Antipater
did not transgress that his injunction publicly, yet did he in
secret come to their night meetings; and because he was afraid
that Salome observed what he did, he procured, by the means of
his Italian friends, that he might go and live at Rome; for when
they wrote that it was proper for Antipater to be sent to Caesar
for some time, Herod made no delay, but sent him, and that with a
splendid attendance, and a great deal of money, and gave him his
testament to carry with him, - wherein Antipater had the kingdom
bequeathed to him, and wherein Herod was named for Antipater's
successor; that Herod, I mean, who was the son of Mariarmne, the
high priest's daughter.

3. Sylleus also, the Arabian, sailed to Rome, without any regard
to Caesar's injunctions, and this in order to oppose Antipater
with all his might, as to that law-suit which Nicolaus had with
him before. This Sylleus had also a great contest with Aretas his
own king; for he had slain many others of Aretas's friends, and
particularly Sohemus, the most potent man in the city Petra.
Moreover, he had prevailed with Phabatus, who was Herod's
steward, by giving him a great sum of money, to assist him
against Herod; but when Herod gave him more, he induced him to
leave Syllcus, and by this means he demanded of him all that
Caesar had required of him to pay. But when Sylleus paid nothing
of what he was to pay, and did also accuse Phabatus to Caesar,
and said that he was not a steward for Caesar's advantage, but
for Herod's, Phabatus was angry at him on that account, but was
still in very great esteem with Herod, and discovered Sylleus's
grand secrets, and told the king that Sylleus had corrupted
Corinthus, one of the guards of his body, by bribing him, and of
whom he must therefore have a care. Accordingly, the king
complied; for this Corinthus, though he was brought up in Herod's
kingdom, yet was he by birth an Arabian; so the king ordered him
to be taken up immediately, and not only him, but two other
Arabians, who were caught with him; the one of them was Sylleus's
friend, the other the head of a tribe. These last, being put to
the torture, confessed that they had prevailed with Corinthus,
for a large sum of money, to kill Herod; and when they had been
further examined before Saturninus, the president of Syria, they
were sent to Rome.

4. However, Herod did not leave off importuning Pheroras, but
proceeded to force him to put away his wife; (45) yet could he
not devise any way by which he could bring the woman herself to
punishment, although he had many causes of hatred to her; till at
length he was in such great uneasiness at her, that he cast both
her and his brother out of his kingdom. Pheroras took this injury
very patiently, and went away into his own tetrarchy, [Perea
beyond Jordan,] and sware that there should be but one end put to
his flight, and that should be Herod's death; and that he would
never return while he was alive. Nor indeed would he return when
his brother was sick, although he earnestly sent for him to come
to him, because he had a mind to leave some injunctions with him
before he died; but Herod unexpectedly recovered. A little
afterward Pheroras himself fell sick, when Herod showed great
moderation; for he came to him, and pitied his case, and took
care of him; but his affection for him did him no good, for
Pheroras died a little afterward. Now though Herod had so great
an affection for him to the last day of his life, yet was a
report spread abroad that he had killed him by poison. However,
he took care to have his dead body carried to Jerusalem, and
appointed a very great mourning to the whole nation for him, and
bestowed a most pompous funeral upon him. And this was the end
that one of Alexander's and Aristobulus's murderers came to. 
CHAPTER 30.

When Herod Made Inquiry About Pheroras's Death A Discovery Was
Made That Antipater Had Prepared A Poisonous Draught For Him.
Herod Casts Doris And Her Accomplices, As Also Mariamne, Out Of
The Palace And Blots Her Son Herod Out Of His Testament.

1. But now the punishment was transferred unto the original
author, Antipater, and took its rise from the death of Pheroras;
for certain of his freed-men came with a sad countenance to the
king, and told him that his brother had been destroyed by poison,
and that his wife had brought him somewhat that was prepared
after an unusual manner, and that, upon his eating it, he
presently fell into his distemper; that Antipater's mother and
sister, two days before, brought a woman out of Arabia that was
skillful in mixing such drugs, that she might prepare a love
potion for Pheroras; and that instead of a love potion, she had
given him deadly poison; and that this was done by the management
of Sylleus, who was acquainted with that woman.

2. The king was deeply affected with so many suspicions, and had
the maid-servants and some of the free women also tortured; one
of which cried out in her agonies, "May that God that governs the
earth and the heaven punish this author of all these our
miseries, Antipater's mother!" The king took a handle from this
confession, and proceeded to inquire further into the truth of
the matter. So this woman discovered the friendship of
Antipater's mother to Pheroras, and Antipater's women, as also
their secret meetings, and that Pheroras and Antipater had drunk
with them for a whole night together as they returned from the
king, and would not suffer any body, either man-servant or
maidservant, to be there; while one of the free women discovered
the matter.

3. Upon this Herod tortured the maid-servants every on by
themselves separately, who all unanimously agreed in the
foregoing discoveries, and that accordingly by agreement they
went away, Antipater to Rome, and Pheroras to Perea; for that
they oftentimes talked to one another thus: That after Herod had
slain Alexander and Aristobulus, he would fall upon them, and
upon their wives, because, after he Mariamne and her children he
would spare nobody; and that for this reason it was best to get
as far off the wild beast as they were able: - and that Antipater
oftentimes lamented his own case before his mother, and said to
her, that he had already gray hairs upon his head, and that his
father grew younger again every day, and that perhaps death would
overtake him before he should begin to be a king in earnest; and
that in case Herod should die, which yet nobody knew when it
would be, the enjoyment of the succession could certainly be but
for a little time; for that these heads of Hydra, the sons of
Alexander and Aristobulus, were growing up: that he was deprived
by his father of the hopes of being succeeded by his children,
for that his successor after his death was not to be any one of
his own sons, but Herod the son of Mariamne: that in this point
Herod was plainly distracted, to think that his testament should
therein take place; for he would take care that not one of his
posterity should remain, because he was of all fathers the
greatest hater of his children. Yet does he hate his brother
still worse; whence it was that he a while ago gave himself a
hundred talents, that he should not have any intercourse with
Pheroras. And when Pheroras said, Wherein have we done him any
harm? Antipater replied, "I wish he would but deprive us of all
we have, and leave us naked and alive only; but it is indeed
impossible to escape this wild beast, who is thus given to
murder, who will not permit us to love any person openly,
although we be together privately; yet may we be so openly too,
if we have but the courage and the hands of men."

4. These things were said by the women upon the torture; as also
that Pheroras resolved to fly with them to Perea. Now Herod gave
credit to all they said, on account of the affair of the hundred
talents; for he had no discourse with any body about them, but
only with Antipater. So he vented his anger first of all against
Antipater's mother, and took away from her all the ornaments
which he had given her, which cost a great many talents, and cast
her out of the palace a second time. He also took care of
Pheroras's women after their tortures, as being now reconciled to
them; but he was in great consternation himself, and inflamed
upon every suspicion, and had many innocent persons led to the
torture, out of his fear lest he should leave any guilty person
untortured.

5. And now it was that he betook himself to examine Antipater of
Samaria, who was the steward of [his son] Antipater; and upon
torturing him, he learned that Antipater had sent for a potion of
deadly poison for him out of Egypt, by Antiphilus, a companion of
his; that Theudio, the uncle of Antipater, had it from him, and
delivered it to Pheroras; for that Antipater had charged him to
take his father off while he was at Rome, and so free him from
the suspicion of doing it himself: that Pheroras also committed
this potion to his wife. Then did the king send for her, and bid
her bring to him what she had received immediately. So she came
out of her house as if she would bring it with her, but threw
herself down from the top of the house, in order to prevent any
examination and torture from the king. However, it came to pass,
as it seems by the providence of God, when he intended to bring
Antipater to punishment, that she fell not upon her head, but
upon other parts of her body, and escaped. The king, when she was
brought to him, took care of her, (for she was at first quite
senseless upon her fall,) and asked her why she had thrown
herself down; and gave her his oath, that if she would speak the
real truth, he would excuse her from punishment; but that if she
concealed any thing, he would have her body torn to pieces by
torments, and leave no part. of it to be buried.

6. Upon this the woman paused a little, and then said, "Why do I
spare to speak of these grand secrets, now Pheroras is dead? that
would only tend to save Antipater, who is all our destruction.
Hear then, O king, and be thou, and God himself, who cannot be
deceived, witnesses to the truth of what I am going to say. When
thou didst sit weeping by Pheroras as he was dying, then it was
that he called me to him, and said, My dear wife, I have been
greatly mistaken as to the disposition of my brother towards me,
and have hated him that is so affectionate to me, and have
contrived to kill him who is in such disorder for me before I am
dead. As for myself, I receive the recompence of my impiety; but
do thou bring what poison was left with us by Antipater, and
which thou keepest in order to destroy him, and consume it
immediately in the fire in my sight, that I may not be liable to
the avenger in the invisible world." This I brought as he bid me,
and emptied the greatest part of it into the fire, but reserved a
little of it for my own use against uncertain futurity, and out
of my fear of thee."

7. When she had said this, she brought the box, which had a small
quantity of this potion in it: but the king let her alone, and
transferred the tortures to Antiphilus's mother and brother; who
both confessed that Antiphilus brought the box out of Egypt, and
that they had received the potion from a brother of his, who was
a physician at Alexandria. Then did the ghosts of Alexander and
Aristobulus go round all the palace, and became the inquisitors
and discoverers of what could not otherwise have been found out
and brought such as were the freest from suspicion to be
examined; whereby it was discovered that Mariamne, the high
priest's daughter, was conscious of this plot; and her very
brothers, when they were tortured, declared it so to be.
Whereupon the king avenged this insolent attempt of the mother
upon her son, and blotted Herod, whom he had by her, out of his
treament, who had been before named therein as successor to
Antipater.

CHAPTER 31.

Antipater Is Convicted By Bathyllus ; But He Still Returns From
Rome Without Knowing It. Herod Brings Him To His Trial.

1. After these things were over, Bathyllus came under
examination, in order to convict Antipater, who proved the
concluding attestation to Antipater's designs; for indeed he was
no other than his freed-man. This man came, and brought another
deadly potion, the poison of asps, and the juices of other
serpents, that if the first potion did not do the business,
Pheroras and his wife might be armed with this also to destroy
the king. He brought also an addition to Antipater's insolent
attempt against his father, which was the letters which he wrote
against his brethren, Archelaus and Philip, which were the king's
sons, and educated at Rome, being yet youths, but of generous
dispositions. Antipater set himself to get rid of these as soon
as he could, that they might not be prejudicial to his hopes; and
to that end he forged letters against them in the name of his
friends at Rome. Some of these he corrupted by bribes to write
how they grossly reproached their father, and did openly bewail
Alexander and Aristobulus, and were uneasy at their being
recalled; for their father had already sent for them, which was
the very thing that troubled Antipater.

2. Nay, indeed, while Antipater was in Judea, and before he was
upon his journey to Rome, he gave money to have the like letters
against them sent from Rome, and then came to his father, who as
yet had no suspicion of him, and apologized for his brethren, and
alleged on their behalf that some of the things contained in
those letters were false, and others of them were only youthful
errors. Yet at the same time that he expended a great deal of his
money, by making presents to such as wrote against his brethren,
did he aim to bring his accounts into confusion, by buying costly
garments, and carpets of various contextures, with silver and
gold cups, and a great many more curious things, that so, among
the view great expenses laid out upon such furniture, he might
conceal the money he had used in hiring men [to write the
letters]; for he brought in an account of his expenses, amounting
to two hundred talents, his main pretense for which was file
law-suit he had been in with Sylleus. So while all his rogueries,
even those of a lesser sort also, were covered by his greater
villainy, while all the examinations by torture proclaimed his
attempt to murder his father, and the letters proclaimed his
second attempt to murder his brethren; yet did no one of those
that came to Rome inform him of his misfortunes in Judea,
although seven months had intervened between his conviction and
his return, so great was the hatred which they all bore to him.
And perhaps they were the ghosts of those brethren of his that
had been murdered that stopped the mouths of those that intended
to have told him. He then wrote from Rome, and informed his
[friends] that he would soon come to them, and how he was
dismissed with honor by Caesar.

3. Now the king, being desirous to get this plotter against him
into his hands, and being also afraid lest he should some way
come to the knowledge how his affairs stood, and be upon his
guard, he dissembled his anger in his epistle to him, as in other
points he wrote kindly to him, and desired him to make haste,
because if he came quickly, he would then lay aside the
complaints he had against his mother; for Antipater was not
ignorant that his mother had been expelled out of the palace.
However, he had before received a letter, which contained an
account of the death of Pheroras, at Tarentum, (46) and made
great lamentations at it; for which some commended him, as being
for his own uncle; though probably this confusion arose on
account of his having thereby failed in his plot [on his father's
life]; and his tears were more for the loss of him that was to
have been subservient therein, than for [an uncle] Pheroras:
moreover, a sort of fear came upon him as to his designs, lest
the poison should have been discovered. However, when he was in
Cilicia, he received the forementioned epistle from his father,
and made great haste accordingly. But when he had sailed to
Celenderis, a suspicion came into his mind relating to his
mother's misfortunes; as if his soul foreboded some mischief to
itself. Those therefore of his friends which were the most
considerate advised him not rashly to go to his father, till he
had learned what were the occasions why his mother had been
ejected, because they were afraid that he might be involved in
the calumnies that had been cast upon his mother: but those that
were less considerate, and had more regard to their own desires
of seeing their native country, than to Antipater's safety,
persuaded him to make haste home, and not, by delaying his
journey, afford his father ground for an ill suspicion, and give
a handle to those that raised stories against him; for that in
case any thing had been moved to his disadvantage, it was owing
to his absence, which durst not have been done had he been
present. And they said it was absurd to deprive himself of
certain happiness, for the sake of an uncertain suspicion, and
not rather to return to his father, and take the royal authority
upon him, which was in a state of fluctuation on his account
only. Antipater complied with this last advice, for Providence
hurried him on [to his destruction]. So he passed over the sea,
and landed at Sebastus, the haven of Cesarea.

4. And here he found a perfect and unexpected solitude, while
ever body avoided him, and nobody durst come at him; for he was
equally hated by all men; and now that hatred had liberty to show
itself, and the dread men were in at the king's anger made men
keep from him; for the whole city [of Jerusalem] was filled with
the rumors about Antipater, and Antipater himself was the only
person who was ignorant of them; for as no man was dismissed more
magnificently when he began his voyage to Rome so was no man now
received back with greater ignominy. And indeed he began already
to suspect what misfortunes there were in Herod's family; yet did
he cunningly conceal his suspicion; and while he was inwardly
ready to die for fear, he put on a forced boldness of
countenance. Nor could he now fly any whither, nor had he any way
of emerging out of the difficulties which encompassed him; nor
indeed had he even there any certain intelligence of the affairs
of the royal family, by reason of the threats the king had given
out: yet had he some small hopes of better tidings; for perhaps
nothing had been discovered; or if any discovery had been made,
perhaps he should be able to clear himself by impudence and
artful tricks, which were the only things he relied upon for his
deliverance.

5. And with these hopes did he screen himself, till he came to
the palace, without any friends with him; for these were
affronted, and shut out at the first gate. Now Varus, the
president of Syria, happened to be in the palace [at this
juncture]; so Antipater went in to his father, and, putting on a
bold face, he came near to salute him. But Herod Stretched out
his hands, and turned his head away from him, and cried out,
"Even this is an indication of a parricide, to be desirous to get
me into his arms, when he is under such heinous accusations. God
confound thee, thou vile wretch; do not thou touch me, till thou
hast cleared thyself of these crimes that are charged upon thee.
I appoint thee a court where thou art to be judged, and this
Varus, who is very seasonably here, to be thy judge; and get thou
thy defense ready against tomorrow, for I give thee so much time
to prepare suitable excuses for thyself." And as Antipater was so
confounded, that he was able to make no answer to this charge, he
went away; but his mother and wife came to him, and told him of
all the evidence they had gotten against him. Hereupon he
recollected himself, and considered what defense he should make
against the accusations.

CHAPTER 32.

Antipater Is Accused Before Varus, And Is Convicted Of Laying A
Plot [Against His Father] By The Strongest Evidence. Herod Puts
Off His Punishment Till He Should Be Recovered, And In The Mean
Time Alters His Testament.

1. Now the day following the king assembled a court of his
kinsmen and friends, and called in Antipater's friends also.
Herod himself, with Varus, were the presidents; and Herod called
for all the witnesses, and ordered them to be brought in; among
whom some of the domestic servants of Antipater's mother were
brought in also, who had but a little while before been caught,
as they were carrying the following letter from her to her son:
"Since all those things have been already discovered to thy
father, do not thou come to him, unless thou canst procure some
assistance from Caesar." When this and the other witnesses were
introduced, Antipater came in, and falling on his face before his
father's feet, he said, "Father, I beseech thee, do not condemn
me beforehand, but let thy ears be unbiassed, and attend to my
defense; for if thou wilt give me leave, I will demonstrate that
I am innocent."

2. Hereupon Herod cried out to him to hold his peace, and spake
thus to Varus: "I cannot but think that thou, Varus, and every
other upright judge, will determine that Antipater is a vile
wretch. I am also afraid that thou wilt abhor my ill fortune, and
judge me also myself worthy of all sorts of calamity for
begetting such children; while yet I ought rather to be pitied,
who have been so affectionate a father to such wretched sons; for
when I had settled the kingdom on my former sons, even when they
were young, and when, besides the charges of their education at
Rome, I had made them the friends of Caesar, and made them envied
by other kings, I found them plotting against me. These have been
put to death, and that, in great measure, for the sake of
Antipater; for as he was then young, and appointed to be my
successor, I took care chiefly to secure him from danger: but
this profligate wild beast, when he had been over and above
satiated with that patience which I showed him, he made use of
that abundance I had given him against myself; for I seemed to
him to live too long, and he was very uneasy at the old age I was
arrived at; nor could he stay any longer, but would be a king by
parricide. And justly I am served by him for bringing him back
out of the country to court, when he was of no esteem before, and
for thrusting out those sons of mine that were born of the queen,
and for making him a successor to my dominions. I confess to
thee, O Varus, the great folly I was guilty for I provoked those
sons of mine to act against me, and cut off their just
expectations for the sake of Antipater; and indeed what kindness
did I do them; that could equal what I have done to Antipater? to
I have, in a manner, yielded up my royal while I am alive, and
whom I have openly named for the successor to my dominions in my
testament, and given him a yearly revenue of his own of fifty
talents, and supplied him with money to an extravagant degree out
of my own revenue; and' when he was about to sail to Rome, I gave
him three talents, and recommended him, and him alone of all my
children, to Caesar, as his father's deliverer. Now what crimes
were those other sons of mine guilty of like these of Antipater?
and what evidence was there brought against them so strong as
there is to demonstrate this son to have plotted against me? Yet
does this parricide presume to speak for himself, and hopes to
obscure the truth by his cunning tricks. Thou, O Varus, must
guard thyself against him; for I know the wild beast, and I
foresee how plausibly he will talk, and his counterfeit
lamentation. This was he who exhorted me to have a care of
Alexander when he was alive, and not to intrust my body with all
men! This was he who came to my very bed, and looked about lest
any one should lay snares for me! This was he who took care of my
sleep, and secured me from fear of danger, who comforted me under
the trouble I was in upon the slaughter of my sons, and looked to
see what affection my surviving brethren bore me! This was my
protector, and the guardian of my body! And when I call to mind,
O Varus, his craftiness upon every occasion, and his art of
dissembling, I can hardly believe that I am still alive, and I
wonder how I have escaped such a deep plotter of mischief.
However, since some fate or other makes my house desolate, and
perpetually raises up those that are dearest to me against me, I
will, with tears, lament my hard fortune, and privately groan
under my lonesome condition; yet am I resolved that no one who
thirsts after my blood shall escape punishment, although the
evidence should extend itself to all my sons."

3. Upon Herod's saying this, he was interrupted by the confusion
he was in; but ordered Nicolaus, one of his friends, to produce
the evidence against Antipater. But in the mean time Antipater
lifted up his head, (for he lay on the ground before his father's
feet,) and cried out aloud, "Thou, O father, hast made my apology
for me; for how can I be a parricide, whom thou thyself
confessest to have always had for thy guardian? Thou callest my
filial affection prodigious lies and hypocrisy! how then could it
be that I, who was so subtle in other matters, should here be so
mad as not to understand that it was not easy that he who
committed so horrid a crime should be concealed from men, but
impossible that he should be concealed from the Judge of heaven,
who sees all things, and is present every where? or did not I
know what end my brethren came to, on whom God inflicted so great
a punishment for their evil designs against thee? And indeed what
was there that could possibly provoke me against thee? Could the
hope of being king do it? I was a king already. Could I suspect
hatred from thee? No. Was not I beloved by thee? And what other
fear could I have? Nay, by preserving thee safe, I was a terror
to others. Did I want money? No; for who was able to expend so
much as myself? Indeed, father, had I been the most execrable of
all mankind, and had I had the soul of the most cruel wild beast,
must I not have been overcome with the benefits thou hadst
bestowed upon me? whom, as thou thyself sayest, thou broughtest
[into the palace]; whom thou didst prefer before so many of thy
sons; whom thou madest a king in thine own lifetime, and, by the
vast magnitude of the other advantages thou bestowedst on me,
thou madest me an object of envy. O miserable man! that thou
shouldst undergo this bitter absence, and thereby afford a great
opportunity for envy to arise against thee, and a long space for
such as were laying designs against thee! Yet was I absent,
father, on thy affairs, that Sylleus might not treat thee with
contempt in thine old age. Rome is a witness to my filial
affection, and so is Caesar, the ruler of the habitable earth,
who oftentimes called me Philopater. (47) Take here the letters
he hath sent thee, they are more to be believed than the
calumnies raised here; these letters are my only apology; these I
use as the demonstration of that natural affection I have to
thee. Remember that it was against my own choice that I sailed
[to Rome], as knowing the latent hatred that was in the kingdom
against me. It was thou, O father, however unwillingly, who hast
been my ruin, by forcing me to allow time for calumnies against
me, and envy at me. However, I am come hither, and am ready to
hear the evidence there is against me. If I be a parricide, I
have passed by land and by sea, without suffering any misfortune
on either of them: but this method of trial is no advantage to
me; for it seems, O father, that I am already condemned, both
before God and before thee; and as I am already condemned, I beg
that thou wilt not believe the others that have been tortured,
but let fire be brought to torment me; let the racks march
through my bowels; have no regard to any lamentations that this
polluted body can make; for if I be a parricide, I ought not to
die without torture." Thus did Antipater cry out with lamentation
and weeping, and moved all the rest, and Varus in particular, to
commiserate his case. Herod was the only person whose passion was
too strong to permit him to weep, as knowing that the testimonies
against him were true.

4. And now it was that, at the king's command, Nicolaus, when he
had premised a great deal about the craftiness of Antipater, and
had prevented the effects of their commiseration to him,
afterwards brought in a bitter and large accusation against him,
ascribing all the wickedness that had been in the kingdom to him,
and especially the murder of his brethren; and demonstrated that
they had perished by the calumnies he had raised against them. He
also said that he had laid designs against them that were still
alive, as if they were laying plots for the succession; and (said
he) how can it be supposed that he who prepared poison for his
father should abstain from mischief as to his brethren? He then
proceeded to convict him of the attempt to poison Herod, and gave
an account in order of the several discoveries that had been
made; and had great indignation as to the affair of Pheroras,
because Antipater had been for making him murder his brother, and
had corrupted those that were dearest to the king, and filled the
whole palace with wickedness; and when he had insisted on many
other accusations, and the proofs for them, he left off.

5. Then Varus bid Antipater make his defense; but he lay along in
silence, and said no more but this, "God is my witness that I am
entirely innocent." So Varus asked for the potion, and gave it to
be drunk by a condemned malefactor, who was then in prison, who
died upon the spot. So Varus, when he had had a very private
discourse with Herod, and had written an account of this assembly
to Caesar, went away, after a day's stay. The king also bound
Antipater, and sent away to inform Caesar of his misfortunes. 
6. Now after this it was discovered that Antipater had laid a
plot against Salome also; for one of Antiphilus's domestic
servants came, and brought letters from Rome, from a maid-servant
of Julia, [Caesar's wife,] whose name was Acme. By her a message
was sent to the king, that she had found a letter written by
Salome, among Julia's papers, and had sent it to him privately,
out of her good-will to him. This letter of Salome contained the
most bitter reproaches of the king, and the highest accusations
against him. Antipater had forged this letter, and had corrupted
Acme, and persuaded her to send it to Herod. This was proved by
her letter to Antipater, for thus did this woman write to him:
"As thou desirest, I have written a letter to thy father, and
have sent that letter, and am persuaded that the king will not
spare his sister when he reads it. Thou wilt do well to remember
what thou hast promised when all is accomplished."

7. When this epistle was discovered, and what the epistle forged
against Salome contained, a suspicion came into the king's mind,
that perhaps the letters against Alexander were also forged: he
was moreover greatly disturbed, and in a passion, because he had
almost slain his sister on Antipater's account. He did no longer
delay therefore to bring him to punishment for all his crimes;
yet when he was eagerly pursuing Antipater, he was restrained by
a severe distemper he fell into. However, he sent all account to
Caesar about Acme, and the contrivances against Salome; he sent
also for his testament, and altered it, and therein made Antipas
king, as taking no care of Archclaus and Philip, because
Antipater had blasted their reputations with him; but he
bequeathed to Caesar, besides other presents that he gave him, a
thousand talents; as also to his wife, and children, and friends,
and freed-men about five hundred: he also bequeathed to all
others a great quantity of land, and of money, and showed his
respects to Salome his sister, by giving her most splendid gifts.
And this was what was contained in his testament, as it was now
altered.

CHAPTER 33.

The Golden Eagle Is Cut To Pieces. Herod's Barbarity When He Was
Ready To Die. He Attempts To Kill Himself. He Commands Antipater
To Be Slain. He Survives Him Five Days And Then Dies.

1. Now Herod's distemper became more and more severe to him, and
this because these his disorders fell upon him in his old age,
and when he was in a melancholy condition; for he was already
seventy years of age, and had been brought by the calamities that
happened to him about his children, whereby he had no pleasure in
life, even when he was in health; the grief also that Antipater
was still alive aggravated his disease, whom he resolved to put
to death now not at random, but as soon as he should be well
again, and resolved to have him slain [in a public manner]. 
2. There also now happened to him, among his other calamities, a
certain popular sedition. There were two men of learning in the
city [Jerusalem,] who were thought the most skillful in the laws
of their country, and were on that account had in very great
esteem all over the nation; they were, the one Judas, the son of
Sepphoris, and the other Mattbias, the son of Margalus. There was
a great concourse of the young men to these men when they
expounded the laws, and there got together every day a kind of an
army of such as were growing up to be men. Now when these men
were informed that the king was wearing away with melancholy, and
with a distemper, they dropped words to their acquaintance, how
it was now a very proper time to defend the cause of God, and to
pull down what had been erected contrary to the laws of their
country; for it was unlawful there should be any such thing in
the temple as images, or faces, or the like representation of any
animal whatsoever. Now the king had put up a golden eagle over
the great gate of the temple, which these learned men exhorted
them to cut down; and told them, that if there should any danger
arise, it was a glorious thing to die for the laws of their
country; because that the soul was immortal, and that an eternal
enjoyment of happiness did await such as died on that account;
while the mean-spirited, and those that were not wise enough to
show a right love of their souls, preferred a death by a disease,
before that which is the result of a virtuous behavior.

3. At the same time that these men made this speech to their
disciples, a rumor was spread abroad that the king was dying,
which made the young men set about the work with greater
boldness; they therefore let themselves down from the top of the
temple with thick cords, and this at midday, and while a great
number of people were in the temple, and cut down that golden
eagle with axes. This was presently told to the king's captain of
the temple, who came running with a great body of soldiers, and
caught about forty of the young men, and brought them to the
king. And when he asked them, first of all, whether they had been
so hardy as to cut down the golden eagle, they confessed they had
done so; and when he asked them by whose command they had done
it, they replied, at the command of the law of their country; and
when he further asked them how they could be so joyful when they
were to be put to death, they replied, because they should enjoy
greater happiness after they were dead. (48)

4. At this the king was in such an extravagant passion, that he
overcame his disease [for the time,] and went out, and spake to
the people; wherein he made a terrible accusation against those
men, as being guilty of sacrilege, and as making greater attempts
under pretense of their law, and he thought they deserved to be
punished as impious persons. Whereupon the people were afraid
lest a great number should be found guilty and desired that when
he had first punished those that put them upon this work, and
then those that were caught in it, he would leave off his anger
as to the rest. With this the king complied, though not without
difficulty, and ordered those that had let themselves down,
together with their Rabbins, to be burnt alive, but delivered the
rest that were caught to the proper officers, to be put to death
by them.

5. After this, the distemper seized upon his whole body, and
greatly disordered all its parts with various symptoms; for there
was a gentle fever upon him, and an intolerable itching over all
the surface of his body, and continual pains in his colon, and
dropsical turnouts about his feet, and an inflammation of the
abdomen, and a putrefaction of his privy member, that produced
worms. Besides which he had a difficulty of breathing upon him,
and could not breathe but when he sat upright, and had a
convulsion of all his members, insomuch that the diviners said
those diseases were a punishment upon him for what he had done to
the Rabbins. Yet did he struggle with his numerous disorders, and
still had a desire to live, and hoped for recovery, and
considered of several methods of cure. Accordingly, he went over
Jordan, and made use of those hot baths at Callirrhoe, which ran
into the lake Asphaltitis, but are themselves sweet enough to be
drunk. And here the physicians thought proper to bathe his whole
body in warm oil, by letting it down into a large vessel full of
oil; whereupon his eyes failed him, and he came and went as if he
was dying; and as a tumult was then made by his servants, at
their voice he revived again. Yet did he after this despair of
recovery, and gave orders that each soldier should have fifty
drachmae a-piece, and that his commanders and friends should have
great sums of money given them.

6. He then returned back and came to Jericho, in such a
melancholy state of body as almost threatened him with present
death, when he proceeded to attempt a horrid wickedness; for he
got together the most illustrious men of the whole Jewish nation,
out of every village, into a place called the Hippodrome, and
there shut them in. He then called for his sister Salome, and her
husband Alexas, and made this speech to them: "I know well enough
that the Jews will keep a festival upon my death however, it is
in my power to be mourned for on other accounts, and to have a
splendid funeral, if you will but be subservient to my commands.
Do you but take care to send soldiers to encompass these men that
are now in custody, and slay them immediately upon my death, and
then all Judea, and every family of them, will weep at it,
whether they will or no."

7. These were the commands he gave them; when there came letters
from his ambassadors at Rome, whereby information was given that
Acme was put to death at Caesar's command, and that Antipater was
condemned to die; however, they wrote withal, that if Herod had a
mind rather to banish him, Caesar permitted him so to do. So he
for a little while revived, and had a desire to live; but
presently after he was overborne by his pains, and was disordered
by want of food, and by a convulsive cough, and endeavored to
prevent a natural, death; so he took an apple, and asked for a
knife for he used to pare apples and eat them; he then looked
round about to see that there was nobody to hinder him, and lift
up his right hand as if he would stab himself; but Achiabus, his
first cousin, came running to him, and held his hand, and
hindered him from so doing; on which occasion a very great
lamentation was made in the palace, as if the king were expiring.
As soon as ever Antipater heard that, he took courage, and with
joy in his looks, besought his keepers, for a sum of money, to
loose him and let him go; but the principal keeper of the prison
did not only obstruct him in that his intention, but ran and told
the king what his design was; hereupon the king cried out louder
than his distemper would well bear, and immediately sent some of
his guards and slew Antipater; he also gave order to have him
buried at Hyrcanium, and altered his testament again, and therein
made Archclaus, his eldest son, and the brother of Antipas, his
successor, and made Antipas tetrarch.

8. So Herod, having survived the slaughter of his son five days,
died, having reigned thirty-four years since he had caused
Antigonus to be slain, and obtained his kingdom; but thirty-seven
years since he had been made king by the Romans. Now as for his
fortune, it was prosperous in all other respects, if ever any
other man could be so, since, from a private man, he obtained the
kingdom, and kept it so long, and left it to his own sons; but
still in his domestic affairs he was a most unfortunate man. Now,
before the soldiers knew of his death, Salome and her husband
came out and dismissed those that were in bonds, whom the king
had commanded to be slain, and told them that he had altered his
mind, and would have every one of them sent to their own homes.
When these men were gone, Salome, told the soldiers [the king was
dead], and got them and the rest of the multitude together to an
assembly, in the amphitheater at Jericho, where Ptolemy, who was
intrusted by the king with his signet ring, came before them, and
spake of the happiness the king had attained, and comforted the
multitude, and read the epistle which had been left for the
soldiers, wherein he earnestly exhorted them to bear good-will to
his successor; and after he had read the epistle, he opened and
read his testament, wherein Philip was to inherit Trachonitis,
and the neighboring countries, and Antipas was to be tetrarch, as
we said before, and Archelaus was made king. He had also been
commanded to carry Herod's ring to Caesar, and the settlements he
had made, sealed up, because Caesar was to be lord of all the
settlements he had made, and was to confirm his testament; and he
ordered that the dispositions he had made were to be kept as they
were in his former testament.

9. So there was an acclamation made to Archelaus, to congratulate
him upon his advancement; and the soldiers, with the multitude,
went round about in troops, and promised him their good-will, and
besides, prayed God to bless his government. After this, they
betook themselves to prepare for the king's funeral; and
Archelaus omitted nothing of magnificence therein, but brought
out all the royal ornaments to augment the pomp of the deceased.
There was a bier all of gold, embroidered with precious stones,
and a purple bed of various contexture, with the dead body upon
it, covered with purple; and a diadem was put upon his head, and
a crown of gold above it, and a secptre in his right hand; and
near to the bier were Herod's sons, and a multitude of his
kindred; next to which came his guards, and the regiment of
Thracians, the Germans. also and Gauls, all accounted as if they
were going to war; but the rest of the army went foremost, armed,
and following their captains and officers in a regular manner;
after whom five hundred of his domestic servants and freed-men
followed, with sweet spices in their hands: and the body was
carried two hundred furlongs, to Herodium, where he had given
order to be buried. And this shall suffice for the conclusion of
the life of Herod.

WAR BOOK 1 FOOTNOTES

(1) I see little difference in the several accounts in Josephus
about the Egyptian temple Onion, of which large complaints are
made by his commentators. Onias, it seems, hoped to have :made it
very like that at Jerusalem, and of the same dimensions; and so
he appears to have really done, as far as he was able and thought
proper. Of this temple, see Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 3. sect. 1--3,
and Of the War, B. VII. ch. 10. sect. 8.

(2) Why this John, the son of Simon, the high priest and governor
of the Jews, was called Hyrcanus, Josephus no where informs us;
nor is he called other than John at the end of the First Book of
the Maccabees. However, Sixtus Seuensis, when he gives us an
epitome of the Greek version of the book here abridged by
Josephus, or of the Chronicles of this John Hyrcanus, then
extant, assures us that he was called Hyrcanus from his conquest
of one of that name. See Authent. Rec. Part I. p. 207. But of
this younger Antiochus, see Dean Aldrich's note here.

(3) Josephus here calls this Antiochus the last of the
Seleucidae, although there remained still a shadow of another
king of that family, Antiochus Asiaticus, or Commagenus, who
reigned, or rather lay hid, till Pompey quite turned him out, as
Dean Aldrich here notes from Appian and Justin.

(4) Matthew 16:19; 18:18. Here we have the oldest and most
authentic Jewish exposition of binding and loosing, for punishing
or absolving men, not for declaring actions lawful or unlawful,
as some more modern Jews and Christians vainly pretend.

(5) Strabo, B. XVI. p. 740, relates, that this Selene Cleopatra
was besieged by Tigranes, not in Ptolemais, as here, but after
she had left Syria, in Seleucia, a citadel in Mesopotamia; and
adds, that when he had kept her a while in prison, he put her to
death. Dean Aldrich supposes here that Strabo contradicts
Josephus, which does not appear to me; for although Josephus says
both here and in the Antiquities, B. XIII. ch. 16. sect. 4, that
Tigranes besieged her now in Ptolemais, and that he took the
city, as the Antiquities inform us, yet does he no where intimate
that he now took the queen herself; so that both the narrations
of Strabo and Josephus may still be true notwithstanding.

(6) That this Antipater, the father of Herod the Great was an
Idumean, as Josephus affirms here, see the note on Antiq. B. XIV.
ch. 15. sect. 2. It is somewhat probable, as Hapercamp supposes,
and partly Spanheim also, that the Latin is here the truest; that
Pompey did him Hyrcanus, as he would have done the others from
Aristobulus, sect. 6, although his remarkable abstinence from the
2000 talents that were in the Jewish temple, when he took it a
little afterward, ch. 7. sect. 6, and Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 4. sect.
4, will to Greek all which agree he did not take them.

(7) Of the famous palm trees and balsam about Jericho and
Engaddl, see the notes in Havercamp's edition, both here and B.
II. ch. 9. sect. 1. They are somewhat too long to be transcribed
in this place.

(8) Thus says Tacitus: Cn. Pompelna first of all subdued the
Jews, and went into their temple, by right of conquest, Hist. B.
V. ch. 9. Nor did he touch any of its riches, as has been
observed on the parallel place of the Antiquities, B. XIV. ch. 4.
sect. 4, out of Cicero himself.

(9) The coin of this Gadara, still extant, with its date from
this era, is a certain evidence of this its rebuilding by Pompey,
as Spanheim here assures us.

(10) Take the like attestation to the truth of this submission of
Aretas, king of Arabia, to Scaurus the Roman general, in the
words of Dean Aldrich. "Hence (says he) is derived that old and
famous Denarius belonging to the Emillian family [represented in
Havercamp's edition], wherein Aretas appears in a posture of
supplication, and taking hold of a camel's bridle with his left
hand, and with his right hand presenting a branch of the
frankincense tree, with this inscription, M. SCAURUS EX S.C.; and
beneath, REX ARETAS."

(11) This citation is now wanting.

(12) What is here noted by Hudson and Spanheim, that this grant
of leave to rebuild the walls of the cities of Judea was made by
Julius Caesar, not as here to Antipater, but to Hyrcanas, Antiq.
B. XIV. ch. 8. sect. 5, has hardly an appearance of a
contradiction; Antipater being now perhaps considered only as
Hyrcanus's deputy and minister; although he afterwards made a
cipher of Hyrcanus, and, under great decency of behavior to him,
took the real authority to himself.

(13) Or twenty-five years of age. See note on Antiq. B. I. ch.
12. sect. 3; and on B. XIV. ch. 9. sect. 2; and Of the War, B.
II. ch. 11. sect. 6; and Polyb. B. XVII. p. 725. Many writers of
the Roman history give an account of this murder of Sextus
Caesar, and of the war of Apamia upon that occasion. They are
cited in Dean Aldrich's note.

(14) In the Antiquities, B. XIV. ch. 11. sect. 1, the duration of
the reign of Julius Caesar is three years six months; but here
three years seven months, beginning nightly, says Dean Aldrich,
from his second dictatorship. It is probable the real duration
might be three years and between six and seven months.

(15) It appears evidently by Josephus's accounts, both here and
in his Antiquities, B. XIV. ch. 11. sect. 2, that this Cassius,
one of Caesar's murderers, was a bitter oppressor, and exactor of
tribute in Judea. These seven hundred talents amount to about
three hundred thousand pounds sterling, and are about half the
yearly revenues of king Herod afterwards. See the note on Antiq.
B. XVII. ch. 11. sect. 4. It also appears that Galilee then paid
no more than one hundred talents, or the seventh part of the
entire sum to be levied in all the country.

(16) Here we see that Cassius set tyrants over all Syria; so that
his assisting to destroy Caesar does not seem to have proceeded
from his true zeal for public liberty, but from a desire to be a
tyrant himself.

(17) Phasaelus and Herod.

(18) This large and noted wood, or woodland, belonging to Carmel,
called apago by the Septuagint, is mentioned in the Old
Testament, 2 Kings 19:23; Isaiah 37:24, and by I Strabo, B. XVI.
p. 758, as both Aldrich and Spanheim here remark very
pertinently.

(19) These accounts, both here and Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 13. sect.
5, that the Parthians fought chiefly on horseback, and that only
some few of their soldiers were free-men, perfectly agree with
Trogus Pompeius, in Justin, B. XLI. 2, 3, as Dean Aldrich well
observes on this place.

(20) Mariamac here, in the copies.

(21) This Brentesium or Brundusium has coin still preserved, on
which is written, as Spanheim informs us.

(22) This Dellius is famous, or rather infamous, in the history
of Mark Antony, as Spanheim and Aldrich here note, from the
coins, from Plutarch and Dio.

(23) This Sepphoris, the metropolis of Galilee, so often
mentioned by Josephus, has coins still remaining, as Spanheim
here informs us.

(24) This way of speaking, "after forty days," is interpreted by
Josephus himself, "on the fortieth day," Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 15.
sect. 4. In like manner, when Josephus says, ch. 33. sect. 8,
that Herod lived "after" he had ordered Antipater to be slain
"five days;" this is by himself interpreted, Antiq. B. XVII. ch.
8. sect. 1, that he died "on the fifth day afterward." So also
what is in this book, ch. 13. sect. 1, "after two years," is,
Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 13. sect. 3, "on the second year." And Dean
Aldrich here notes that this way of speaking is familiar to
Josephus.

(25) This Samosata, the metropolis of Commagena, is well known
from its coins, as Spanheim here assures us. Dean Aldrich also
confirms what Josephus here notes, that Herod was a great means
of taking the city by Antony, and that from
Plutarch and Dio.

(26) That is, a woman, not, a man.

(27) This death of Antigonus is confirmed by Plutarch and.
Straho; the latter of whom is cited for it by Josephus himself,
Antiq. B. XV. ch. 1. sect. 2, as Dean Aldrich here observes.

(28) This ancient liberty of Tyre and Sidon under the Romans,
taken notice of by Josephus, both here and Antiq. B. XV. ch. 4.
sect. 1, is confirmed by the testimony of Sirabe, B. XVI. p. 757,
as Dean Aldrich remarks; although, as he justly adds, this
liberty lasted but a little while longer, when Augtus took it
away from them.

(29) This seventh year of the reign of Herod [from the conquest
or death of Antigonus], with the great earthquake in the
beginning of the same spring, which are here fully implied to be
not much before the fight at Actium, between Octavius and Antony,
and which is known from the Roman historians to have been in the
beginning of September, in the thirty-first year before the
Christian era, determines the chronology of Josephus as to the
reign of Herod, viz. that he began in the year 37, beyond
rational contradiction. Nor is it quite unworthy of our notice,
that this seventh year of the reign of Herod, or the thirty-first
before the Christian era, contained the latter part of a Sabbatic
year, on which Sabbatic year, therefore, it is plain this great
earthquake happened in Judea.

(30) This speech of Herod is set down twice by Josephus, here and
Antiq. B. XV. ch. 5. sect. 3, to the very same purpose, but by no
means in the same words; whence it appears that the sense was
Herod's, but the composition Josephus's.

(31) Since Josephus, both here and in his Antiq. B. XV. ch. 7.
sect. 3, reckons Gaza, which had been a free city, among the
cities given Herod by Augustus, and yet implies that Herod had
made Costobarus a governor of it before, Antiq. B. XV. ch. 7.
sect. 9, Hardain has some pretense for saying that Josephus here
contradicted himself. But perhaps Herod thought he had sufficient
authority to put a governor into Gaza, after he was made tetrarch
or king, in times of war, before the city was entirely delivered
into his hands by Augustus.

(32) This fort was first built, as it is supposed, by John
Hyrcanus; see Prid. at the year 107; and called "Baris," the
Tower or Citadel. It was afterwards rebuilt, with great
improvements, by Herod, under the government of Antonius, and was
named from him "the Tower of Antoni;" and about the time when
Herod rebuilt the temple, he seems to have put his last hand to
it. See Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 5. sect. 4; Of the War, B. I. ch. 3.
sect. 3; ch. 5. sect. 4. It lay on the northwest side of the
temple, and was a quarter as large.

(33) That Josephus speaks truth, when he assures us that the
haven of this Cesarea was made by Herod not less, nay rather
larger, than that famous haven at Athens, called the Pyrecum,
will appear, says Dean Aldrich, to him who compares the
descriptions of that at Athens in Thucydides and Pausanias, with
this of Cesarea in Josephus here, and in the Antiq. B. XV. ch. 9.
sect. 6, and B. XVII. ch. 9. sect. 1.

(34) These buildings of cities by the name of Caesar, and
institution of solemn games in honor of Augustus Caesar, as here,
and in the Antiquities, related of Herod by Josephus, the Roman
historians attest to, as things then frequent in the provinces of
that empire, as Dean Aldrich observes on this chapter.

(35) There were two cities, or citadels, called Herodium, in
Judea, and both mentioned by Josephus, not only here, but Antiq.
B. XIV. ch. 13. sect. 9; B. XV. ch. 9. sect. 6; Of the War, B. I.
ch. 13. sect. 8; B. III. ch. 3. sect. 5. One of them was two
hundred, and the other sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem. One
of them is mentioned by Pliny, Hist. Nat. B. V. ch. 14., as Dean
Aldrich observes here.

(36) Here seems to be a small defect in the copies, which
describe the wild beasts which were hunted in a certain country
by Herod, without naming any such country at all.

(37) Here is either a defect or a great mistake in Josephus's
present copies or memory; for Mariamne did not now reproach Herod
with this his first injunction to Joseph to kill her, if he
himself were slain by Antony, but that he had given the like
command a second time to Soemus also, when he was afraid of being
slain by Augustus. Antiq. B. XV. ch. 3. sect. 5, etc.

(38) That this island Eleusa, afterward called Sebaste, near
Cilicia, had in it the royal palace of this Archclaus, king of
Cappadocia, Strabo testifies, B. XV. p. 671. Stephanus of
Byzantiam also calls it "an island of Cilicia, which is now
Sebaste;" both whose testimonies are pertinently cited here by
Dr. Hudson. See the same history, Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 10. sect. 7.

(39) That it was an immemorial custom among the Jews, and their
forefathers, the patriarchs, to have sometimes more wives or
wives and concubines, than one at the same the and that this
polygamy was not directly forbidden in the law of Moses is
evident; but that polygamy was ever properly and distinctly
permitted in that law of Moses, in the places here cited by Dean
Aldrich, Deuteronomy 17:16, 17, or 21:15, or indeed any where
else, does not appear to me. And what our Savior says about the
common Jewish divorces, which may lay much greater claim to such
a permission than polygamy, seems to me true in this case also;
that Moses, "for the hardness of their hearts," suffered them to
have several wives at the same time, but that "from the beginning
it was not so," Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5.

(40) This vile fellow, Eurycles the Lacedemonian, seems to have
been the same who is mentioned by Plutarch, as (twenty-live years
before) a companion to Mark Antony, and as living with Herod;
whence he might easily insinuate himself into the acquaintance of
Herod's sons, Antipater and Alexander, as Usher, Hudson, and
Spanheim justly suppose. The reason why his being a Spartan
rendered him acceptable to the Jews as we here see he was, is
visible from the public records of the Jews and Spartans, owning
those Spartans to be of kin to the Jews, and derived from their
common ancestor Abraham, the first patriarch of the Jewish
nation, Antiq. B. XII. ch. 4. sect. 10; B. XIII. ch. 5. sect. 8;
and 1 Macc. 12:7.

(41) See the preceding note.

(42) Dean Aldrich takes notice here, that these nine wives of
Herod were alive at the same time; and that if the celebrated
Mariamne, who was now dead, be reckoned, those wives were in all
ten. Yet it is remarkable that he had no more than fifteen
children by them all.

(43) To prevent confusion, it may not be amiss, with Dean
Aldrich, to distinguish between four Josephs in the history of
Herod. 1. Joseph, Herod's uncle, and the [second] husband of his
sister Salome, slain by Herod, on account of Mariamne.

2. Joseph, Herod's quaestor, or treasurer, slain on the same
account. 3. Joseph, Herod's brother, slain in battle against
Antigonus. 4. Joseph, Herod's nephew, the husband of Olympias,
mentioned in this place.

(44) These daughters of Herod, whom Pheroras's wife affronted,
were Salome and Roxana, two virgins, who were born to him of his
two wives, Elpide and Phedra. See Herod's genealogy, Antiq. B.
XVII. ch. 1. sect. 3.

(45) This strange obstinacy of Pheroras in retaining his wife,
who was one of a low family, and refusing to marry one nearly
related to Herod, though he so earnestly desired it, as also that
wife's admission to the counsels of the other great court ladies,
together with Herod's own importunity as to Pheroras's divorce
and other marriage, all so remarkable here, or in the Antiquities
XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3. be well accounted for, but on
the supposal that Pheroras believed, and Herod suspected, that
the Pharisees' prediction, as if the crown of Judea should be
translated from Herod to Pheroras's posterity and that most
probably to Pheroras's posterity by this his wife, also would
prove true. See Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3. sect.
1.

(46) This Tarentum has coins still extant, as Reland informs us
here in his note.

(47) A lover of his father.

(48) Since in these two sections we have an evident account of
the Jewish opinions in the days of Josephus, about a future happy
state, and the resurrection of the dead, as in the New Testament,
John 11:24, I shall here refer to the other places in Josephus,
before he became a catholic Christian, which concern the same
matters. Of the War, B. II. ch. 8. sect. 10, 11; B. III. ch. 8.
sect. 4; B. VII. ch. 6. sect. 7; Contr. Apion, B. II. sect. 30;
where we may observe, that none of these passages are in his
Books of Antiquities, written peculiarly for the use of the
Gentiles, to whom he thought it not proper to insist on topics so
much out of their way as these were. Nor is this observation to
be omitted here, especially on account of the sensible difference
we have now before us in Josephus's reason of the used by the
Rabbins to persuade their scholars to hazard their lives for the
vindication of God's law against images, by Moses, as well as of
the answers those scholars made to Herod, when they were caught,
and ready to die for the same; I mean as compared with the
parallel arguments and answers represented in the Antiquities, B.
XVII. ch. 6. sect, 2, 3. A like difference between Jewish and
Gentile notions the reader will find in my notes on Antiquities,
B. III. ch. 7. sect. 7; B. XV. ch. 9. sect. 1. See the like also
in the case of the three Jewish sects in the Antiquities, B.
XIII. ch. 5. sect. 9, and ch. 10. sect. 4, 5; B. XVIII. ch. 1.
sect. 5; and compared with this in his Wars of the Jews, B. II.
ch. 8. sect. 2-14. Nor does St. Paul himself reason to Gentiles
at Athens, Acts 17:16-34, as he does to Jews in his Epistles.

BOOK II.

Containing The Interval Of Sixty-Nine Years.

From The Death Of Herod Till Vespasian Was Sent To Subdue The
Jews By Nero.

CHAPTER 1.

Archelaus Makes A Funeral Feast For The People, On The Account Of
Herod. After Which A Great Tumult Is Raised By The Multitude And
He Sends The Soldiers Out Upon Them, Who Destroy About Three
Thousand Of Them.

1. Now the necessity which Archelaus was under of taking a
journey to Rome was the occasion of new disturbances; for when he
had mourned for his father seven days, (1) and had given a very
expensive funeral feast to the multitude, (which custom is the
occasion of poverty to many of the Jews, because they are forced
to feast the multitude; for if any one omits it, he is not
esteemed a holy person,) he put on a white garment, and went up
to the temple, where the people accosted him with various
acclamations. He also spake kindly to the multitude from an
elevated seat and a throne of gold, and returned them thanks for
the zeal they had shown about his father's funeral, and the
submission they had made to him, as if he were already settled in
the kingdom; but he told them withal, that he would not at
present take upon him either the authority of a king, or the
names thereto belonging, until Caesar, who is made lord of this
whole affair by the testament, confirm the succession; for that
when the soldiers would have set the diadem on his head at
Jericho, he would not accept of it; but that he would make
abundant requitals, not to the soldiers only, but to the people,
for their alacrity and good-will to him, when the superior lords
[the Romans] should have given him a complete title to the
kingdom; for that it should be his study to appear in all things
better than his father.

2. Upon this the multitude were pleased, and presently made a
trial of what he intended, by asking great things of him; for
some made a clamor that he would ease them in their taxes;
others, that he would take off the duties upon commodities; and
some, that he would loose those that were in prison; in all which
cases he answered readily to their satisfaction, in order to get
the good-will of the multitude; after which he offered [the
proper] sacrifices, and feasted with his friends. And here it was
that a great many of those that desired innovations came in
crowds towards the evening, and began then to mourn on their own
account, when the public mourning for the king was over. These
lamented those that were put to death by Herod, because they had
cut down the golden eagle that had been over the gate of the
temple. Nor was this mourning of a private nature, but the
lamentations were very great, the mourning solemn, and the
weeping such as was loudly heard all over the city, as being for
those men who had perished for the laws of their country, and for
the temple. They cried out that a punishment ought to be
inflicted for these men upon those that were honored by Herod;
and that, in the first place, the man whom he had made high
priest should be deprived; and that it was fit to choose a person
of greater piety and purity than he was.

3. At these clamors Archelaus was provoked, but restrained
himself from taking vengeance on the authors, on account of the
haste he was in of going to Rome, as fearing lest, upon his
making war on the multitude, such an action might detain him at
home. Accordingly, he made trial to quiet the innovators by
persuasion, rather than by force, and sent his general in a
private way to them, and by him exhorted them to be quiet. But
the seditious threw stones at him, and drove him away, as he came
into the temple, and before he could say any thing to them. The
like treatment they showed to others, who came to them after him,
many of which were sent by Archelaus, in order to reduce them to
sobriety, and these answered still on all occasions after a
passionate manner; and it openly appeared that they would not be
quiet, if their numbers were but considerable. And indeed, at the
feast of unleavened bread, which was now at hand, and is by the
Jews called the Passover, and used to he celebrated with a great
number of sacrifices, an innumerable multitude of the people came
out of the country to worship; some of these stood in the temple
bewailing the Rabbins [that had been put to death], and procured
their sustenance by begging, in order to support their sedition.
At this Archclaus was aftrighted, and privately sent a tribune,
with his cohort of soldiers, upon them, before the disease should
spread over the whole multitude, and gave orders that they should
constrain those that began the tumult, by force, to be quiet. At
these the whole multitude were irritated, and threw stones at
many of the soldiers, and killed them; but the tribune fled away
wounded, and had much ado to escape so. After which they betook
themselves to their sacrifices, as if they had done no mischief;
nor did it appear to Archelaus that the multitude could be
restrained without bloodshed; so he sent his whole army upon
them, the footmen in great multitudes, by the way of the city,
and the horsemen by the way of the plain, who, falling upon them
on the sudden, as they were offering their sacrifices, destroyed
about three thousand of them; but the rest of the multitude were
dispersed upon the adjoining mountains: these were followed by
Archelaus's heralds, who commanded every one to retire to their
own homes, whither they all went, and left the festival.

CHAPTER 2.

Archelaus Goes To Rome With A Great Number Of His Kindred. He Is
There Accused Before Caesar By Antipater; But Is Superior To His
Accusers In Judgment By The Means Of That Defense Which Nicolaus
Made For Him.

1. Archelaus went down now to the sea-side, with his mother and
his friends, Poplas, and Ptolemy, and Nicolaus, and left behind
him Philip, to be his steward in the palace, and to take care of
his domestic affairs. Salome went also along with him with her
sons, as did also the king's brethren and sons-in-law. These, in
appearance, went to give him all the assistance they were able,
in order to secure his succession, but in reality to accuse him
for his breach of the laws by what he had done at the temple. 
2. But as they were come to Cesarea, Sabinus, the procurator of
Syria, met them; he was going up to Judea, to secure Herod's
effects; but Varus, [president of Syria,] who was come thither,
restrained him from going any farther. This Varus Archelaus had
sent for, by the earnest entreaty of Ptolemy. At this time,
indeed, Sabinus, to gratify Varus, neither went to the citadels,
nor did he shut up the treasuries where his father's money was
laid up, but promised that he would lie still, until Caesar
should have taken cognizance of the affair. So he abode at
Cesarea; but as soon as those that were his hinderance were gone,
when Varus was gone to Antioch, and Archclaus was sailed to Rome,
he immediately went on to Jerusalem, and seized upon the palace.
And when he had called for the governors of the citadels, and the
stewards [of the king's private affairs], he tried to sift out
the accounts of the money, and to take possession of the
citadels. But the governors of those citadels were not unmindful
of the commands laid upon them by Archelaus, and continued to
guard them, and said the custody of them rather belonged to
Caesar than to Archelaus.

3. In the mean time, Antipas went also to Rome, to strive for the
kingdom, and to insist that the former testament, wherein he was
named to be king, was valid before the latter testament. Salome
had also promised to assist him, as had many of Archelaus's
kindred, who sailed along with Archelaus himself also. He also
carried along with him his mother, and Ptolemy, the brother of
Nicolaus, who seemed one of great weight, on account of the great
trust Herod put in him, he having been one of his most honored
friends. However, Antipas depended chiefly upon Ireneus, the
orator; upon whose authority he had rejected such as advised him
to yield to Archelaus, because he was his elder brother, and
because the second testament gave the kingdom to him. The
inclinations also of all Archelaus's kindred, who hated him, were
removed to Antipas, when they came to Rome; although in the first
place every one rather desired to live under their own laws
[without a king], and to be under a Roman governor; but if they
should fail in that point, these desired that Antipas might be
their king.

4. Sabinus did also afford these his assistance to the same
purpose by letters he sent, wherein he accused Archelaus before
Caesar, and highly commended Antipas. Salome also, and those with
her, put the crimes which they accused Archelaus of in order, and
put them into Caesar's hands; and after they had done that,
Archelaus wrote down the reasons of his claim, and, by Ptolemy,
sent in his father's ring, and his father's accounts. And when
Caesar had maturely weighed by himself what both had to allege
for themselves, as also had considered of the great burden of the
kingdom, and largeness of the revenues, and withal the number of
the children Herod had left behind him, and had moreover read the
letters he had received from Varus and Sabinus on this occasion,
he assembled the principal persons among the Romans together, (in
which assembly Caius, the son of Agrippa, and his daughter
Julias, but by himself adopted for his own son, sat in the first
seat,) and gave the pleaders leave to speak.

5. Then stood up Salome's son, Antipater, (who of all Archelaus's
antagonists was the shrewdest pleader,) and accused him in the
following speech: That Archelaus did in words contend for the
kingdom, but that in deeds he had long exercised royal authority,
and so did but insult Caesar in desiring to be now heard on that
account, since he had not staid for his determination about the
succession, and since he had suborned certain persons, after
Herod's death, to move for putting the diadem upon his head;
since he had set himself down in the throne, and given answers as
a king, and altered the disposition of the army, and granted to
some higher dignities; that he had also complied in all things
with the people in the requests they had made to him as to their
king, and had also dismissed those that had been put into bonds
by his father for most important reasons. Now, after all this, he
desires the shadow of that royal authority, whose substance he
had already seized to himself, and so hath made Caesar lord, not
of things, but of words. He also reproached him further, that his
mourning for his father was only pretended, while he put on a sad
countenance in the day time, but drank to great excess in the
night; from which behavior, he said, the late disturbance among
the multitude came, while they had an indignation thereat. And
indeed the purport of his whole discourse was to aggravate
Archelaus's crime in slaying such a multitude about the temple,
which multitude came to the festival, but were barbarously slain
in the midst of their own sacrifices; and he said there was such
a vast number of dead bodies heaped together in the temple, as
even a foreign war, that should come upon them [suddenly], before
it was denounced, could not have heaped together. And he added,
that it was the foresight his father had of that his barbarity
which made him never give him any hopes of the kingdom, but when
his mind was more infirm than his body, and he was not able to
reason soundly, and did not well know what was the character of
that son, whom in his second testament he made his successor; and
this was done by him at a time when he had no complaints to make
of him whom he had named before, when he was sound in body, and
when his mind was free from all passion. That, however, if any
one should suppose Herod's judgment, when he was sick, was
superior to that at another time, yet had Archelaus forfeited his
kingdom by his own behavior, and those his actions, which were
contrary to the law, and to its disadvantage. Or what sort of a
king will this man be, when he hath obtained the government from
Caesar, who hath slain so many before he hath obtained it! 
6. When Antipater had spoken largely to this purpose, and had
produced a great number of Archelaus's kindred as witnesses, to
prove every part of the accusation, he ended his discourse. Then
stood up Nicolaus to plead for Archelaus. He alleged that the
slaughter in the temple could not be avoided; that those that
were slain were become enemies not to Archelaus's kingdom, only,
but to Caesar, who was to determine about him. He also
demonstrated that Archelaus's accusers had advised him to
perpetrate other things of which he might have been accused. But
he insisted that the latter testament should, for this reason,
above all others, be esteemed valid, because Herod had therein
appointed Caesar to be the person who should confirm the
succession; for he who showed such prudence as to recede from his
own power, and yield it up to the lord of the world, cannot be
supposed mistaken in his judgment about him that was to be his
heir; and he that so well knew whom to choose for arbitrator of
the succession could not be unacquainted with him whom he chose
for his successor.

7. When Nicolaus had gone through all he had to say, Archelaus
came, and fell down before Caesar's knees, without any noise; -
upon which he raised him up, after a very obliging manner, and
declared that truly he was worthy to succeed his father. However,
he still made no firm determination in his case; but when he had
dismissed those assessors that had been with him that day, he
deliberated by himself about the allegations which he had heard,
whether it were fit to constitute any of those named in the
testaments for Herod's successor, or whether the government
should be parted among all his posterity, and this because of the
number of those that seemed to stand in need of support
therefrom.

CHAPTER 3.

The Jews Fight A Great Battle With Sabinus's Soldiers, And A
Great Destruction Is Made At Jerusalem.

1. Now before Caesar had determined any thing about these
affairs, Malthace, Arehelaus's mother, fell sick and died.
Letters also were brought out of Syria from Varus, about a revolt
of the Jews. This was foreseen by Varus, who accordingly, after
Archelaus was sailed, went up to Jerusalem to restrain the
promoters of the sedition, since it was manifest that the nation
would not he at rest; so he left one of those legions which he
brought with him out of Syria in the city, and went himself to
Antioch. But Sabinus came, after he was gone, and gave them an
occasion of making innovations; for he compelled the keepers of
the citadels to deliver them up to him, and made a bitter search
after the king's money, as depending not only on the soldiers
which were left by Varus, but on the multitude of his own
servants, all which he armed and used as the instruments of his
covetousness. Now when that feast, which was observed after seven
weeks, and which the Jews called Pentecost, (i. e. the 50th day,)
was at hand, its name being taken from the number of the days
[after the passover], the people got together, but not on account
of the accustomed Divine worship, but of the indignation they had
['at the present state of affairs']. Wherefore an immense
multitude ran together, out of Galilee, and Idumea, and Jericho,
and Perea, that was beyond Jordan; but the people that naturally
belonged to Judea itself were above the rest, both in number, and
in the alacrity of the men. So they distributed themselves into
three parts, and pitched their camps in three places; one at the
north side of the temple, another at the south side, by the
Hippodrome, and the third part were at the palace on the west. So
they lay round about the Romans on every side, and besieged them. 
2. Now Sabinus was aftrighted, both at their multitude, and at
their courage, and sent messengers to Varus continually, and
besought him to come to his succor quickly; for that if he
delayed, his legion would be cut to pieces. As for Sabinus
himself, he got up to the highest tower of the fortress, which
was called Phasaelus; it is of the same name with Herod's
brother, who was destroyed by the Parthians; and then he made
signs to the soldiers of that legion to attack the enemy; for his
astonishment was so great, that he durst not go down to his own
men. Hereupon the soldiers were prevailed upon, and leaped out
into the temple, and fought a terrible battle with the Jews; in
which, while there were none over their heads to distress them,
they were too hard for them, by their skill, and the others' want
of skill, in war; but when once many of the Jews had gotten up to
the top of the cloisters, and threw their darts downwards, upon
the heads of the Romans, there were a great many of them
destroyed. Nor was it easy to avenge themselves upon those that
threw their weapons from on high, nor was it more easy for them
to sustain those who came to fight them hand to hand.

3. Since therefore the Romans were sorely afflicted by both these
circumstances, they set fire to the cloisters, which were works
to be admired, both on account of their magnitude and costliness.
Whereupon those that were above them were presently encompassed
with the flame, and many of them perished therein; as many of
them also were destroyed by the enemy, who came suddenly upon
them; some of them also threw themselves down from the walls
backward, and some there were who, from the desperate condition
they were in, prevented the fire, by killing themselves with
their own swords; but so many of them as crept out from the
walls, and came upon the Romans, were easily mastere by them, by
reason of the astonishment they were under; until at last some of
the Jews being destroyed, and others dispersed by the terror they
were in, the soldiers fell upon the treasure of God, which w now
deserted, and plundered about four hundred talents, Of which sum
Sabinus got together all that was not carried away by the
soldiers.

4. However, this destruction of the works [about the temple], and
of the men, occasioned a much greater number, and those of a more
warlike sort, to get together, to oppose the Romans. These
encompassed the palace round, and threatened to deploy all that
were in it, unless they went their ways quickly; for they
promised that Sabinus should come to no harm, if he would go out
with his legion. There were also a great many of the king's party
who deserted the Romans, and assisted the Jews; yet did the most
warlike body of them all, who were three thousand of the men of
Sebaste, go over to the Romans. Rufus also, and Gratus, their
captains, did the same, (Gratus having the foot of the king's
party under him, and Rufus the horse,) each of whom, even without
the forces under them, were of great weight, on account of their
strength and wisdom, which turn the scales in war. Now the Jews
in the siege, and tried to break down walls of the fortress, and
cried out to Sabinus and his party, that they should go their
ways, and not prove a hinderance to them, now they hoped, after a
long time, to recover that ancient liberty which their
forefathers had enjoyed. Sabinus indeed was well contented to get
out of the danger he was in, but he distrusted the assurances the
Jews gave him, and suspected such gentle treatment was but a bait
laid as a snare for them: this consideration, together with the
hopes he had of succor from Varus, made him bear the siege still
longer.

CHAPTER 4.

Herod's Veteran Soldiers Become Tumultuous. The Robberies Of
Judas. Simon And Athronoeus Take The Name Of King Upon Them. 
1. At this time there were great disturbances in the country, and
that in many places; and the opportunity that now offered itself
induced a great many to set up for kings. And indeed in Idumea
two thousand of Herod's veteran soldiers got together, and armed
and fought against those of the king's party; against whom
Achiabus, the king's first cousin, fought, and that out of some
of the places that were the most strongly fortified; but so as to
avoid a direct conflict with them in the plains. In Sepphoris
also, a city of Galilee, there was one Judas (the son of that
arch-robber Hezekias, who formerly overran the country, and had
been subdued by king Herod); this man got no small multitude
together, and brake open the place where the royal armor was laid
up, and armed those about him, and attacked those that were so
earnest to gain the dominion.

2. In Perea also, Simon, one of the servants to the king, relying
upon the handsome appearance and tallness of his body, put a
diadem upon his own head also; he also went about with a company
of robbers that he had gotten together, and burnt down the royal
palace that was at Jericho, and many other costly edifices
besides, and procured himself very easily spoils by rapine, as
snatching them out of the fire. And he had soon burnt down all
the fine edifices, if Gratus, the captain of the foot of the
king's party, had not taken the Trachonite archers, and the most
warlike of Sebaste, and met the man. His footmen were slain in
the battle in abundance; Gratus also cut to pieces Simon himself,
as he was flying along a strait valley, when he gave him an
oblique stroke upon his neck, as he ran away, and brake it. The
royal palaces that were near Jordan at Betharamptha were also
burnt down by some other of the seditious that came out of Perea. 
3. At this time it was that a certain shepherd ventured to set
himself up for a king; he was called Athrongeus. It was his
strength of body that made him expect such a dignity, as well as
his soul, which despised death; and besides these qualifications,
he had four brethren like himself. He put a troop of armed men
under each of these his brethren, and made use of them as his
generals and commanders, when he made his incursions, while he
did himself act like a king, and meddled only with the more
important affairs; and at this time he put a diadem about his
head, and continued after that to overrun the country for no
little time with his brethren, and became their leader in killing
both the Romans and those of the king's party; nor did any Jew
escape him, if any gain could accrue to him thereby. He once
ventured to encompass a whole troop of Romans at Emmaus, who were
carrying corn and weapons to their legion; his men therefore shot
their arrows and darts, and thereby slew their centurion Arius,
and forty of the stoutest of his men, while the rest of them, who
were in danger of the same fate, upon the coming of Gratus, with
those of Sebaste, to their assistance, escaped. And when these
men had thus served both their own countrymen and foreigners, and
that through this whole war, three of them were, after some time,
subdued; the eldest by Archelaus, the two next by falling into
the hands of Gratus and Ptolemeus; but the fourth delivered
himself up to Archelaus, upon his giving him his right hand for
his security. However, this their end was not till afterward,
while at present they filled all Judea with a piratic war. 
CHAPTER 5.

Varus Composes The Tumults In Judea And Crucifies About Two
Thousand Of The Seditious.

1. Upon Varus's reception of the letters that were written by
Sabinus and the captains, he could not avoid being afraid for the
whole legion [he had left there]. So he made haste to their
relief, and took with him the other two legions, with the four
troops of horsemen to them belonging, and marched to Ptolenlais;
having given orders for the auxiliaries that were sent by the
kings and governors of cities to meet him there. Moreover, he
received from the people of Berytus, as he passed through their
city, fifteen hundred armed men. Now as soon as the other body of
auxiliaries were come to Ptolemais, as well as Aretas the
Arabian, (who, out of the hatred he bore to Herod, brought a
great army of horse and foot,) Varus sent a part of his army
presently to Galilee, which lay near to Ptolemais, and Caius, one
of his friends, for their captain. This Caius put those that met
him to flight, and took the city Sepphoris, and burnt it, and
made slaves of its inhabitants; but as for Varus himself, he
marched to Samaria with his whole army, where he did not meddle
with the city itself, because he found that it had made no
commotion during these troubles, but pitched his camp about a
certain village which was called Aras. It belonged to Ptolemy,
and on that account was plundered by the Arabians, who were very
angry even at Herod's friends also. He thence marched on to the
village Sampho, another fortified place, which they plundered, as
they had done the other. As they carried off all the money they
lighted upon belonging to the public revenues, all was now full
of fire and blood-shed, and nothing could resist the plunders of
the Arabians. Emnaus was also burnt, upon the flight of its
inhabitants, and this at the command of Varus, out of his rage at
the slaughter of those that were about Arias.

2. Thence he marched on to Jerusalem, and as soon as he was but
seen by the Jews, he made their camps disperse themselves; they
also went away, and fled up and down the country. But the
citizens received him, and cleared themselves of having any hand
in this revolt, and said that they had raised no commotions, but
had only been forced to admit the multitude, because of the
festival, and that they were rather besieged together with the
Romans, than assisted those that had revolted. There had before
this met him Joseph, the first cousin of Archelaus, and Gratus,
together with Rufus, who led those of Sebaste, as well as the
king's army: there also met him those of the Roman legion, armed
after their accustomed manner; for as to Sabinus, he durst not
come into Varus's sight, but was gone out of the city before
this, to the sea-side. But Varus sent a part of his army into the
country, against those that had been the authors of this
commotion, and as they caught great numbers of them, those that
appeared to have been the least concerned in these tumults he put
into custody, but such as were the most guilty he crucified;
these were in number about two thousand.

3. He was also informed that there continued in Idumea ten
thousand men still in arms; but when he found that the Arabians
did not act like auxiliaries, but managed the war according to
their own passions, and did mischief to the country otherwise
than he intended, and this out of their hatred to Herod, he sent
them away, but made haste, with his own legions, to march against
those that had revolted; but these, by the advice of Achiabus,
delivered themselves up to him before it came to a battle. Then
did Varus forgive the multitude their offenses, but sent their
captains to Caesar to be examined by him. Now Caesar forgave the
rest, but gave orders that certain of the king's relations (for
some of those that were among them were Herod's kinsmen) should
be put to death, because they had engaged in a war against a king
of their own family. When therefore Varus had settled matters at
Jerusalem after this manner, and had left the former legion there
as a garrison, he returned to Antioch.

CHAPTER 6.

The Jews Greatly Complain Of Archelaus And Desire That They May
Be Made Subject To Roman Governors. But When Caesar Had Heard
What They Had To Say, He Distributed Herod's Dominions Among His
Sons According To His Own Pleasure.

1. But now came another accusation from the Jews against
Archelaus at Rome, which he was to answer to. It was made by
those ambassadors who, before the revolt, had come, by Varus's
permission, to plead for the liberty of their country; those that
came were fifty in number, but there were more than eight
thousand of the Jews at Rome who supported them. And when Caesar
had assembled a council of the principal Romans in Apollo's (2)
temple, that was in the palace, (this was what he had himself
built and adorned, at a vast expense,) the multitude of the Jews
stood with the ambassadors, and on the other side stood
Archelaus, with his friends; but as for the kindred of Archelaus,
they stood on neither side; for to stand on Archelaus's side,
their hatred to him, and envy at him, would not give them leave,
while yet they were afraid to be seen by Caesar with his
accusers. Besides these, there were present Archelaus's brother
Philip, being sent thither beforehand, out of kindness by Varus,
for two reasons: the one was this, that he might be assisting to
Archelaus; and the other was this, that in case Caesar should
make a distribution of what Herod possessed among his posterity,
he might obtain some share of it.

2. And now, upon the permission that was given the accusers to
speak, they, in the first place, went over Herod's breaches of
their law, and said that be was not a king, but the most
barbarous of all tyrants, and that they had found him to be such
by the sufferings they underwent from him; that when a very great
number had been slain by him, those that were left had endured
such miseries, that they called those that were dead happy men;
that he had not only tortured the bodies of his subjects, but
entire cities, and had done much harm to the cities of his own
country, while he adorned those that belonged to foreigners; and
he shed the blood of Jews, in order to do kindnesses to those
people that were out of their bounds; that he had filled the
nation full of poverty, and of the greatest iniquity, instead of
that happiness and those laws which they had anciently enjoyed;
that, in short, the Jews had borne more calamities from Herod, in
a few years, than had their forefathers during all that interval
of time that had passed since they had come out of Babylon, and
returned home, in the reign of Xerxes (3) that, however, the
nation was come to so low a condition, by being inured to
hardships, that they submitted to his successor of their own
accord, though he brought them into bitter slavery; that
accordingly they readily called Archelaus, though he was the son
of so great a tyrant, king, after the decease of his father, and
joined with him in mourning for the death of Herod, and in
wishing him good success in that his succession; while yet this
Archelaus, lest he should be in danger of not being thought the
genuine son of Herod, began his reign with the murder of three
thousand citizens; as if he had a mind to offer so many bloody
sacrifices to God for his government, and to fill the temple with
the like number of dead bodies at that festival: that, however,
those that were left after so many miseries, had just reason to
consider now at last the calamities they had undergone, and to
oppose themselves, like soldiers in war, to receive those stripes
upon their faces [but not upon their backs, as hitherto].
Whereupon they prayed that the Romans would have compassion upon
the [poor] remains of Judea, and not expose what was left of them
to such as barbarously tore them to pieces, and that they would
join their country to Syria, and administer the government by
their own commanders, whereby it would [soon] be demonstrated
that those who are now under the calumny of seditious persons,
and lovers of war, know how to bear governors that are set over
them, if they be but tolerable ones. So the Jews concluded their
accusation with this request. Then rose up Nicolaus, and confuted
the accusations which were brought against the kings, and himself
accused the Jewish nation, as hard to be ruled, and as naturally
disobedient to kings. He also reproached all those kinsmen of
Archelaus who had left him, and were gone over to his accusers. 
3. So Caesar, after he had heard both sides, dissolved the
assembly for that time; but a few days afterward, he gave the one
half of Herod's kingdom to Archelaus, by the name of Ethnarch,
and promised to make him king also afterward, if he rendered
himself worthy of that dignity. But as to the other half, he
divided it into two tetrarchies, and gave them to two other sons
of Herod, the one of them to Philip, and the other to that
Antipas who contested the kingdom with Archelaus. Under this last
was Perea and Galilee, with a revenue of two hundred talents; but
Batanea, and Trachonitis, and Auranitis, and certain parts of
Zeno's house about Jamnia, with a revenue of a hundred talents,
were made subject to Philip; while Idumea, and all Judea, and
Samaria were parts of the ethnarchy of Archelaus, although
Samaria was eased of one quarter of its taxes, out of regard to
their not having revolted with the rest of the nation. He also
made subject to him the following cities, viz. Strato's Tower,
and Sebaste, and Joppa, and Jerusalem; but as to the Grecian
cities, Gaza, and Gadara, and Hippos, he cut them off from the
kingdom, and added them to Syria. Now the revenue of the country
that was given to Archelaus was four hundred talents. Salome
also, besides what the king had left her in his testaments, was
now made mistress of Jamnia, and Ashdod, and Phasaelis. Caesar
did moreover bestow upon her the royal palace of Ascalon; by all
which she got together a revenue of sixty talents; but he put her
house under the ethnarchy of Archelaus. And for the rest of
Herod's offspring, they received what was bequeathed to them in
his testaments; but, besides that, Caesar granted to Herod's two
virgin daughters five hundred thousand [drachmae] of silver, and
gave them in marriage to the sons of Pheroras: but after this
family distribution, he gave between them what had been
bequeathed to him by Herod, which was a thousand talents,
reserving to himself only some inconsiderable presents, in honor
of the deceased.

CHAPTER 7.

The History Of The Spurious Alexander. Archelaus Is Banished And
Glaphyra Dies, After What Was To Happen To Both Of Them Had Been
Showed Them In Dreams.

1. In the meantime, there was a man, who was by birth a Jew, but
brought up at Sidon with one of the Roman freed-men, who falsely
pretended, on account of the resemblance of their countenances,
that he was that Alexander who was slain by Herod. This man came
to Rome, in hopes of not being detected. He had one who was his
assistant, of his own nation, and who knew all the affairs of the
kingdom, and instructed him to say how those that were sent to
kill him and Aristobulus had pity upon them, and stole them away,
by putting bodies that were like theirs in their places. This man
deceived the Jews that were at Crete, and got a great deal of
money of them for traveling in splendor; and thence sailed to
Melos, where he was thought so certainly genuine, that he got a
great deal more money, and prevailed with those that had treated
him to sail along with him to Rome. So he landed at Dicearchia,
[Puteoli,] and got very large presents from the Jews who dwelt
there, and was conducted by his father's friends as if he were a
king; nay, the resemblance in his countenance procured him so
much credit, that those who had seen Alexander, and had known him
very well, would take their oaths that he was the very same
person. Accordingly, the whole body of the Jews that were at Rome
ran out in crowds to see him, and an innumerable multitude there
was which stood in the narrow places through which he was
carried; for those of Melos were so far distracted, that they
carried him in a sedan, and maintained a royal attendance for him
at their own proper charges.

2. But Caesar, who knew perfectly well the lineaments of
Alexander's face, because he had been accused by Herod before
him, discerned the fallacy in his countenance, even before he saw
the man. However, he suffered the agreeable fame that went of him
to have some weight with him, and sent Celadus, one who well knew
Alexander, and ordered him to bring the young man to him. But
when Caesar saw him, he immediately discerned a difference in his
countenance; and when he had discovered that his whole body was
of a more robust texture, and like that of a slave, he understood
the whole was a contrivance. But the impudence of what he said
greatly provoked him to be angry at him; for when he was asked
about Aristobulus, he said that he was also preserved alive, and
was left on purpose in Cyprus, for fear of treachery, because it
would be harder for plotters to get them both into their power
while they were separate. Then did Caesar take him by himself
privately, and said to him, "I will give thee thy life, if thou
wilt discover who it was that persuaded thee to forge such
stories." So he said that he would discover him, and followed
Caesar, and pointed to that Jew who abused the resemblance of his
face to get money; for that he had received more presents in
every city than ever Alexander did when he was alive. Caesar
laughed at the contrivance, and put this spurious Alexander among
his rowers, on account of the strength of his body, but ordered
him that persuaded him to be put to death. But for the people of
Melos, they had been sufficiently punished for their folly, by
the expenses they had been at on his account.

3. And now Archelaus took possession of his ethnarchy, and used
not the Jews only, but the Samaritans also, barbarously; and this
out of his resentment of their old quarrels with him. Whereupon
they both of them sent ambassadors against him to Caesar; and in
the ninth year of his government he was banished to Vienna, a
city of Gaul, and his effects were put into Caesar's treasury.
But the report goes, that before he was sent for by Caesar, he
seemed to see nine ears of corn, full and large, but devoured by
oxen. When, therefore, he had sent for the diviners, and some of
the Chaldeans, and inquired of them what they thought it
portended; and when one of them had one interpretation, and
another had another, Simon, one of the sect of Essens, said that
he thought the ears of corn denoted years, and the oxen denoted a
mutation of things, because by their ploughing they made an
alteration of the country. That therefore he should reign as many
years as there were ears of corn; and after he had passed through
various alterations of fortune, should die. Now five days after
Archelaus had heard this interpretation he was called to his
trial.

4. I cannot also but think it worthy to be recorded what dream
Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, had, who
had at first been wife to Alexander, who was the brother of
Archelaus, concerning whom we have been discoursing. This
Alexander was the son of Herod the king, by whom he was put to
death, as we have already related. This Glaphyra was married,
after his death, to Juba, king of Libya; and, after his death,
was returned home, and lived a widow with her father. Then it was
that Archelaus, the ethnarch, saw her, and fell so deeply in love
with her, that he divorced Mariamne, who was then his wife, ,and
married her. When, therefore, she was come into Judea, and had
been there for a little while, she thought she saw Alexander
stand by her, and that he said to her; "Thy marriage with the
king of Libya might have been sufficient for thee; but thou wast
not contented with him, but art returned again to my family, to a
third husband; and him, thou impudent woman, hast thou chosen for
thine husband, who is my brother. However, I shall not overlook
the injury thou hast offered me; I shall [soon] have thee again,
whether thou wilt or no." Now Glaphyra hardly survived the
narration of this dream of hers two days.

CHAPTER 8.

Archelaus's Ethnarchy Is Reduced Into A [Roman] Province. The
Sedition Of Judas Of Galilee. The Three Sects.

1. And now Archelaus's part of Judea was reduced into a province,
and Coponius, one of the equestrian order among the Romans, was
sent as a procurator, having the power of [life and] death put
into his hands by Caesar. Under his administration it was that a
certain Galilean, whose name was Judas, prevailed with his
countrymen to revolt, and said they were cowards if they would
endure to pay a tax to the Romans and would after God submit to
mortal men as their lords. This man was a teacher of a peculiar
sect of his own, and was not at all like the rest of those their
leaders.

2. For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The
followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second,
the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer
discipline, are called Essens. These last are Jews by birth, and
seem to have a greater affection for one another than the other
sects have. These Essens reject pleasures as an evil, but esteem
continence, and the conquest over our passions, to be virtue.
They neglect wedlock, but choose out other persons children,
while they are pliable, and fit for learning, and esteem them to
be of their kindred, and form them according to their own
manners. They do not absolutely deny the fitness of marriage, and
the succession of mankind thereby continued; but they guard
against the lascivious behavior of women, and are persuaded that
none of them preserve their fidelity to one man.

3. These men are despisers of riches, and so very communicative
as raises our admiration. Nor is there any one to be found among
them who hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that
those who come to them must let what they have be common to the
whole order, - insomuch that among them all there is no
appearance of poverty, or excess of riches, but every one's
possessions are intermingled with every other's possessions; and
so there is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren.
They think that oil is a defilement; and if any one of them be
anointed without his own approbation, it is wiped off his body;
for they think to be sweaty is a good thing, as they do also to
be clothed in white garments. They also have stewards appointed
to take care of their common affairs, who every one of them have
no separate business for any, but what is for the uses of them
all.

4. They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every
city; and if any of their sect come from other places, what they
have lies open for them, just as if it were their own; and they
go in to such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever
so long acquainted with them. For which reason they carry nothing
at all with them when they travel into remote parts, though still
they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves.
Accordingly, there is, in every city where they live, one
appointed particularly to take care of strangers, and to provide
garments and other necessaries for them. But the habit and
management of their bodies is such as children use who are in
fear of their masters. Nor do they allow of the change of or of
shoes till be first torn to pieces, or worn out by time. Nor do
they either buy or sell any thing to one another; but every one
of them gives what he hath to him that wanteth it, and receives
from him again in lieu of it what may be convenient for himself;
and although there be no requital made, they are fully allowed to
take what they want of whomsoever they please.

5. And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary;
for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane
matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from
their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising.
After this every one of them are sent away by their curators, to
exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which
they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which
they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when
they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe
their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over,
they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into
which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while
they go, after a pure manner, into the dining-room, as into a
certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down; upon which
the baker lays them loaves in order; the cook also brings a
single plate of one sort of food, and sets it before every one of
them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for
any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same
priest, when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and when
they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that
bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their
[white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again
till the evening; then they return home to supper, after the same
manner; and if there be any strangers there, they sit down with
them. Nor is there ever any clamor or disturbance to pollute
their house, but they give every one leave to speak in their
turn; which silence thus kept in their house appears to
foreigners like some tremendous mystery; the cause of which is
that perpetual sobriety they exercise, and the same settled
measure of meat and drink that is allotted them, and that such as
is abundantly sufficient for them.

6. And truly, as for other things, they do nothing but according
to the injunctions of their curators; only these two things are
done among them at everyone's own free-will, which are to assist
those that want it, and to show mercy; for they are permitted of
their own accord to afford succor to such as deserve it, when
they stand in need of it, and to bestow food on those that are in
distress; but they cannot give any thing to their kindred without
the curators. They dispense their anger after a just manner, and
restrain their passion. They are eminent for fidelity, and are
the ministers of peace; whatsoever they say also is firmer than
an oath; but swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it
worse than perjury (4) for they say that he who cannot be
believed without [swearing by] God is already condemned. They
also take great pains in studying the writings of the ancients,
and choose out of them what is most for the advantage of their
soul and body; and they inquire after such roots and medicinal
stones as may cure their distempers.

7. But now if any one hath a mind to come over to their sect, he
is not immediately admitted, but he is prescribed the same method
of living which they use for a year, while he continues
excluded'; and they give him also a small hatchet, and the
fore-mentioned girdle, and the white garment. And when he hath
given evidence, during that time, that he can observe their
continence, he approaches nearer to their way of living, and is
made a partaker of the waters of purification; yet is he not even
now admitted to live with them; for after this demonstration of
his fortitude, his temper is tried two more years; and if he
appear to be worthy, they then admit him into their society. And
before he is allowed to touch their common food, he is obliged to
take tremendous oaths, that, in the first place, he will exercise
piety towards God, and then that he will observe justice towards
men, and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own
accord, or by the command of others; that he will always hate the
wicked, and be assistant to the righteous; that he will ever show
fidelity to all men, and especially to those in authority,
because no one obtains the government without God's assistance;
and that if he be in authority, he will at no time whatever abuse
his authority, nor endeavor to outshine his subjects either in
his garments, or any other finery; that he will be perpetually a
lover of truth, and propose to himself to reprove those that tell
lies; that he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul
from unlawful gains; and that he will neither conceal any thing
from those of his own sect, nor discover any of their doctrines
to others, no, not though anyone should compel him so to do at
the hazard of his life. Moreover, he swears to communicate their
doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them
himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally
preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the
angels (5) [or messengers]. These are the oaths by which they
secure their proselytes to themselves.

8. But for those that are caught in any heinous sins, they cast
them out of their society; and he who is thus separated from them
does often die after a miserable manner; for as he is bound by
the oath he hath taken, and by the customs he hath been engaged
in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets
with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his
body with hunger, till he perish; for which reason they receive
many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of
compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured
till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient
punishment for the sins they had been guilty of.

9. But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and
just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is
fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that
number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God
himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom if any one
blaspheme he is punished capitally. They also think it a good
thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if
ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while
the other nine are against it. They also avoid spitting in the
midst of them, or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter
than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the
seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day
before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that
day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go
to stool thereon. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot
deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when
they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves
round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine
rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which
they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even
this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose
out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be
natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it,
as if it were a defilement to them.

10. Now after the time of their preparatory trial is over, they
are parted into four classes; and so far are the juniors inferior
to the seniors, that if the seniors should be touched by the
juniors, they must wash themselves, as if they had intermixed
themselves with the company of a foreigner. They are long-lived
also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by
means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means
of the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the
miseries of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their
mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they
esteem it better than living always; and indeed our war with the
Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their
trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt
and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of
torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their
legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not
be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their
tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very
pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon
them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as
expecting to receive them again.

11. For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and
that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the
souls are immortal, and continue for ever; and that they come out
of the most subtile air, and are united to their bodies as to
prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural
enticement; but that when they are set free from the bonds of the
flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and
mount upward. And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that
good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region
that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with
intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the
gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from
the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous
den, full of never-ceasing punishments. And indeed the Greeks
seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the
islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes
and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the
ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain
persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus,
are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that
souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue
and dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are
bettered in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of
reward after their death; and whereby the vehement inclinations
of bad men to vice are restrained, by the fear and expectation
they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this
life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death.
These are the Divine doctrines of the Essens (6) about the soul,
which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste
of their philosophy.

12. There are also those among them who undertake to foretell
things to come, (7) by reading the holy books, and using several
sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the
discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss
in their predictions.

13. Moreover, there is another order of Essens, (8) who agree
with the rest as to their way of living, and customs, and laws,
but differ from them in the point of marriage, as thinking that
by not marrying they cut off the principal part of human life,
which is the prospect of succession; nay, rather, that if all men
should be of the same opinion, the whole race of mankind would
fail. However, they try their spouses for three years; and if
they find that they have their natural purgations thrice, as
trials that they are likely to be fruitful, they then actually
marry them. But they do not use to accompany with their wives
when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not
many out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity.
Now the women go into the baths with some of their garments on,
as the men do with somewhat girded about them. And these are the
customs of this order of Essens.

14. But then as to the two other orders at first mentioned, the
Pharisees are those who are esteemed most skillful in the exact
explication of their laws, and introduce the first sect. These
ascribe all to fate [or providence], and to God, and yet allow,
that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the
power of men, although fate does co-operate in every action. They
say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good
men only are removed into other bodies, - but that the souls of
bad men are subject to eternal punishment. But the Sadducees are
those that compose the second order, and take away fate entirely,
and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing
what is evil; and they say, that to act what is good, or what is
evil, is at men's own choice, and that the one or the other
belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please. They
also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul,
and the punishments and rewards in Hades. Moreover, the Pharisees
are friendly to one another, and are for the exercise of concord,
and regard for the public; but the behavior of the Sadducees one
towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation
with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they
were strangers to them. And this is what I had to say concerning
the philosophic sects among the Jews.

CHAPTER 9.

The Death Of Salome. The Cities Which Herod And Philip Built.
Pilate Occasions Disturbances. Tiberius Puts Agrippa Into Bonds
But Caius Frees Him From Them, And Makes Him King. Herod Antipas
Is Banished.

1. And now as the ethnarchy of Archelaus was fallen into a Roman
province, the other sons of Herod, Philip, and that Herod who was
called Antipas, each of them took upon them the administration of
their own tetrarchies; for when Salome died, she bequeathed to
Julia, the wife of Augustus, both her toparchy, and Jamriga, as
also her plantation of palm trees that were in Phasaelis. But
when the Roman empire was translated to Tiberius, the son of
Julia, upon the death of Augustus, who had reigned fifty-seven
years, six months, and two days, both Herod and Philip continued
in their tetrarchies; and the latter of them built the city
Cesarea, at the fountains of Jordan, and in the region of Paneas;
as also the city Julias, in the lower Gaulonitis. Herod also
built the city Tiberius in Galilee, and in Perea [beyond Jordan]
another that was also called Julias.

2. Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberius,
sent by night those images of Caesar that are called ensigns into
Jerusalem. This excited a very among great tumult among the Jews
when it was day; for those that were near them were astonished at
the sight of them, as indications that their laws were trodden
under foot; for those laws do not permit any sort of image to be
brought into the city. Nay, besides the indignation which the
citizens had themselves at this procedure, a vast number of
people came running out of the country. These came zealously to
Pilate to Cesarea, and besought him to carry those ensigns out of
Jerusalem, and to preserve them their ancient laws inviolable;
but upon Pilate's denial of their request, they fell (9) down
prostrate upon the ground, and continued immovable in that
posture for five days and as many nights.

3. On the next day Pilate sat upon his tribunal, in the open
market-place, and called to him the multitude, as desirous to
give them an answer; and then gave a signal to the soldiers, that
they should all by agreement at once encompass the Jews with
their weapons; so the band of soldiers stood round about the Jews
in three ranks. The Jews were under the utmost consternation at
that unexpected sight. Pilate also said to them that they should
be cut in pieces, unless they would admit of Caesar's images, and
gave intimation to the soldiers to draw their naked swords.
Hereupon the Jews, as it were at one signal, fell down in vast
numbers together, and exposed their necks bare, and cried out
that they were sooner ready to be slain, than that their law
should be transgressed. Hereupon Pilate was greatly surprised at
their prodigious superstition, and gave order that the ensigns
should be presently carried out of Jerusalem.

4. After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that
sacred treasure which is called Corban (10) upon aqueducts,
whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred
furlongs. At this the multitude had indignation; and when Pilate
was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribunal, and made a
clamor at it. Now when he was apprized aforehand of this
disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers in their armor with the
multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the
habits of private men, and not indeed to use their swords, but
with their staves to beat those that made the clamor. He then
gave the signal from his tribunal [to do as he had bidden them].
Now the Jews were so sadly beaten, that many of them perished by
the stripes they received, and many of them perished as trodden
to death by themselves; by which means the multitude was
astonished at the calamity of those that were slain, and held
their peace.

5. In the mean time Agrippa, the son of that Aristobulus who had
been slain by his father Herod, came to Tiberius, to accuse Herod
the tetrarch; who not admitting of his accusation, he staid at
Rome, and cultivated a friendship with others of the men of note,
but principally with Caius the son of Germanicus, who was then
but a private person. Now this Agrippa, at a certain time,
feasted Caius; and as he was very complaisant to him on several
other accounts, he at length stretched out his hands, and openly
wished that Tiberius might die, and that he might quickly see him
emperor of the world. This was told to Tiberius by one of
Agrippa's domestics, who thereupon was very angry, and ordered
Agrippa to be bound, and had him very ill-treated in the prison
for six months, until Tiberius died, after he had reigned
twenty-two years, six months, and three days.

6. But when Caius was made Caesar, he released Agrippa from his
bonds, and made him king of Philip's tetrarchy, who was now dead;
but when Agrippa had arrived at that degree of dignity, he
inflamed the ambitious desires of Herod the tetrarch, who was
chiefly induced to hope for the royal authority by his wife
Herodias, who reproached him for his sloth, and told him that it
was only because he would not sail to Caesar that he was
destitute of that great dignity; for since Caesar had made
Agrippa a king, from a private person, much mole would he advance
him from a tetrarch to that dignity. These arguments prevailed
with Herod, so that he came to Caius, by whom he was punished for
his ambition, by being banished into Spain; for Agrippa followed
him, in order to accuse him; to whom also Caius gave his
tetrarchy, by way of addition. So Herod died in Spain, whither
his wife had followed him.

CHAPTER 10.

Caius Commands That His Statue Should Be Set Up In The Temple
Itself; And What Petronius Did Thereupon.

1. Now Caius Caesar did so grossly abuse the fortune he had
arrived at, as to take himself to be a god, and to desire to be
so called also, and to cut off those of the greatest nobility out
of his country. He also extended his impiety as far as the Jews.
Accordingly, he sent Petronius with an army to Jerusalem, to
place his statues in the temple, (11) and commanded him that, in
case the Jews would not admit of them, he should slay those that
opposed it, and carry all the rest of the nation into captivity:
but God concerned himself with these his commands. However,
Petronius marched out of Antioch into Judea, with three legions,
and many Syrian auxiliaries. Now as to the Jews, some of them
could not believe the stories that spake of a war; but those that
did believe them were in the utmost distress how to defend
themselves, and the terror diffused itself presently through them
all; for the army was already come to Ptolemais.

2. This Ptolemais is a maritime city of Galilee, built in the
great plain. It is encompassed with mountains: that on the east
side, sixty furlongs off, belongs to Galilee; but that on the
south belongs to Carmel, which is distant from it a hundred and
twenty furlongs; and that on the north is the highest of them
all, and is called by the people of the country, The Ladder of
the Tyrians, which is at the distance of a hundred furlongs. The
very small river Belus (12) runs by it, at the distance of two
furlongs; near which there is Menmon's monument, (13) and hath
near it a place no larger than a hundred cubits, which deserves
admiration; for the place is round and hollow, and affords such
sand as glass is made of; which place, when it hath been emptied
by the many ships there loaded, it is filled again by the winds,
which bring into it, as it were on purpose, that sand which lay
remote, and was no more than bare common sand, while this mine
presently turns it into glassy sand. And what is to me still more
wonderful, that glassy sand which is superfluous, and is once
removed out of the place, becomes bare common sand again. And
this is the nature of the place we are speaking of.

3. But now the Jews got together in great numbers with their
wives and children into that plain that was by Ptolemais, and
made supplication to Petronius, first for their laws, and, in the
next place, for themselves. So he was prevailed upon by the
multitude of the supplicants, and by their supplications, and
left his army and the statues at Ptolemais, and then went forward
into Galilee, and called together the multitude and all the men
of note to Tiberias, and showed them the power of the Romans, and
the threatenings of Caesar; and, besides this, proved that their
petition was unreasonable, because while all the nations in
subjection to them had placed the images of Caesar in their
several cities, among the rest of their gods, for them alone to
oppose it, was almost like the behavior of revolters, and was
injurious to Caesar.

4. And when they insisted on their law, and the custom of their
country, and how it was not only not permitted them to make
either an image of God, or indeed of a man, and to put it in any
despicable part of their country, much less in the temple itself,
Petronius replied, "And am not I also," said he, "bound to keep
the law of my own lord? For if I transgress it, and spare you, it
is but just that I perish; while he that sent me, and not I, will
commence a war against you; for I am under command as well as
you." Hereupon the whole multitude cried out that they were ready
to suffer for their law. Petronius then quieted them, and said to
them, "Will you then make war against Caesar?" The Jews said, "We
offer sacrifices twice every day for Caesar, and for the Roman
people;" but that if he would place the images among them, he
must first sacrifice the whole Jewish nation; and that they were
ready to expose themselves, together with their children and
wives, to be slain. At this Petronius was astonished, and pitied
them, on account of the inexpressible sense of religion the men
were under, and that courage of theirs which made them ready to
die for it; so they were dismissed without success.

5. But on the following days he got together the men of power
privately, and the multitude publicly, and sometimes he used
persuasions to them, and sometimes he gave them his advice; but
he chiefly made use of threatenings to them, and insisted upon
the power of the Romans, and the anger of Caius; and besides,
upon the necessity he was himself under [to do as he was
enjoined]. But as they could be no way prevailed upon, and he saw
that the country was in danger of lying without tillage; (for it
was about seed time that the multitude continued for fifty days
together idle;) so he at last got them together, and told them
that it was best for him to run some hazard himself; "for either,
by the Divine assistance, I shall prevail with Caesar, and shall
myself escape the danger as well as you, which will he matter of
joy to us both; or, in case Caesar continue in his rage, I will
be ready to expose my own life for such a great number as you
are." Whereupon he dismissed the multitude, who prayed greatly
for his prosperity; and he took the army out of Ptolemais, and
returned to Antioch; from whence he presently sent an epistle to
Caesar, and informed him of the irruption he had made into Judea,
and of the supplications of the nation; and that unless he had a
mind to lose both the country and the men in it, he must permit
them to keep their law, and must countermand his former
injunction. Caius answered that epistle in a violent-way, and
threatened to have Petronius put to death for his being so tardy
in the execution of what he had commanded. But it happened that
those who brought Caius's epistle were tossed by a storm, and
were detained on the sea for three months, while others that
brought the news of Caius's death had a good voyage. Accordingly,
Petronins received the epistle concerning Caius seven and twenty
days before he received that which was against himself.

CHAPTER 11.

Concerning The Government Of Claudius, And The Reign Of Agrippa.
Concerning The Deaths Of Agrippa And Of Herod And What Children
They Both Left Behind Them.

1. Now when Caius had reigned three year's and eight months, and
had been slain by treachery, Claudius was hurried away by the
armies that were at Rome to take the government upon him; but the
senate, upon the reference of the consuls, Sentis Saturninns, and
Pomponins Secundus, gave orders to the three regiments of
soldiers that staid with them to keep the city quiet, and went up
into the capitol in great numbers, and resolved to oppose
Claudius by force, on account of the barbarous treatment they had
met with from Caius; and they determined either to settle the
nation under an aristocracy, as they had of old been governed, or
at least to choose by vote such a one for emperor as might be
worthy of it.

2. Now it happened that at this time Agrippa sojourned at Rome,
and that both the senate called him to consult with them, and at
the same time Claudius sent for him out of the camp, that he
might be serviceable to him, as he should have occasion for his
service. So he, perceiving that Claudius was in effect made
Caesar already, went to him, who sent him as an ambassador to the
senate, to let them know what his intentions were: that, in the
first place, it was without his seeking that he was hurried away
by the soldiers; moreover, that he thought it was not just to
desert those soldiers in such their zeal for him, and that if he
should do so, his own fortune would be in uncertainty; for that
it was a dangerous case to have been once called to the empire.
He added further, that he would administer the government as a
good prince, and not like a tyrant; for that he would be
satisfied with the honor of being called emperor, but would, in
every one of his actions, permit them all to give him their
advice; for that although he had not been by nature for
moderation, yet would the death of Caius afford him a sufficient
demonstration how soberly he ought to act in that station. 
3. This message was delivered by Agrippa; to which the senate
replied, that since they had an army, and the wisest counsels on
their side, they would not endure a voluntary slavery. And when
Claudius heard what answer the senate had made, he sent Agrippa
to them again, with the following message: That he could not bear
the thoughts of betraying them that had given their oaths to be
true to him; and that he saw he must fight, though unwillingly,
against such as he had no mind to fight; that, however, [if it
must come to that,] it was proper to choose a place without the
city for the war, because it was not agreeable to piety to
pollute the temples of their own city with the blood of their own
countrymen, and this only on occasion of their imprudent conduct.
And when Agrippa had heard this message, he delivered it to the
senators.

4. In the mean time, one of the soldiers belonging to the senate
drew his sword, and cried out, "O my fellow soldiers, what is the
meaning of this choice of ours, to kill our brethren, and to use
violence to our kindred that are with Claudius? while we may have
him for our emperor whom no one can blame, and who hath so many
just reasons [to lay claim to the government]; and this with
regard to those against whom we are going to fight." When he had
said this, he marched through the whole senate, and carried all
the soldiers along with him. Upon which all the patricians were
immediately in a great fright at their being thus deserted. But
still, because there appeared no other way whither they could
turn themselves for deliverance, they made haste the same way
with the soldiers, and went to Claudius. But those that had the
greatest luck in flattering the good fortune of Claudius betimes
met them before the walls with their naked swords, and there was
reason to fear that those that came first might have been in
danger, before Claudius could know what violence the soldiers
were going to offer them, had not Agrippa ran before, and told
him what a dangerous thing they were going about, and that unless
he restrained the violence of these men, who were in a fit of
madness against the patricians, he would lose those on whose
account it was most desirable to rule, and would be emperor over
a desert.

5. When Claudius heard this, he restrained the violence of the
soldiery, and received the senate into the camp, and treated them
after an obliging manner, and went out with them presently to
offer their thank-offerings to God, which were proper upon, his
first coming to the empire. Moreover, he bestowed on Agrippa his
whole paternal kingdom immediately, and added to it, besides
those countries that had been given by Augustus to Herod,
Trachonitis and Auranitis, and still besides these, that kingdom
which was called the kingdom of Lysanius. This gift he declared
to the people by a decree, but ordered the magistrates to have
the donation engraved on tables of brass, and to be set up in the
capitol. He bestowed on his brother Herod, who was also his
son-in-law, by marrying [his daughter] Bernice, the kingdom of
Chalcis.

6. So now riches flowed in to Agrippa by his enjoyment of so
large a dominion; nor did he abuse the money he had on small
matters, but he began to encompass Jerusalem with such a wall,
which, had it been brought to perfection, had made it
impracticable for the Romans to take it by siege; but his death,
which happened at Cesarea, before he had raised the walls to
their due height, prevented him. He had then reigned three years,
as he had governed his tetrarchies three other years. He left
behind him three daughters, born to him by Cypros, Bernice,
Mariamne, and Drusilla, and a son born of the same mother, whose
name was Agrippa: he was left a very young child, so that
Claudius made the country a Roman province, and sent Cuspius
Fadus to be its procurator, and after him Tiberius Alexander,
who, making no alterations of the ancient laws, kept the nation
in tranquillity. Now after this, Herod the king of Chalcis died,
and left behind him two sons, born to him of his brother's
daughter Bernice; their names were Bernie Janus and Hyrcanus. [He
also left behind him] Aristobulus, whom he had by his former wife
Mariamne. There was besides another brother of his that died a
private person, his name was also Aristobulus, who left behind
him a daughter, whose name was Jotape: and these, as I have
formerly said, were the children of Aristobulus the son of Herod,
which Aristobulus and Alexander were born to Herod by Mariamne,
and were slain by him. But as for Alexander's posterity, they
reigned in Armenia.

CHAPTER 12.

Many Tumults Under Cumanus, Which Were Composed By Quadratus.
Felix Is Procurator Of Judea. Agrippa Is Advanced From Chalcis To
A Greater Kingdom.

1 Now after the death of Herod, king of Chalcis, Claudius set
Agrippa, the son of Agrippa, over his uncle's kingdom, while
Cumanus took upon him the office of procurator of the rest, which
was a Roman province, and therein he succeeded Alexander; under
which Cureanus began the troubles, and the Jews' ruin came on;
for when the multitude were come together to Jerusalem, to the
feast of unleavened bread, and a Roman cohort stood over the
cloisters of the temple, (for they always were armed, and kept
guard at the festivals, to prevent any innovation which the
multitude thus gathered together might make,) one of the soldiers
pulled back his garment, and cowering down after an indecent
manner, turned his breech to the Jews, and spake such words as
you might expect upon such a posture. At this the whole multitude
had indignation, and made a clamor to Cumanus, that he would
punish the soldier; while the rasher part of the youth, and such
as were naturally the most tumultuous, fell to fighting, and
caught up stones, and threw them at the soldiers. Upon which
Cumanus was afraid lest all the people should make an assault
upon him, and sent to call for more armed men, who, when they
came in great numbers into the cloisters, the Jews were in a very
great consternation; and being beaten out of the temple, they ran
into the city; and the violence with which they crowded to get
out was so great, that they trod upon each other, and squeezed
one another, till ten thousand of them were killed, insomuch that
this feast became the cause of mourning to the whole nation, and
every family lamented their own relations.

2. Now there followed after this another calamity, which arose
from a tumult made by robbers; for at the public road at
Beth-boron, one Stephen, a servant of Caesar, carried some
furniture, which the robbers fell upon and seized. Upon this
Cureanus sent men to go round about to the neighboring villages,
and to bring their inhabitants to him bound, as laying it to
their charge that they had not pursued after the thieves, and
caught them. Now here it was that a certain soldier, finding the
sacred book of the law, tore it to pieces, and threw it into the
fire. (14) Hereupon the Jews were in great disorder, as if their
whole country were in a flame, and assembled themselves so many
of them by their zeal for their religion, as by an engine, and
ran together with united clamor to Cesarea, to Cumanus, and made
supplication to him that he would not overlook this man, who had
offered such an affront to God, and to his law; but punish him
for what he had done. Accordingly, he, perceiving that the
multitude would not be quiet unless they had a comfortable answer
from him, gave order that the soldier should be brought, and
drawn through those that required to have him punished, to
execution, which being done, the Jews went their ways.

3. After this there happened a fight between the Galileans and
the Samaritans; it happened at a village called Geman, which is
situate in the great plain of Samaria; where, as a great number
of Jews were going up to Jerusalem to the feast [of tabernacles,]
a certain Galilean was slain; and besides, a vast number of
people ran together out of Galilee, in order to fight with the
Samaritans. But the principal men among them came to Cumanus, and
besought him that, before the evil became incurable, he would
come into Galilee, and bring the authors of this murder to
punishment; for that there was no other way to make the multitude
separate without coming to blows. However, Cumanus postponed
their supplications to the other affairs he was then about, and
sent the petitioners away without success.

4. But when the affair of this murder came to be told at
Jerusalem, it put the multitude into disorder, and they left the
feast; and without any generals to conduct them, they marched
with great violence to Samaria; nor would they be ruled by any of
the magistrates that were set over them, but they were managed by
one Eleazar, the son of Dineus, and by Alexander, in these their
thievish and seditious attempts. These men fell upon those that
were ill the neighborhood of the Acrabatene toparchy, and slew
them, without sparing any age, and set the villages on fire. 
5. But Cumanus took one troop of horsemen, called the troop of
Sebaste, out of Cesarea, and came to the assistance of those that
were spoiled; he also seized upon a great number of those that
followed Eleazar, and slew more of them. And as for the rest of
the multitude of those that went so zealously to fight with the
Samaritans, the rulers of Jerusalem ran out clothed with
sackcloth, and having ashes on their head, and begged of them to
go their ways, lest by their attempt to revenge themselves upon
the Samaritans they should provoke the Romans to come against
Jerusalem; to have compassion upon their country and temple,
their children and their wives, and not bring the utmost dangers
of destruction upon them, in order to avenge themselves upon one
Galilean only. The Jews complied with these persuasions of
theirs, and dispersed themselves; but still there were a great
number who betook themselves to robbing, in hopes of impunity;
and rapines and insurrections of the bolder sort happened over
the whole country. And the men of power among the Samaritans came
to Tyre, to Ummidius Quadratus, (15) the president of Syria, and
desired that they that had laid waste the country might be
punished: the great men also of the Jews, and Jonathan the son of
Ananus the high priest, came thither, and said that the
Samaritans were the beginners of the disturbance, on account of
that murder they had committed; and that Cumanus had given
occasion to what had happened, by his unwillingness to punish the
original authors of that murder.

6. But Quadratus put both parties off for that time, and told
them, that when he should come to those places, he would make a
diligent inquiry after every circumstance. After which he went to
Cesarea, and crucified all those whom Cumanus had taken alive;
and when from thence he was come to the city Lydda, he heard the
affair of the Samaritans, and sent for eighteen of the Jews, whom
he had learned to have been concerned in that fight, and beheaded
them; but he sent two others of those that were of the greatest
power among them, and both Jonathan and Ananias, the high
priests, as also Artanus the son of this Ananias, and certain
others that were eminent among the Jews, to Caesar; as he did in
like manner by the most illustrious of the Samaritans. He also
ordered that Cureanus [the procurator] and Celer the tribune
should sail to Rome, in order to give an account of what had been
done to Caesar. When he had finished these matters, he went up
from Lydda to Jerusalem, and finding the multitude celebrating
their feast of unleavened bread without any tumult, he returned
to Antioch.

7. Now when Caesar at Rome had heard what Cumanus and the
Samaritans had to say, (where it was done in the hearing of
Agrippa, who zealously espoused the cause of the Jews, as in like
manner many of the great men stood by Cumanus,) he condemned the
Samaritans, and commanded that three of the most powerful men
among them should be put to death; he banished Cumanus, and sent
Color bound to Jerusalem, to be delivered over to the Jews to be
tormented; that he should be drawn round the city, and then
beheaded.

8. After this Caesar sent Felix, (16) the brother of Pallas, to
be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea, and removed
Agrippa from Chalcis unto a greater kingdom; for he gave him the
tetrarchy which had belonged to Philip, which contained Batanae,
Trachonitis, and Gaulonitis: he added to it the kingdom of
Lysanias, and that province [Abilene] which Varus had governed.
But Claudius himself, when he had administered the government
thirteen years, eight months, and twenty days, died, and left
Nero to be his successor in the empire, whom he had adopted by
his Wife Agrippina's delusions, in order to be his successor,
although he had a son of his own, whose name was Britannicus, by
Messalina his former wife, and a daughter whose name was Octavia,
whom he had married to Nero; he had also another daughter by
Petina, whose name was Antonia.

CHAPTER 13.

Nero Adds Four Cities To Agrippas Kingdom; But The Other Parts Of
Judea Were Under Felix. The Disturbances Which Were Raised By The
Sicarii The Magicians And An Egyptian False Prophet. The Jews And
Syrians Have A Contest At Cesarea.

1. Now as to the many things in which Nero acted like a madman,
out of the extravagant degree of the felicity and riches which he
enjoyed, and by that means used his good fortune to the injury of
others; and after what manner he slew his brother, and wife, and
mother, from whom his barbarity spread itself to others that were
most nearly related to him; and how, at last, he was so
distracted that he became an actor in the scenes, and upon the
theater, - I omit to say any more about them, because there are
writers enough upon those subjects every where; but I shall turn
myself to those actions of his time in which the Jews were
concerned.

2. Nero therefore bestowed the kingdom of the Lesser Armenia upon
Aristobulus, Herod's son, (17) and he added to Agrippa's kingdom
four cities, with the toparchies to them belonging; I mean Abila,
and that Julias which is in Perea, Tarichea also, and Tiberias of
Galilee; but over the rest of Judea he made Felix procurator.
This Felix took Eleazar the arch-robber, and many that were with
him, alive, when they had ravaged the country for twenty years
together, and sent them to Rome; but as to the number of the
robbers whom he caused to be crucified, and of those who were
caught among them, and whom he brought to punishment, they were a
multitude not to be enumerated.

3. When the country was purged of these, there sprang up another
sort of robbers in Jerusalem, which were called Sicarii, who slew
men in the day time, and in the midst of the city; this they did
chiefly at the festivals, when they mingled themselves among the
multitude, and concealed daggers under their garments, with which
they stabbed those that were their enemies; and when any fell
down dead, the murderers became a part of those that had
indignation against them; by which means they appeared persons of
such reputation, that they could by no means be discovered. The
first man who was slain by them was Jonathan the high priest,
after whose death many were slain every day, while the fear men
were in of being so served was more afflicting than the calamity
itself; and while every body expected death every hour, as men do
in war, so men were obliged to look before them, and to take
notice of their enemies at a great distance; nor, if their
friends were coming to them, durst they trust them any longer;
but, in the midst of their suspicions and guarding of themselves,
they were slain. Such was the celerity of the plotters against
them, and so cunning was their contrivance.

4. There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not
so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intentions,
which laid waste the happy state of the city no less than did
these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the
people under pretense of Divine inspiration, but were for
procuring innovations and  changes of the government; and these
prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before
them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would there show
them the signals of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was
to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and
footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them.

5. But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more
mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be
a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were
deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to
the mount which was called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to
break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could
but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended
to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards of his
that were to break into the city with him. But Felix prevented
his attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers, while all the
people assisted him in his attack upon them, insomuch that when
it came to a battle, the Egyptian ran away, with a few others,
while the greatest part of those that were with him were either
destroyed or taken alive; but the rest of the multitude were
dispersed every one to their own homes, and there concealed
themselves.

6. Now when these were quieted, it happened, as it does in a
diseased body, that another part was subject to an inflammation;
for a company of deceivers and robbers got together, and
persuaded the Jews to revolt, and exhorted them to assert their
liberty, inflicting death on those that continued in obedience to
the Roman government, and saying, that such as willingly chose
slavery ought to be forced from such their desired inclinations;
for they parted themselves into different bodies, and lay in wait
up and down the country, and plundered the houses of the great
men, and slew the men themselves, and set the villages on fire;
and this till all Judea was filled with the effects of their
madness. And thus the flame was every day more and more blown up,
till it came to a direct war.

7. There was also another disturbance at Cesarea, - those Jews
who were mixed with the Syrians that lived there rising a tumult
against them. The Jews pretended that the city was theirs, and
said that he who built it was a Jew, meaning king Herod. The
Syrians confessed also that its builder was a Jew; but they still
said, however, that the city was a Grecian city; for that he who
set up statues and temples in it could not design it for Jews. On
which account both parties had a contest with one another; and
this contest increased so much, that it came at last to arms, and
the bolder sort of them marched out to fight; for the elders of
the Jews were not able to put a stop to their own people that
were disposed to be tumultuous, and the Greeks thought it a shame
for them to be overcome by the Jews. Now these Jews exceeded the
others in riches and strength of body; but the Grecian part had
the advantage of assistance from the soldiery; for the greatest
part of the Roman garrison was raised out of Syria; and being
thus related to the Syrian part, they were ready to assist it.
However, the governors of the city were concerned to keep all
quiet, and whenever they caught those that were most for fighting
on either side, they punished them with stripes and bands. Yet
did not the sufferings of those that were caught affright the
remainder, or make them desist; but they were still more and more
exasperated, and deeper engaged in the sedition. And as Felix
came once into the market-place, and commanded the Jews, when
they had beaten the Syrians, to go their ways, and threatened
them if they would not, and they would not obey him, he sent his
soldiers out upon them, and slew a great many of them, upon which
it fell out that what they had was plundered. And as the sedition
still continued, he chose out the most eminent men on both sides
as ambassadors to Nero, to argue about their several privileges. 
CHAPTER 14.

Festus Succeeds Felix Who Is Succeeded By Albinus As He Is By
Florus; Who By The Barbarity Of His Government Forces The Jews
Into The War.

1. Now it was that Festus succeeded Felix as procurator, and made
it his business to correct those that made disturbances in the
country. So he caught the greatest part of the robbers, and
destroyed a great many of them. But then Albinus, who succeeded
Festus, did not execute his office as the other had done; nor was
there any sort of wickedness that could be named but he had a
hand in it. Accordingly, he did not only, in his political
capacity, steal and plunder every one's substance, nor did he
only burden the whole nation with taxes, but he permitted the
relations of such as were in prison for robbery, and had been
laid there, either by the senate of every city, or by the former
procurators, to redeem them for money; and no body remained in
the prisons as a malefactor but he who gave him nothing. At this
time it was that the enterprises of the seditious at Jerusalem
were very formidable; the principal men among them purchasing
leave of Albinus to go on with their seditious practices; while
that part of the people who delighted in disturbances joined
themselves to such as had fellowship with Albinus; and every one
of these wicked wretches were encompassed with his own band of
robbers, while he himself, like an arch-robber, or a tyrant, made
a figure among his company, and abused his authority over those
about him, in order to plunder those that lived quietly. The
effect of which was this, that those who lost their goods were
forced to hold their peace, when they had reason to show great
indignation at what they had suffered; but those who had escaped
were forced to flatter him that deserved to be punished, out of
the fear they were in of suffering equally with the others. Upon
the Whole, nobody durst speak their minds, but tyranny was
generally tolerated; and at this time were those seeds sown which
brought the city to destruction.

2. And although such was the character of Albinus, yet did
Gessius Florus (18) who succeeded him, demonstrate him to have
been a most excellent person, upon the comparison; for the former
did the greatest part of his rogueries in private, and with a
sort of dissimulation; but Gessius did his unjust actions to the
harm of the nation after a pompons manner; and as though he had
been sent as an executioner to punish condemned malefactors, he
omitted no sort of rapine, or of vexation; where the case was
really pitiable, he was most barbarous, and in things of the
greatest turpitude he was most impudent. Nor could any one outdo
him in disguising the truth; nor could any one contrive more
subtle ways of deceit than he did. He indeed thought it but a
petty offense to get money out of single persons; so he spoiled
whole cities, and ruined entire bodies of men at once, and did
almost publicly proclaim it all the country over, that they had
liberty given them to turn robbers, upon this condition, that he
might go shares with them in the spoils they got. Accordingly,
this his greediness of gain was the occasion that entire
toparchies were brought to desolation, and a great many of the
people left their own country, and fled into foreign provinces. 
3. And truly, while Cestius Gallus was president of the province
of Syria, nobody durst do so much as send an embassage to him
against Florus; but when he was come to Jerusalem, upon the
approach of the feast of unleavened bread, the people came about
him not fewer in number than three millions (19) these besought
him to commiserate the calamities of their nation, and cried out
upon Florus as the bane of their country. But as he was present,
and stood by Cestius, he laughed at their words. However,
Cestius, when he had quieted the multitude, and had assured them
that he would take care that Florus should hereafter treat them
in a more gentle manner, returned to Antioch. Florus also
conducted him as far as Cesarea, and deluded him, though he had
at that very time the purpose of showing his anger at the nation,
and procuring a war upon them, by which means alone it was that
he supposed he might conceal his enormities; for he expected that
if the peace continued, he should have the Jews for his accusers
before Caesar; but that if he could procure them to make a
revolt, he should divert their laying lesser crimes to his
charge, by a misery that was so much greater; he therefore did
every day augment their calamities, in order to induce them to a
rebellion.

4. Now at this time it happened that the Grecians at Cesarea had
been too hard for the Jews, and had obtained of Nero the
government of the city, and had brought the judicial
determination: at the same time began the war, in the twelfth
year of the reign of Nero, and the seventeenth of the reign of
Agrippa, in the month of Artemisins [Jyar.] Now the occasion of
this war was by no means proportionable to those heavy calamities
which it brought upon us. For the Jews that dwelt at Cesarea had
a synagogue near the place, whose owner was a certain Cesarean
Greek: the Jews had endeavored frequently to have purchased the
possession of the place, and had offered many times its value for
its price; but as the owner overlooked their offers, so did he
raise other buildings upon the place, in way of affront to them,
and made working-shops of them, and left them but a narrow
passage, and such as was very troublesome for them to go along to
their synagogue. Whereupon the warmer part of the Jewish youth
went hastily to the workmen, and forbade them to build there; but
as Florus would not permit them to use force, the great men of
the Jews, with John the publican, being in the utmost distress
what to do, persuaded Florus, with the offer of eight talents, to
hinder the work. He then, being intent upon nothing but getting
money, promised he would do for them all they desired of him, and
then went away from Cesarea to Sebaste, and left the sedition to
take its full course, as if he had sold a license to the Jews to
fight it out.

5. Now on the next day, which was the seventh day of the week,
when the Jews were crowding apace to their synagogue, a certain
man of Cesarea, of a seditious temper, got an earthen vessel, and
set it with the bottom upward, at the entrance of that synagogue,
and sacrificed birds. This thing provoked the Jews to an
incurable degree, because their laws were affronted, and the
place was polluted. Whereupon the sober and moderate part of the
Jews thought it proper to have recourse to their governors again,
while the seditious part, and such as were in the fervor of their
youth, were vehemently inflamed to fight. The seditions also
among the Gentiles of Cesarea stood ready for the same purpose;
for they had, by agreement, sent the man to sacrifice beforehand
[as ready to support him;] so that it soon came to blows.
Hereupon Jucundus, the master of the horse, who was ordered to
prevent the fight, came thither, and took away the earthen
vessel, and endeavored to put a stop to the sedition; but when
(20) he was overcome by the violence of the people of Cesarea,
the Jews caught up their books of the law, and retired to
Narbata, which was a place to them belonging, distant from
Cesarea sixty furlongs. But John, and twelve of the principal men
with him, went to Florus, to Sebaste, and made a lamentable
complaint of their case, and besought him to help them; and with
all possible decency, put him in mind of the eight talents they
had given him; but he had the men seized upon, and put in prison,
and accused them for carrying the books of the law out of
Cesarea.

6. Moreover, as to the citizens of Jerusalem, although they took
this matter very ill, yet did they restrain their passion; but
Florus acted herein as if he had been hired, and blew up the war
into a flame, and sent some to take seventeen talents out of the
sacred treasure, and pretended that Caesar wanted them. At this
the people were in confusion immediately, and ran together to the
temple, with prodigious clamors, and called upon Caesar by name,
and besought him to free them from the tyranny of Florus. Some
also of the seditious cried out upon Florus, and cast the
greatest reproaches upon him, and carried a basket about, and
begged some spills of money for him, as for one that was
destitute of possessions, and in a miserable condition. Yet was
not he made ashamed hereby of his love of money, but was more
enraged, and provoked to get still more; and instead of coming to
Cesarea, as he ought to have done, and quenching the flame of
war, which was beginning thence, and so taking away the occasion
of any disturbances, on which account it was that he had received
a reward [of eight talents], he marched hastily with an army of
horsemen and footmen against Jerusalem, that he might gain his
will by the arms of the Romans, and might, by his terror, and by
his threatenings, bring the city into subjection.

7. But the people were desirous of making Florus ashamed of his
attempt, and met his soldiers with acclamations, and put
themselves in order to receive him very submissively. But he sent
Capito, a centurion, beforehand, with fifty soldiers, to bid them
go back, and not now make a show of receiving him in an obliging
manner, whom they had so foully reproached before; and said that
it was incumbent on them, in case they had generous souls, and
were free speakers, to jest upon him to his face, and appear to
be lovers of liberty, not only in words, but with their weapons
also. With this message was the multitude amazed; and upon the
coming of Capito's horsemen into the midst of them, they were
dispersed before they could salute Florus, or manifest their
submissive behavior to him. Accordingly, they retired to their
own houses, and spent that night in fear and confusion of face. 
8. Now at this time Florus took up his quarters at the palace;
and on the next day he had his tribunal set before it, and sat
upon it, when the high priests, and the men of power, and those
of the greatest eminence in the city, came all before that
tribunal; upon which Florus commanded them to deliver up to him
those that had reproached him, and told them that they should
themselves partake of the vengeance to them belonging, if they
did not produce the criminals; but these demonstrated that the
people were peaceably disposed, and they begged forgiveness for
those that had spoken amiss; for that it was no wonder at all
that in so great a multitude there should be some more daring
than they ought to be, and, by reason of their younger age,
foolish also; and that it was impossible to distinguish those
that offended from the rest, while every one was sorry for what
he had done, and denied it out of fear of what would follow: that
he ought, however, to provide for the peace of the nation, and to
take such counsels as might preserve the city for the Romans, and
rather for the sake of a great number of innocent people to
forgive a few that were guilty, than for the sake of a few of the
wicked to put so large and good a body of men into disorder. 
9. Florus was more provoked at this, and called out aloud to the
soldiers to plunder that which was called the Upper Market-place,
and to slay such as they met with. So the soldiers, taking this
exhortation of their commander in a sense agreeable to their
desire of gain, did not only plunder the place they were sent to,
but forcing themselves into every house, they slew its
inhabitants; so the citizens fled along the narrow lanes, and the
soldiers slew those that they caught, and no method of plunder
was omitted; they also caught many of the quiet people, and
brought them before Florus, whom he first chastised with stripes,
and then crucified. Accordingly, the whole number of those that
were destroyed that day, with their wives and children, (for they
did not spare even the infants themselves,) was about three
thousand and six hundred. And what made this calamity the heavier
was this new method of Roman barbarity; for Florus ventured then
to do what no one had done before, that is, to have men of the
equestrian order whipped (21) and nailed to the cross before his
tribunal; who, although they were by birth Jews, yet were they of
Roman dignity notwithstanding.

CHAPTER 15.

Concerning Bernice's Petition To Florus, To Spare The Jews, But
In Vain; As Also How, After The Seditious Flame Was Quenched, It
Was Kindled Again By Florus.

1. About this very time king Agrippa was going to Alexandria, to
congratulate Alexander upon his having obtained the government of
Egypt from Nero; but as his sister Bernice was come to Jerusalem,
and saw the wicked practices of the soldiers, she was sorely
affected at it, and frequently sent the masters of her horse and
her guards to Florus, and begged of him to leave off these
slaughters; but he would not comply with her request, nor have
any regard either to the multitude of those already slain, or to
the nobility of her that interceded, but only to the advantage he
should make by this plundering; nay, this violence of the
soldiers brake out to such a degree of madness, that it spent
itself on the queen herself; for they did not only torment and
destroy those whom they had caught under her very eyes, but
indeed had killed herself also, unless she had prevented them by
flying to the palace, and had staid there all night with her
guards, which she had about her for fear of an insult from the
soldiers. Now she dwelt then at Jerusalem, in order to perform a
vow (22) which she had made to God; for it is usual with those
that had been either afflicted with a distemper, or with any
other distresses, to make vows; and for thirty days before they
are to offer their sacrifices, to abstain from wine, and to shave
the hair of their head. Which things Bernice was now performing,
and stood barefoot before Florus's tribunal, and besought him [to
spare the Jews]. Yet could she neither have any reverence paid to
her, nor could she escape without some danger of being slain
herself.

2. This happened upon the sixteenth day of the month Artemisius
[Jyar]. Now, on the next day, the multitude, who were in a great
agony, ran together to the Upper Market-place, and made the
loudest lamentations for those that had perished; and the
greatest part of the cries were such as reflected on Florus; at
which the men of power were aftrighted, together with the high
priests, and rent their garments, and fell down before each of
them, and besought them to leave off, and not to provoke Florus
to some incurable procedure, besides what they had already
suffered. Accordingly, the multitude complied immediately, out of
reverence to those that had desired it of them, and out of the
hope they had that Florus would do them no more injuries.

3. So Florus was troubled that the disturbances were over, and
endeavored to kindle that flame again, and sent for the high
priests, with the other eminent persons, and said the only
demonstration that the people would not make any other
innovations should be this, that they must go out and meet the
soldiers that were ascending from Cesarea, whence two cohorts
were coming; and while these men were exhorting the multitude so
to do, he sent beforehand, and gave directions to the centurions
of the cohorts, that they should give notice to those that were
under them not to return the Jews' salutations; and that if they
made any reply to his disadvantage, they should make use of their
weapons. Now the high priests assembled the multitude in the
temple, and desired them to go and meet the Romans, and to salute
the cohorts very civilly, before their miserable case should
become incurable. Now the seditious part would not comply with
these persuasions; but the consideration of those that had been
destroyed made them incline to those that were the boldest for
action.

4. At this time it was that every priest, and every servant of
God, brought out the holy vessels, and the ornamental garments
wherein they used to minister in sacred things. The harpers also,
and the singers of hymns, came out with their instruments of
music, and fell down before the multitude, and begged of them
that they would preserve those holy ornaments to them, and not
provoke the Romans to carry off those sacred treasures. You might
also see then the high priests themselves, with dust sprinkled in
great plenty upon their heads, with bosoms deprived of any
covering but what was rent; these besought every one of the
eminent men by name, and the multitude in common, that they would
not for a small offense betray their country to those that were
desirous to have it laid waste; saying, "What benefit will it
bring to the soldiers to have a salutation from the Jews? or what
amendment of your affairs will it bring you, if you do not now go
out to meet them? and that if they saluted them civilly, all
handle would be cut off from Florus to begin a war; that they
should thereby gain their country, and freedom from all further
sufferings; and that, besides, it would be a sign of great want
of command of themselves, if they should yield to a few seditious
persons, while it was fitter for them who were so great a people
to force the others to act soberly."

5. By these persuasions, which they used to the multitude and to
the seditious, they restrained some by threatenings, and others
by the reverence that was paid them. After this they led them
out, and they met the soldiers quietly, and after a composed
manner, and when they were come up with them, they saluted them;
but when they made no answer, the seditious exclaimed against
Florus, which was the signal given for falling upon them. The
soldiers therefore encompassed them presently, and struck them
with their clubs; and as they fled away, the horsemen trampled
them down, so that a great many fell down dead by the strokes of
the Romans, and more by their own violence in crushing one
another. Now there was a terrible crowding about the gates, and
while every body was making haste to get before another, the
flight of them all was retarded, and a terrible destruction there
was among those that fell down, for they were suffocated, an
broken to pieces by the multitude of those that were uppermost;
nor could any of them be distinguished by his relations in order
to the care of his funeral; the soldiers also who beat them, fell
upon those whom they overtook, without showing them any mercy,
and thrust the multitude through the place called Bezetha, (23)
as they forced their way, in order to get in and seize upon the
temple, and the tower Antonia. Florus also being desirous to get
those places into his possession, brought such as were with him
out of the king's palace, and would have compelled them to get as
far as the citadel [Antonia;] but his attempt failed, for the
people immediately turned back upon him, and stopped the violence
of his attempt; and as they stood upon the tops of their houses,
they threw their darts at the Romans, who, as they were sorely
galled thereby, because those weapons came from above, and they
were not able to make a passage through the multitude, which
stopped up the narrow passages, they retired to the camp which
was at the palace.

6. But for the seditious, they were afraid lest Florus should
come again, and get possession of the temple, through Antonia; so
they got immediately upon those cloisters of the temple that
joined to Antonia, and cut them down. This cooled the avarice of
Florus; for whereas he was eager to obtain the treasures of God
[in the temple], and on that account was desirous of getting into
Antonia, as soon as the cloisters were broken down, he left off
his attempt; he then sent for the high priests and the sanhedrim,
and told them that he was indeed himself going out of the city,
but that he would leave them as large a garrison as they should
desire. Hereupon they promised that they would make no
innovations, in case he would leave them one band; but not that
which had fought with the Jews, because the multitude bore
ill-will against that band on account of what they had suffered
from it; so he changed the band as they desired, and, with the
rest of his forces, returned to Cesarea.

CHAPTER 16.

Cestius Sends Neopolitanus The Tribune To See In What Condition
The Affairs Of The Jews Were. Agrippa Makes A Speech To The
People Of The Jews That He May Divert Them From Their Intentions
Of Making War With The Romans.

1. However, Florus contrived another way to oblige the Jews to
begin the war, and sent to Cestius, and accused the Jews falsely
of revolting [from the Roman government], and imputed the
beginning of the former fight to them, and pretended they had
been the authors of that disturbance, wherein they were only the
sufferers. Yet were not the governors of Jerusalem silent upon
this occasion, but did themselves write to Cestius, as did
Bernice also, about the illegal practices of which Florus had
been guilty against the city; who, upon reading both accounts,
consulted with his captains [what he should do]. Now some of them
thought it best for Cestius to go up with his army, either to
punish the revolt, if it was real, or to settle the Roman affairs
on a surer foundation, if the Jews continued quiet under them;
but he thought it best himself to send one of his intimate
friends beforehand, to see the state of affairs, and to give him
a faithful account of the intentions of the Jews. Accordingly, he
sent one of his tribunes, whose name was Neopolitanus, who met
with king Agrippa as he was returning from Alexandria, at Jamnia,
and told him who it was that sent him, and on what errands he was
sent.

2. And here it was that the high priests, and men of power among
the Jews, as well as the sanhedrim, came to congratulate the king
[upon his safe return]; and after they had paid him their
respects, they lamented their own calamities, and related to him
what barbarous treatment they had met with from Florus. At which
barbarity Agrippa had great indignation, but transferred, after a
subtle manner, his anger towards those Jews whom he really
pitied, that he might beat down their high thoughts of
themselves, and would have them believe that they had not been so
unjustly treated, in order to dissuade them from avenging
themselves. So these great men, as of better understanding than
the rest, and desirous of peace, because of the possessions they
had, understood that this rebuke which the king gave them was
intended for their good; but as to the people, they came sixty
furlongs out of Jerusalem, and congratulated both Agrippa and
Neopolitanus; but the wives of those that had been slain came
running first of all and lamenting. The people also, when they
heard their mourning, fell into lamentations also, and besought
Agrippa to assist them: they also cried out to Neopolitanus, and
complained of the many miseries they had endured under Florus;
and they showed them, when they were come into the city, how the
market-place was made desolate, and the houses plundered. They
then persuaded Neopolitanus, by the means of Agrippa, that he
would walk round the city, with one only servant, as far as
Siloam, that he might inform himself that the Jews submitted to
all the rest of the Romans, and were only displeased at Florus,
by reason of his exceeding barbarity to them. So he walked round,
and had sufficient experience of the good temper the people were
in, and then went up to the temple, where he called the multitude
together, and highly commended them for their fidelity to the
Romans, and earnestly exhorted them to keep the peace; and having
performed such parts of Divine worship at the temple as he was
allowed to do, he returned to Cestius.

3. But as for the multitude of the Jews, they addressed
themselves to the king, and to the high priests, and desired they
might have leave to send ambassadors to Nero against Florus, and
not by their silence afford a suspicion that they had been the
occasions of such great slaughters as had been made, and were
disposed to revolt, alleging that they should seem to have been
the first beginners of the war, if they did not prevent the
report by showing who it was that began it; and it appeared
openly that they would not be quiet, if any body should hinder
them from sending such an embassage. But Agrippa, although he
thought it too dangerous a thing for them to appoint men to go as
the accusers of Florus, yet did he not think it fit for him to
overlook them, as they were in a disposition for war. He
therefore called the multitude together into a large gallery, and
placed his sister Bernice in the house of the Asamoneans, that
she might be seen by them, (which house was over the gallery, at
the passage to the upper city, where the bridge joined the temple
to the gallery,) and spake to them as follows:

4.(24) " Had I perceived that you were all zealously disposed to
go to war with the Romans, and that the purer and more sincere
part of the people did not propose to live in peace, I had not
come out to you, nor been so bold as to give you counsel; for all
discourses that tend to persuade men to do what they ought to do
are superfluous, when the hearers are agreed to do the contrary.
But because some are earnest to go to war because they are young,
and without experience of the miseries it brings, and because
some are for it out of an unreasonable expectation of regaining
their liberty, and because others hope to get by it, and are
therefore earnestly bent upon it, that in the confusion of your
affairs they may gain what belongs to those that are too weak to
resist them, I have thought proper to get you all together, and
to say to you what I think to be for your advantage; that so the
former may grow wiser, and change their minds, and that the best
men may come to no harm by the ill conduct of some others. And
let not any one be tumultuous against me, in case what they hear
me say do not please them; for as to those that admit of no cure,
but are resolved upon a revolt, it will still be in their power
to retain the same sentiments after my exhortation is over; but
still my discourse will fall to the ground, even with a relation
to those that have a mind to hear me, unless you will all keep
silence. I am well aware that many make a tragical exclamation
concerning the injuries that have been offered you by your
procurators, and concerning the glorious advantages of liberty;
but before I begin the inquiry, who you are that must go to war,
and who they are against whom you must fight, I shall first
separate those pretenses that are by some connected together; for
if you aim at avenging yourselves on those that have done you
injury, why do you pretend this to be a war for recovering your
liberty? but if you think all servitude intolerable, to what
purpose serve your complaint against your particular governors?
for if they treated you with moderation, it would still be
equally an unworthy thing to be in servitude. Consider now the
several cases that may be supposed, how little occasion there is
for your going to war. Your first occasion is the accusations you
have to make against your procurators; now here you ought to be
submissive to those in authority, and not give them any
provocation; but when you reproach men greatly for small
offenses, you excite those whom you reproach to be your
adversaries; for this will only make them leave off hurting you
privately, and with some degree of modesty, and to lay what you
have waste openly. Now nothing so much damps the force of strokes
as bearing them with patience; and the quietness of those who are
injured diverts the injurious persons from afflicting. But let us
take it for granted that the Roman ministers are injurious to
you, and are incurably severe; yet are they not all the Romans
who thus injure you; nor hath Caesar, against whom you are going
to make war, injured you: it is not by their command that any
wicked governor is sent to you; for they who are in the west
cannot see those that are in the east; nor indeed is it easy for
them there even to hear what is done in these parts. Now it is
absurd to make war with a great many for the sake of one, to do
so with such mighty people for a small cause; and this when these
people are not able to know of what you complain: nay, such
crimes as we complain of may soon be corrected, for the same
procurator will not continue for ever; and probable it is that
the successors will come with more moderate inclinations. But as
for war, if it be once begun, it is not easily laid down again,
nor borne without calamities coming therewith. However, as to the
desire of recovering your liberty, it is unseasonable to indulge
it so late; whereas you ought to have labored earnestly in old
time that you might never have lost it; for the first experience
of slavery was hard to be endured, and the struggle that you
might never have been subject to it would have been just; but
that slave who hath been once brought into subjection, and then
runs away, is rather a refractory slave than a lover of liberty;
for it was then the proper time for doing all that was possible,
that you might never have admitted the Romans [into your city],
when Pompey came first into the country. But so it was, that our
ancestors and their kings, who were in much better circumstances
than we are, both as to money, and strong bodies, and [valiant]
souls, did not bear the onset of a small body of the Roman army.
And yet you, who have now accustomed yourselves to obedience from
one generation to another, and who are so much inferior to those
who first submitted, in your circumstances will venture to oppose
the entire empire of the Romans. While those Athenians, who, in
order to preserve the liberty of Greece, did once set fire to
their own city; who pursued Xerxes, that proud prince, when he
sailed upon the land, and walked upon the sea, and could not be
contained by the seas, but conducted such an army as was too
broad for Europe; and made him run away like a fugitive in a
single ship, and brake so great a part of Asia at the Lesser
Salamis; are yet at this time servants to the Romans; and those
injunctions which are sent from Italy become laws to the
principal governing city of Greece. Those Lacedemonians also who
got the great victories at Thermopylae. and Platea, and had
Agesilaus [for their king], and searched every corner of Asia,
are contented to admit the same lords. Those Macedonians also,
who still fancy what great men their Philip and Alexander were,
and see that the latter had promised them the empire over the
world, these bear so great a change, and pay their obedience to
those whom fortune hath advanced in their stead. Moreover, ten
thousand ether nations there are who had greater reason than we
to claim their entire liberty, and yet do submit. You are the
only people who think it a disgrace to be servants to those to
whom all the world hath submitted. What sort of an army do you
rely on? What are the arms you depend on? Where is your fleet,
that may seize upon the Roman seas? and where are those treasures
which may be sufficient for your undertakings? Do you suppose, I
pray you, that you are to make war with the Egyptians, and with
the Arabians? Will you not carefully reflect upon the Roman
empire? Will you not estimate your own weakness? Hath not your
army been often beaten even by your neighboring nations, while
the power of the Romans is invincible in all parts of the
habitable earth? nay, rather they seek for somewhat still beyond
that; for all Euphrates is not a sufficient boundary for them on
the east side, nor the Danube on the north; and for their
southern limit, Libya hath been searched over by them, as far as
countries uninhabited, as is Cadiz their limit on the west; nay,
indeed, they have sought for another habitable earth beyond the
ocean, and have carried their arms as far as such British islands
as were never known before. What therefore do you pretend to? Are
you richer than the Gauls, stronger than the Germans, wiser than
the Greeks, more numerous than all men upon the habitable earth?
What confidence is it that elevates you to oppose the Romans?
Perhaps it will be said, It is hard to endure slavery. Yes; but
how much harder is this to the Greeks, who were esteemed the
noblest of all people under the sun! These, though they inhabit
in a large country, are in subjection to six bundles of Roman
rods. It is the same case with the Macedonians, who have juster
reason to claim their liberty than you have. What is the case of
five hundred cities of Asia? Do they not submit to a single
governor, and to the consular bundle of rods? What need I speak
of the Henlochi, and Colchi and the nation of Tauri, those that
inhabit the Bosphorus, and the nations about Pontus, and Meotis,
who formerly knew not so much as a lord of their own, but arc now
subject to three thousand armed men, and where forty long ships
keep the sea in peace, which before was not navigable, and very
tempestuous? How strong a plea may Bithynia, and Cappadocia, and
the people of Pamphylia, the Lycians, and Cilicians, put in for
liberty! But they are made tributary without an army. What are
the circumstances of the Thracians, whose country extends in
breadth five days' journey, and in length seven, and is of a much
more harsh constitution, and much more defensible, than yours,
and by the rigor of its cold sufficient to keep off armies from
attacking them? do not they submit to two thousand men of the
Roman garrisons? Are not the Illyrlans, who inhabit the country
adjoining, as far as Dalmatia and the Danube, governed by barely
two legions? by which also they put a stop to the incursions of
the Daeians. And for the Dalmatians, who have made such frequent
insurrections in order to regain their liberty, and who could
never before be so thoroughly subdued, but that they always
gathered their forces together again, revolted, yet are they now
very quiet under one Roman legion. Moreover, if eat advantages
might provoke any people to revolt, the Gauls might do it best of
all, as being so thoroughly walled round by nature; on the east
side by the Alps, on the north by the river Rhine, on the south
by the Pyrenean mountains, and on the west by the ocean. Now
although these Gauls have such obstacles before them to prevent
any attack upon them, and have no fewer than three hundred and
five nations among them, nay have, as one may say, the fountains
of domestic happiness within themselves, and send out plentiful
streams of happiness over almost the whole world, these bear to
be tributary to the Romans, and derive their prosperous condition
from them; and they undergo this, not because they are of
effeminate minds, or because they are of an ignoble stock, as
having borne a war of eighty years in order to preserve their
liberty; but by reason of the great regard they have to the power
of the Romans, and their good fortune, which is of greater
efficacy than their arms. These Gauls, therefore, are kept in
servitude by twelve hundred soldiers, which are hardly so many as
are their cities; nor hath the gold dug out of the mines of Spain
been sufficient for the support of a war to preserve their
liberty, nor could their vast distance from the Romans by land
and by sea do it; nor could the martial tribes of the Lusitanians
and Spaniards escape; no more could the ocean, with its tide,
which yet was terrible to the ancient inhabitants. Nay, the
Romans have extended their arms beyond the pillars of Hercules,
and have walked among the clouds, upon the Pyrenean mountains,
and have subdued these nations. And one legion is a sufficient
guard for these people, although they were so hard to be
conquered, and at a distance so remote from Rome. Who is there
among you that hath not heard of the great number of the Germans?
You have, to be sure, yourselves seen them to be strong and tall,
and that frequently, since the Romans have them among their
captives every where; yet these Germans, who dwell in an immense
country, who have minds greater than their bodies, and a soul
that despises death, and who are in rage more fierce than wild
beasts, have the Rhine for the boundary of their enterprises, and
are tamed by eight Roman legions. Such of them as were taken
captive became their servants; and the rest of the entire nation
were obliged to save themselves by flight. Do you also, who
depend on the walls of Jerusalem, consider what a wall the
Britons had; for the Romans sailed away to them, an subdued them
while they were encompassed by the ocean, and inhabited an island
that is not less than the [continent of this] habitable earth;
and four legions are a sufficient guard to so large all island
And why should I speak much more about this matter, while the
Parthians, that most warlike body of men, and lords of so many
nations, and encompassed with such mighty forces, send hostages
to the Romans? whereby you may see, if you please, even in Italy,
the noblest nation of the East, under the notion of peace,
submitting to serve them. Now when almost all people under the
sun submit to the Roman arms, will you be the only people that
make war against them? and this without regarding the fate of the
Carthaginians, who, in the midst of their brags of the great
Hannibal, and the nobility of their Phoenician original, fell by
the hand of Scipio. Nor indeed have the Cyrenians, derived from
the Lacedemonians, nor the Marmaridite, a nation extended as far
as the regions uninhabitable for want of water, nor have the
Syrtes, a place terrible to such as barely hear it described, the
Nasamons and Moors, and the immense multitude of the Numidians,
been able to put a stop to the Roman valor. And as for the third
part of the habitable earth, [Akica,] whose nations are so many
that it is not easy to number them, and which is bounded by the
Atlantic Sea and the pillars of Hercules, and feeds an
innumerable multitude of Ethiopians, as far as the Red Sea, these
have the Romans subdued entirely. And besides the annual fruits
of the earth, which maintain the multitude of the Romans for
eight months in the year, this, over and above, pays all sorts of
tribute, and affords revenues suitable to the necessities of the
government. Nor do they, like you, esteem such injunctions a
disgrace to them, although they have but one Roman legion that
abides among them. And indeed what occasion is there for showing
you the power of the Romans over remote countries, when it is so
easy to learn it from Egypt, in your neighborhood? This country
is extended as far as the Ethiopians, and Arabia the Happy, and
borders upon India; it hath seven millions five hundred thousand
men, besides the inhabitants of Alexandria, as may be learned
from the revenue of the poll tax; yet it is not ashamed to submit
to the Roman government, although it hath Alexandria as a grand
temptation to a revolt, by reason it is so full of people and of
riches, and is besides exceeding large, its length being thirty
furlongs, and its breadth no less than ten; and it pays more
tribute to the Romans in one month than you do in a year; nay,
besides what it pays in money, it sends corn to Rome that
supports it for four months [in the year]: it is also walled
round on all sides, either by almost impassable deserts, or seas
that have no havens, or by rivers, or by lakes; yet have none of
these things been found too strong for the Roman good fortune;
however, two legions that lie in that city are a bridle both for
the remoter parts of Egypt, and for the parts inhabited by the
more noble Macedonians. Where then are those people whom you are
to have for your auxiliaries? Must they come from the parts of
the world that are uninhabited? for all that are in the habitable
earth are [under the] Romans. Unless any of you extend his hopes
as far as beyond the Euphrates, and suppose that those of your
own nation that dwell in Adiabene will come to your assistance;
but certainly these will not embarrass themselves with an
unjustifiable war, nor, if they should follow such ill advice,
will the Parthians permit them so to do; for it is their concern
to maintain the truce that is between them and the Romans, and
they will be supposed to break the covenants between them, if any
under their government march against the Romans. What remains,
therefore, is this, that you have recourse to Divine assistance;
but this is already on the side of the Romans; for it is
impossible that so vast an empire should be settled without God's
providence. Reflect upon it, how impossible it is for your
zealous observations of your religious customs to be here
preserved, which are hard to be observed even when you fight with
those whom you are able to conquer; and how can you then most of
all hope for God's assistance, when, by being forced to
transgress his law, you will make him turn his face from you? and
if you do observe the custom of the sabbath days, and will not be
revealed on to do any thing thereon, you will easily be taken, as
were your forefathers by Pompey, who was the busiest in his siege
on those days on which the besieged rested. But if in time of war
you transgress the law of your country, I cannot tell on whose
account you will afterward go to war; for your concern is but
one, that you do nothing against any of your forefathers; and how
will you call upon God to assist you, when you are voluntarily
transgressing against his religion? Now all men that go to war do
it either as depending on Divine or on human assistance; but
since your going to war will cut off both those assistances,
those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What
hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own
hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for
by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being
beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the
vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and
not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the
hurricanes; for we justly pity those who fall into great
misfortunes without fore-seeing them; but for him who rushes into
manifest ruin, he gains reproaches [instead of commiseration].
But certainly no one can imagine that you can enter into a war as
by agreement, or that when the Romans have got you under their
power, they will use you with moderation, or will not rather, for
an example to other nations, burn your holy city, and utterly
destroy your whole nation; for those of you who shall survive the
war will not be able to find a place whither to flee, since all
men have the Romans for their lords already, or are afraid they
shall have hereafter. Nay, indeed, the danger concerns not those
Jews that dwell here only, but those of them which dwell in other
cities also; for there is no people upon the habitable earth
which have not some portion of you among them, whom your enemies
will slay, in case you go to war, and on that account also; and
so every city which hath Jews in it will be filled with slaughter
for the sake of a few men, and they who slay them will be
pardoned; but if that slaughter be not made by them, consider how
wicked a thing it is to take arms against those that are so kind
to you. Have pity, therefore, if not on your children and wives,
yet upon this your metropolis, and its sacred walls; spare the
temple, and preserve the holy house, with its holy furniture, for
yourselves; for if the Romans get you under their power, they
will no longer abstain from them, when their former abstinence
shall have been so ungratefully requited. I call to witness your
sanctuary, and the holy angels of God, and this country common to
us all, that I have not kept back any thing that is for your
preservation; and if you will follow that advice which you ought
to do, you will have that peace which will be common to you and
to me; but if you indulge four passions, you will run those
hazards which I shall be free
from."

5. When Agrippa had spoken thus, both he and his sister wept, and
by their tears repressed a great deal of the violence of the
people; but still they cried out, that they would not fight
against the Romans, but against Florus, on account of what they
had suffered by his means. To which Agrippa replied, that what
they had already done was like such as make war against the
Romans; "for you have not paid the tribute which is due to Caesar
(25) and you have cut off the cloisters [of the temple] from
joining to the tower Antonia. You will therefore prevent any
occasion of revolt if you will but join these together again, and
if you will but pay your tribute; for the citadel does not now
belong to Florus, nor are you to pay the tribute money to
Florus."

CHAPTER 17.

How The War Of The Jews With The Romans Began, And Concerning
Manahem.

1. This advice the people hearkened to, and went up into the
temple with the king and Bernice, and began to rebuild the
cloisters; the rulers also and senators divided themselves into
the villages, and collected the tributes, and soon got together
forty talents, which was the sum that was deficient. And thus did
Agrippa then put a stop to that war which was threatened.
Moreover, he attempted to persuade the multitude to obey Florus,
until Caesar should send one to succeed him; but they were hereby
more provoked, and cast reproaches upon the king, and got him
excluded out of the city; nay, some of the seditious had the
impudence to throw stones at him. So when the king saw that the
violence of those that were for innovations was not to be
restrained, and being very angry at the contumelies he had
received, he sent their rulers, together with their men of power,
to Florus, to Cesarea, that he might appoint whom he thought fit
to collect the tribute in the country, while he retired into his
own kingdom.

2. And at this time it was that some of those that principally
excited the people to go to war made an assault upon a certain
fortress called Masada. They took it by treachery, and slew the
Romans that were there, and put others of their own party to keep
it. At the same time Eleazar, the son of Ananias the high priest,
a very bold youth, who was at that time governor of the temple,
persuaded those that officiated in the Divine service to receive
no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner. And this was the true
beginning of our war with the Romans; for they rejected the
sacrifice of Caesar on this account; and when many of the high
priests and principal men besought them not to omit the
sacrifice, which it was customary for them to offer for their
princes, they would not be prevailed upon. These relied much upon
their multitude, for the most flourishing part of the innovators
assisted them; but they had the chief regard to Eleazar, the
governor of the temple.

3. Hereupon the men of power got together, and conferred with the
high priests, as did also the principal of the Pharisees; and
thinking all was at stake, and that their calamities were
becoming incurable, took counsel what was to be done.
Accordingly, they determined to try what they could do with the
seditious by words, and assembled the people before the brazen
gate, which was that gate of the inner temple [court of the
priests] which looked toward the sun-rising. And, in the first
place, they showed the great indignation they had at this attempt
for a revolt, and for their bringing so great a war upon their
country; after which they confuted their pretense as
unjustifiable, and told them that their forefathers had adorned
their temple in great part with donations bestowed on them by
foreigners, and had always received what had been presented to
them from foreign nations; and that they had been so far from
rejecting any person's sacrifice (which would be the highest
instance of impiety,) that they had themselves placed those
donation about the temple which were still visible, and had
remained there so long a time; that they did now irritate the
Romans to take arms against them, and invited them to make war
upon them, and brought up novel rules of a strange Divine
worship, and determined to run the hazard of having their city
condemned for impiety, while they would not allow any foreigner,
but Jews only, either to sacrifice or to worship therein. And if
such a law should be introduced in the case of a single private
person only, he would have indignation at it, as an instance of
inhumanity determined against him; while they have no regard to
the Romans or to Caesar, and forbid even their oblations to be
received also; that however they cannot but fear, lest, by thus
rejecting their sacrifices, they shall not be allowed to offer
their own; and that this city will lose its principality, unless
they grow wiser quickly, and restore the sacrifices as formerly,
and indeed amend the injury [they have offered foreigners] before
the report of it comes to the ears of those that have been
injured.

4. And as they said these things, they produced those priests
that were skillful in the customs of their country, who made the
report that all their forefathers had received the sacrifices
from foreign nations. But still not one of the innovators would
hearken to what was said; nay, those that ministered about the
temple would not attend their Divine service, but were preparing
matters for beginning the war. So the men of power perceiving
that the sedition was too hard for them to subdue, and that the
danger which would arise from the Romans would come upon them
first of all, endeavored to save themselves, and sent
ambassadors, some to Florus, the chief of which was Simon the son
of Ananias; and others to Agrippa, among whom the most eminent
were Saul, and Antipas, and Costobarus, who were of the king's
kindred; and they desired of them both that they would come with
an army to the city, and cut off the seditious before it should
be too hard to be subdued. Now this terrible message was good
news to Florus; and because his design was to have a war kindled,
he gave the ambassadors no answer at all. But Agrippa was equally
solicitous for those that were revolting, and for those against
whom the war was to be made, and was desirous to preserve the
Jews for the Romans, and the temple and metropolis for the Jews;
he was also sensible that it was not for his own advantage that
the disturbances should proceed; so he sent three thousand
horsemen to the assistance of the people out of Auranitis, and
Batanea, and Trachonitis, and these under Darius, the master of
his horse, and Philip the son of Jacimus, the general of his
army.

5. Upon this the men of power, with the high priests, as also all
the part of the multitude that were desirous of peace, took
courage, and seized upon the upper city [Mount Sion;] for the
seditious part had the lower city and the temple in their power;
so they made use of stones and slings perpetually against one
another, and threw darts continually on both sides; and sometimes
it happened that they made incursions by troops, and fought it
out hand to hand, while the seditious were superior in boldness,
but the king's soldiers in skill. These last strove chiefly to
gain the temple, and to drive those out of it who profaned it; as
did the seditious, with Eleazar, besides what they had already,
labor to gain the upper city. Thus were there perpetual
slaughters on both sides for seven days' time; but neither side
would yield up the parts they had seized on.

6. Now the next day was the festival of Xylophory; upon which the
custom was for every one to bring wood for the altar (that there
might never be a want of fuel for that fire which was
unquenchable and always burning). Upon that day they excluded the
opposite party from the observation of this part of religion. And
when they had joined to themselves many of the Sicarii, who
crowded in among the weaker people, (that was the name for such
robbers as had under their bosoms swords called Sicae,) they grew
bolder, and carried their undertaking further; insomuch that the
king's soldiers were overpowered by their multitude and boldness;
and so they gave way, and were driven out of the upper city by
force. The others then set fire to the house of Ananias the high
priest, and to the palaces of Agrippa and Bernice; after which
they carried the fire to the place where the archives were
reposited, and made haste to burn the contracts belonging to
their creditors, and thereby to dissolve their obligations for
paying their debts; and this was done in order to gain the
multitude of those who had been debtors, and that they might
persuade the poorer sort to join in their insurrection with
safety against the more wealthy; so the keepers of the records
fled away, and the rest set fire to them. And when they had thus
burnt down the nerves of the city, they fell upon their enemies;
at which time some of the men of power, and of the high priests,
went into the vaults under ground, and concealed themselves,
while others fled with the king's soldiers to the upper palace,
and shut the gates immediately; among whom were Ananias the high
priest, and the ambassadors that had been sent to Agrippa. And
now the seditious were contented with the victory they had
gotten, and the buildings they had burnt down, and proceeded no
further.

7. But on the next day, which was the fifteenth of the month
Lous, [Ab,] they made an assault upon Antonia, and besieged the
garrison which was in it two days, and then took the garrison,
and slew them, and set the citadel on fire; after which they
marched to the palace, whither the king's soldiers were fled, and
parted themselves into four bodies, and made an attack upon the
walls. As for those that were within it, no one had the courage
to sally out, because those that assaulted them were so numerous;
but they distributed themselves into the breast-works and
turrets, and shot at the besiegers, whereby many of the robbers
fell under the walls; nor did they cease to fight one with
another either by night or by day, while the seditious supposed
that those within would grow weary for want of food, and those
without supposed the others would do the like by the tediousness
of the siege.

8. In the mean time, one Manahem, the son of Judas, that was
called the Galilean, (who was a very cunning sophister, and had
formerly reproached the Jews under Cyrenius, that after God they
were subject to the Romans,) took some of the men of note with
him, and retired to Masada, where he broke open king Herod's
armory, and gave arms not only to his own people, but to other
robbers also. These he made use of for a guard, and returned in
the state of a king to Jerusalem; he became the leader of the
sedition, and gave orders for continuing the siege; but they
wanted proper instruments, and it was not practicable to
undermine the wall, because the darts came down upon them from
above. But still they dug a mine from a great distance under one
of the towers, and made it totter; and having done that, they set
on fire what was combustible, and left it; and when the
foundations were burnt below, the tower fell down suddenly. Yet
did they then meet with another wall that had been built within,
for the besieged were sensible beforehand of what they were
doing, and probably the tower shook as it was undermining; so
they provided themselves of another fortification; which when the
besiegers unexpectedly saw, while they thought they had already
gained the place, they were under some consternation. However,
those that were within sent to Manahem, and to the other leaders
of the sedition, and desired they might go out upon a
capitulation: this was granted to the king's soldiers and their
own countrymen only, who went out accordingly; but the Romans
that were left alone were greatly dejected, for they were not
able to force their way through such a multitude; and to desire
them to give them their right hand for their security, they
thought it would be a reproach to them; and besides, if they
should give it them, they durst not depend upon it; so they
deserted their camp, as easily taken, and ran away to the royal
towers, - that called Hippicus, that called Phasaelus, and that
called Mariamne. But Manahem and his party fell upon the place
whence the soldiers were fled, and slew as many of them as they
could catch, before they got up to the towers, and plundered what
they left behind them, and set fire to their camp. This was
executed on the sixth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul].

9. But on the next day the high priest was caught where he had
concealed himself in an aqueduct; he was slain, together with
Hezekiah his brother, by the robbers: hereupon the seditious
besieged the towers, and kept them guarded, lest any one of the
soldiers should escape. Now the overthrow of the places of
strength, and the death of the high priest Ananias, so puffed up
Manahem, that he became barbarously cruel; and as he thought he
had no antagonist to dispute the management of affairs with him,
he was no better than an insupportable tyrant; but Eleazar and
his party, when words had passed between them, how it was not
proper when they revolted from the Romans, out of the desire of
liberty, to betray that liberty to any of their own people, and
to bear a lord, who, though he should be guilty of no violence,
was yet meaner than themselves; as also, that in case they were
obliged to set some one over their public affairs, it was fitter
they should give that privilege to any one rather than to him;
they made an assault upon him in the temple; for he went up
thither to worship in a pompous manner, and adorned with royal
garments, and had his followers with him in their armor. But
Eleazar and his party fell violently upon him, as did also the
rest of the people; and taking up stones to attack him withal,
they threw them at the sophister, and thought, that if he were
once ruined, the entire sedition would fall to the ground. Now
Manahem and his party made resistance for a while; but when they
perceived that the whole multitude were falling upon them, they
fled which way every one was able; those that were caught were
slain, and those that hid themselves were searched for. A few
there were of them who privately escaped to Masada, among whom
was Eleazar, the son of Jairus, who was of kin to Manahem, and
acted the part of a tyrant at Masada afterward. As for Manahem
himself, he ran away to the place called Ophla, and there lay
skulking in private; but they took him alive, and drew him out
before them all; they then tortured him with many sorts of
torments, and after all slew him, as they did by those that were
captains under him also, and particularly by the principal
instrument of his tyranny, whose name was Apsalom.

10. And, as I said, so far truly the people assisted them, while
they hoped this might afford some amendment to the seditious
practices; but the others were not in haste to put an end to the
war, but hoped to prosecute it with less danger, now they had
slain Manahem. It is true, that when the people earnestly desired
that they would leave off besieging the soldiers, they were the
more earnest in pressing it forward, and this till Metilius, who
was the Roman general, sent to Eleazar, and desired that they
would. give them security to spare their lives only; but agreed
to deliver up their arms, and what else they had with them. The
others readily complied with their petition, sent to them Gorion,
the son of Nicodemus, and Ananias, the son of Sadduk, and Judas,
the son of Jonathan, that they might give them the security Of
their right hands, and of their oaths; after which Metilius
brought down his soldiers; which soldiers, while they were in
arms, were not meddled with by any of the seditious, nor was
there any appearance of treachery; but as soon as, according to
the articles of capitulation, they had all laid down their
shields and their swords, and were under no further suspicion of
any harm, but were going away, Eleazar's men attacked them after
a violent manner, and encompassed them round, and slew them,
while they neither defended themselves, nor entreated for mercy,
but only cried out upon the breach of their articles of
capitulation and their oaths. And thus were all these men
barbarously murdered, excepting Metilius; for when he entreated
for mercy, and promised that he would turn Jew, and be
circumcised, they saved him alive, but none else. This loss to
the Romans was but light, there being no more than a few slain
out of an immense army; but still it appeared to be a prelude to
the Jews' own destruction, while men made public lamentation when
they saw that such occasions were afforded for a war as were
incurable; that the city was all over polluted with such
abominations, from which it was but reasonable to expect some
vengeance, even though they should escape revenge from the
Romans; so that the city was filled with sadness, and every one
of the moderate men in it were under great disturbance, as likely
themselves to undergo punishment for the wickedness of the
seditious; for indeed it so happened that this murder was
perpetrated on the sabbath day, on which day the Jews have a
respite from their works on account of Divine worship.

CHAPTER 18.

The Calamities And Slaughters That Came Upon The Jews.

1. Now the people of Cesarea had slain the Jews that were among
them on the very same day and hour [when the soldiers were
slain], which one would think must have come to pass by the
direction of Providence; insomuch that in one hour's time above
twenty thousand Jews were killed, and all Cesarea was emptied of
its Jewish inhabitants; for Florus caught such as ran away, and
sent them in bonds to the galleys. Upon which stroke that the
Jews received at Cesarea, the whole nation was greatly enraged;
so they divided themselves into several parties, and laid waste
the villages of the Syrians, and their neighboring cities,
Philadelphia, and Sebonitis, and Gerasa, and Pella, and
Scythopolis, and after them Gadara, and Hippos; and falling upon
Gaulonitis, some cities they destroyed there, and some they set
on fire, and then went to Kedasa, belonging to the Tyrians, and
to Ptolemais, and to Gaba, and to Cesarea; nor was either Sebaste
[Samaria] or Askelon able to oppose the violence with which they
were attacked; and when they had burnt these to the ground; they
entirely demolished Anthedon and Gaza; many also of the villages
that were about every one of those cities were plundered, and an
immense slaughter was made of the men who were caught in them. 

2. However, the Syrians were even with the Jews in the multitude
of the men whom they slew; for they killed those whom they caught
in their cities, and that not only out of the hatred they bare
them, as formerly, but to prevent the danger under which they
were from them; so that the disorders in all Syria were terrible,
and every city was divided into two armies, encamped one against
another, and the preservation of the one party was in the
destruction of the other; so the day time was spent in shedding
of blood, and the night in fear, which was of the two the more
terrible; for when the Syrians thought they had ruined the Jews,
they had the Judaizers in suspicion also; and as each side did
not care to slay those whom they only suspected on the other, so
did they greatly fear them when they were mingled with the other,
as if they were certainly foreigners. Moreover, greediness of
gain was a provocation to kill the opposite party, even to such
as had of old appeared very mild and gentle towards them; for
they without fear plundered the effects of the slain, and carried
off the spoils of those whom they slew to their own houses, as if
they had been gained in a set battle; and he was esteemed a man
of honor who got the greatest share, as having prevailed over the
greatest number of his enemies. It was then common to see cities
filled with dead bodies, still lying unburied, and those of old
men, mixed with infants, all dead, and scattered about together;
women also lay amongst them, without any covering for their
nakedness: you might then see the whole province full of
inexpressible calamities, while the dread of still more barbarous
practices which were threatened was every where greater than what
had been already perpetrated.

3. And thus far the conflict had been between Jews and
foreigners; but when they made excursions to Scythopolis, they
found Jew that acted as enemies; for as they stood in
battle-array with those of Scythopolis, and preferred their own
safety before their relation to us, they fought against their own
countrymen; nay, their alacrity was so very great, that those of
Scythopolis suspected them. These were afraid, therefore, lest
they should make an assault upon the city in the night time, and,
to their great misfortune, should thereby make an apology for
themselves to their own people for their revolt from them. So
they commanded them, that in case they would confirm their
agreement and demonstrate their fidelity to them, who were of a
different nation, they should go out of the city, with their
families to a neighboring grove; and when they had done as they
were commanded, without suspecting any thing, the people of
Scythopolis lay still for the interval of two days, to tempt them
to be secure; but on the third night they watched their
opportunity, and cut all their throats, some as they lay
unguarded, and some as they lay asleep. The number that was slain
was above thirteen thousand, and then they plundered them of all
that they had.

4. It will deserve our relation what befell Simon; he was the son
of one Saul, a man of reputation among the Jews. This man was
distinguished from the rest by the strength of his body, and the
boldness of his conduct, although he abused them both to the
mischieving of his countrymen; for he came every day and slew a
great many of the Jews of Scythopolis, and he frequently put them
to flight, and became himself alone the cause of his army's
conquering. But a just punishment overtook him for the murders he
had committed upon those of the same nation with him; for when
the people of Scythopolis threw their darts at them in the grove,
he drew his sword, but did not attack any of the enemy; for he
saw that he could do nothing against such a multitude; but he
cried out after a very moving manner, and said, "O you people of
Scythopolis, I deservedly suffer for what I have done with
relation to you, when I gave you such security of my fidelity to
you, by slaying so many of those that were related to me.
Wherefore we very justly experience the perfidiousness of
foreigners, while we acted after a most wicked manner against our
own nation. I will therefore die, polluted wretch as I am, by
nine own hands; for it is not fit I should die by the hand of our
enemies; and let the same action be to me both a punishment for
my great crimes, and a testimony of my courage to my
commendation, that so no one of our enemies may have it to brag
of, that he it was that slew me, and no one may insult upon me as
I fall." Now when he had said this, he looked round about him
upon his family with eyes of commiseration and of rage (that
family consisted of a wife and children, and his aged parents);
so, in the first place, he caught his father by his grey hairs,
and ran his sword through him, and after him he did the same to
his mother, who willingly received it; and after them he did the
like to his wife and children, every one almost offering
themselves to his sword, as desirous to prevent being slain by
their enemies; so when he had gone over all his family, he stood
upon their bodies to be seen by all, and stretching out his right
hand, that his action might be observed by all, he sheathed his
entire sword into his own bowels. This young man was to be
pitied, on account of the strength of his body and the courage of
his soul; but since he had assured foreigners of his fidelity
[against his own countrymen], he suffered deservedly.

5. Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up
against the Jews that were among them; those of Askelon slew two
thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two thousand, and
put not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also put a great number
to death, but kept a greater number in prison; moreover, those of
Hippos, and those of Gadara, did the like while they put to death
the boldest of the Jews, but kept those of whom they were afraid
in custody; as did the rest of the cities of Syria, according as
they every one either hated them or were afraid of them; only the
Antiochtans the Sidontans, and Apamians spared those that dwelt
with them, and would not endure either to kill any of the Jews,
or to put them in bonds. And perhaps they spared them, because
their own number was so great that they despised their attempts.
But I think the greatest part of this favor was owing to their
commiseration of those whom they saw to make no innovations. As
for the Gerasans, they did no harm to those that abode with them;
and for those who had a mind to go away, they conducted them as
far as their borders reached.

6. There was also a plot laid against the Jews in Agrippa's
kingdom; for he was himself gone to Cestius Gallus, to Antioch,
but had left one of his companions, whose name was Noarus, to
take care of the public affairs; which Noarus was of kin to king
Sohemus. (26) Now there came certain men seventy in number, out
of Batanea, who were the most considerable for their families and
prudence of the rest of the people; these desired to have an army
put into their hands, that if any tumult should happen, they
might have about them a guard sufficient to restrain such as
might rise up against them. This Noarus sent out some of the
king's armed men by night, and slew all those [seventy] men;
which bold action he ventured upon without the consent of
Agrippa, and was such a lover of money, that he chose to be so
wicked to his own countrymen, though he brought ruin on the
kingdom thereby; and thus cruelly did he treat that nation, and
this contrary to the laws also, until Agrippa was informed of it,
who did not indeed dare to put him to death, out of regard to
Sohemus; but still he put an end to his procuratorship
immediately. But as to the seditious, they took the citadel which
was called Cypros, and was above Jericho, and cut the throats of
the garrison, and utterly demolished the fortifications. This was
about the same time that the multitude of the Jews that were at
Machorus persuaded the Romans who were in garrison to leave the
place, and deliver it up to them. These Romans being in great
fear, lest the place should be taken by force, made an agreement
with them to depart upon certain conditions; and when they had
obtained the security they desired, they delivered up the
citadel, into which the people of Macherus put a garrison for
their own security, and held it in their own power.

7. But for Alexandria, the sedition of the people of the place
against the Jews was perpetual, and this from that very time when
Alexander [the Great], upon finding the readiness of the Jews in
assisting him against the Egyptians, and as a reward for such
their assistance, gave them equal privileges in this city with
the Grecians themselves; which honorary reward Continued among
them under his successors, who also set apart for them a
particular place, that they might live without being polluted [by
the Gentiles], and were thereby not so much intermixed with
foreigners as before; they also gave them this further privilege,
that they should be called Macedonians. Nay, when the Romans got
possession of Egypt, neither the first Caesar, nor any one that
came after him, thought of diminishing the honors which Alexander
had bestowed on the Jews. But still conflicts perpetually arose
with the Grecians; and although the governors did every day
punish many of them, yet did the sedition grow worse; but at this
time especially, when there were tumults in other places also,
the disorders among them were put into a greater flame; for when
the Alexandrians had once a public assembly, to deliberate about
an embassage they were sending to Nero, a great number of Jews
came flocking to the theater; but when their adversaries saw
them, they immediately cried out, and called them their enemies,
and said they came as spies upon them; upon which they rushed
out, and laid violent hands upon them; and as for the rest, they
were slain as they ran away; but there were three men whom they
caught, and hauled them along, in order to have them burnt alive;
but all the Jews came in a body to defend them, who at first
threw stones at the Grecians, but after that they took lamps, and
rushed with violence into the theater, and threatened that they
would burn the people to a man; and this they had soon done,
unless Tiberius Alexander, the governor of the city, had
restrained their passions. However, this man did not begin to
teach them wisdom by arms, but sent among them privately some of
the principal men, and thereby entreated them to be quiet, and
not provoke the Roman army against them; but the seditious made a
jest of the entreaties of Tiberius, and reproached him for so
doing.

8. Now when he perceived that those who were for innovations
would not be pacified till some great calamity should overtake
them, he sent out upon them those two Roman legions that were in
the city, and together with them five thousand other soldiers,
who, by chance, were come together out of Libya, to the ruin of
the Jews. They were also permitted not only to kill them, but to
plunder them of what they had, and to set fire to their houses.
These soldiers rushed violently into that part of the city that
was called Delta, where the Jewish people lived together, and did
as they were bidden, though not without bloodshed on their own
side also; for the Jews got together, and set those that were the
best armed among them in the forefront, and made a resistance for
a great while; but when once they gave back, they were destroyed
unmercifully; and this their destruction was complete, some being
caught in the open field, and others forced into their houses,
which houses were first plundered of what was in them, and then
set on fire by the Romans; wherein no mercy was shown to the
infants, and no regard had to the aged; but they went on in the
slaughter of persons of every age, till all the place was
overflowed with blood, and fifty thousand of them lay dead upon
heaps; nor had the remainder been preserved, had they not
be-taken themselves to supplication. So Alexander commiserated
their condition, and gave orders to the Romans to retire;
accordingly, these being accustomed to obey orders, left off
killing at the first intimation; but the populace of Alexandria
bare so very great hatred to the Jews, that it was difficult to
recall them, and it was a hard thing to make them leave their
dead bodies.

9. And this was the miserable calamity which at this time befell
the Jews at Alexandria. Hereupon Cestius thought fit no longer to
lie still, while the Jews were everywhere up in arms; so he took
out of Antioch the twelfth legion entire, and out of each of the
rest he selected two thousand, with six cohorts of footmen, and
four troops of horsemen, besides those auxiliaries which were
sent by the kings; of which Antiochus sent two thousand horsemen,
and three thousand footmen, with as many archers; and Agrippa
sent the same number of footmen, and one thousand horsemen;
Sohemus also followed with four thousand, a third part whereof
were horsemen, but most part were archers, and thus did he march
to Ptolemais. There were also great numbers of auxiliaries
gathered together from the [free] cities, who indeed had not the
same skill in martial affairs, but made up in their alacrity and
in their hatred to the Jews what they wanted in skill. There came
also along with Cestius Agrippa himself, both as a guide in his
march over the country, and a director what was fit to be done;
so Cestius took part of his forces, and marched hastily to
Zabulon, a strong city of Galilee, which was called the City of
Men, and divides the country of Ptolemais from our nation; this
he found deserted by its men, the multitude having fled to the
mountains, but full of all sorts of good things; those he gave
leave to the soldiers to plunder, and set fire to the city,
although it was of admirable beauty, and had its houses built
like those in Tyre, and Sidon, and Berytus. After this he overran
all the country, and seized upon whatsoever came in his way, and
set fire to the villages that were round about them, and then
returned to Ptolemais. But when the Syrians, and especially those
of Berytus, were busy in plundering, the Jews pulled up their
courage again, for they knew that Cestius was retired, and fell
upon those that were left behind unexpectedly, and destroyed
about two thousand of them. (27)

10. And now Cestius himself marched from Ptolemais, and came to
Cesarea; but he sent part of his army before him to Joppa, and
gave order, that if they could take that city [by surprise] they
should keep it; but that in case the citizens should perceive
they were coming to attack them, that they then should stay for
him, and for the rest of the army. So some of them made a brisk
march by the sea-side, and some by land, and so coming upon them
on both sides, they took the city with ease; and as the
inhabitants had made no provision beforehand for a flight, nor
had gotten any thing ready for fighting, the soldiers fell upon
them, and slew them all, with their families, and then plundered
and burnt the city. The number of the slain was eight thousand
four hundred. In like manner, Cestius sent also a considerable
body of horsemen to the toparchy of Narbatene, that adjoined to
Cesarea, who destroyed the country, and slew a great multitude of
its people; they also plundered what they had, and burnt their
villages.

11. But Cestius sent Gallus, the commander of the twelfth legion,
into Galilee, and delivered to him as many of his forces as he
supposed sufficient to subdue that nation. He was received by the
strongest city of Galilee, which was Sepphoris, with acclamations
of joy; which wise conduct of that city occasioned the rest of
the cities to be in quiet; while the seditious part and the
robbers ran away to that mountain which lies in the very middle
of Galilee, and is situated over against Sepphoris; it is called
Asamon. So Gallus brought his forces against them; but while
those men were in the superior parts above the Romans, they
easily threw their darts upon the Romans, as they made their
approaches, and slew about two hundred of them. But when the
Romans had gone round the mountains, and were gotten into the
parts above their enemies, the others were soon beaten; nor could
they who had only light armor on sustain the force of them that
fought them armed all over; nor when they were beaten could they
escape the enemies' horsemen; insomuch that only some few
concealed themselves in certain places hard to be come at, among
the mountains, while the rest, above two thousand in number, were
slain.

CHAPTER 19.

What Cestius Did Against The Jews; And How, Upon His Besieging
Jerusalem, He Retreated From The City Without Any Just Occasion
In The World. As Also What Severe Calamities He Under Went From
The Jews In His Retreat.

1. And now Gallus, seeing nothing more that looked towards an
innovation in Galilee, returned with his army to Cesarea: but
Cestius removed with his whole army, and marched to Antipatris;
and when he was informed that there was a great body of Jewish
forces gotten together in a certain tower called Aphek, he sent a
party before to fight them; but this party dispersed the Jews by
affrighting them before it came to a battle: so they came, and
finding their camp deserted, they burnt it, as well as the
villages that lay about it. But when Cestius had marched from
Antipatris to Lydda, he found the city empty of its men, for the
whole multitude (28) were gone up to Jerusalem to the feast of
tabernacles; yet did he destroy fifty of those that showed
themselves, and burnt the city, and so marched forwards; and
ascending by Betboron, he pitched his camp at a certain place
called Gabao, fifty furlongs distant from Jerusalem.

2. But as for the Jews, when they saw the war approaching to
their metropolis, they left the feast, and betook themselves to
their arms; and taking courage greatly from their multitude, went
in a sudden and disorderly manner to the fight, with a great
noise, and without any consideration had of the rest of the
seventh day, although the Sabbath (29) was the day to which they
had the greatest regard; but that rage which made them forget the
religious observation [of the sabbath] made them too hard for
their enemies in the fight: with such violence therefore did they
fall upon the Romans, as to break into their ranks, and to march
through the midst of them, making a great slaughter as they went,
insomuch that unless the horsemen, and such part of the footmen
as were not yet tired in the action, had wheeled round, and
succored that part of the army which was not yet broken, Cestius,
with his whole army, had been in danger: however, five hundred
and fifteen of the Romans were slain, of which number four
hundred were footmen, and the rest horsemen, while the Jews lost
only twenty-two, of whom the most valiant were the kinsmen of
Monobazus, king of Adiabene, and their names were Monobazus and
Kenedeus; and next to them were Niger of Perea, and Silas of
Babylon, who had deserted from king Agrippa to the Jews; for he
had formerly served in his army. When the front of the Jewish
army had been cut off, the Jews retired into the city; but still
Simon, the son of Giora, fell upon the backs of the Romans, as
they were ascending up Bethoron, and put the hindmost of the army
into disorder, and carried off many of the beasts that carded the
weapons of war, and led Shem into the city. But as Cestius
tarried there three days, the Jews seized upon the elevated parts
of the city, and set watches at the entrances into the city, and
appeared openly resolved not to rest when once the Romans should
begin to march.

3. And now when Agrippa observed that even the affairs of the
Romans were likely to be in danger, while such an immense
multitude of their enemies had seized upon the mountains round
about, he determined to try what the Jews would agree to by
words, as thinking that he should either persuade them all to
desist from fighting, or, however, that he should cause the sober
part of them to separate themselves from the opposite party. So
he sent Borceus and Phebus, the persons of his party that were
the best known to them, and promised them that Cestius should
give them his right hand, to secure them of the Romans' entire
forgiveness of what they had done amiss, if they would throw away
their arms, and come over to them; but the seditious, fearing
lest the whole multitude, in hopes of security to themselves,
should go over to Agrippa, resolved immediately to fall upon and
kill the ambassadors; accordingly they slew Phebus before he said
a word, but Borceus was only wounded, and so prevented his fate
by flying away. And when the people were very angry at this, they
had the seditious beaten with stones and clubs, and drove them
before them into the city.

4. But now Cestius, observing that the disturbances that were
begun among the Jews afforded him a proper opportunity to attack
them, took his whole army along with him, and put the Jews to
flight, and pursued them to Jerusalem. He then pitched his camp
upon the elevation called Scopus, [or watch-tower,] which was
distant seven furlongs from the city; yet did not he assault them
in three days' time, out of expectation that those within might
perhaps yield a little; and in the mean time he sent out a great
many of his soldiers into neighboring villages, to seize upon
their corn. And on the fourth day, which was the thirtieth of the
month Hyperbereteus, [Tisri,] when he had put his army in array,
he brought it into the city. Now for the people, they were kept
under by the seditious; but the seditious themselves were greatly
affrighted at the good order of the Romans, and retired from the
suburbs, and retreated into the inner part of the city, and into
the temple. But when Cestius was come into the city, he set the
part called Bezetha, which is called Cenopolis, [or the new
city,] on fire; as he did also to the timber market; after which
he came into the upper city, and pitched his camp over against
the royal palace; and had he but at this very time attempted to
get within the walls by force, he had won the city presently, and
the war had been put an end to at once; but Tyrannius Priseus,
the muster-master of the army, and a great number of the officers
of the horse, had been corrupted by Florus, and diverted him from
that his attempt; and that was the occasion that this war lasted
so very long, and thereby the Jews were involved in such
incurable calamities.

5. In the mean time, many of the principal men of the city were
persuaded by Ananus, the son of Jonathan, and invited Cestius
into the city, and were about to open the gates for him; but he
overlooked this offer, partly out of his anger at the Jews, and
partly because he did not thoroughly believe they were in
earnest; whence it was that he delayed the matter so long, that
the seditious perceived the treachery, and threw Ananus and those
of his party down from the wall, and, pelting them with stones,
drove them into their houses; but they stood themselves at proper
distances in the towers, and threw their darts at those that were
getting over the wall. Thus did the Romans make their attack
against the wall for five days, but to no purpose. But on the
next day Cestius took a great many of his choicest men, and with
them the archers, and attempted to break into the temple at the
northern quarter of it; but the Jews beat them off from the
cloisters, and repulsed them several times when they were gotten
near to the wall, till at length the multitude of the darts cut
them off, and made them retire; but the first rank of the Romans
rested their shields upon the wall, and so did those that were
behind them, and the like did those that were still more
backward, and guarded themselves with what they call Testudo,
[the back of] a tortoise, upon which the darts that were thrown
fell, and slided off without doing them any harm; so the soldiers
undermined the wall, without being themselves hurt, and got all
things ready for setting fire to the gate of the temple.

6. And now it was that a horrible fear seized upon the seditious,
insomuch that many of them ran out of the city, as though it were
to be taken immediately; but the people upon this took courage,
and where the wicked part of the city gave ground, thither did
they come, in order to set open the gates, and to admit Cestius
(30) as their benefactor, who, had he but continued the siege a
little longer, had certainly taken the city; but it was, I
suppose, owing to the aversion God had already at the city and
the sanctuary, that he was hindered from putting an end to the
war that very day.

7. It then happened that Cestius was not conscious either how the
besieged despaired of success, nor how courageous the people were
for him; and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by
despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having
received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any
reason in the world. But when the robbers perceived this
unexpected retreat of his, they resumed their courage, and ran
after the hinder parts of his army, and destroyed a considerable
number of both their horsemen and footmen; and now Cestius lay
all night at the camp which was at Scopus; and as he went off
farther next day, he thereby invited the enemy to follow him, who
still fell upon the hindmost, and destroyed them; they also fell
upon the flank on each side of the army, and threw darts upon
them obliquely, nor durst those that were hindmost turn back upon
those who wounded them behind, as imagining that the multitude of
those that pursued them was immense; nor did they venture to
drive away those that pressed upon them on each side, because
they were heavy with their arms, and were afraid of breaking
their ranks to pieces, and because they saw the Jews were light,
and ready for making incursions upon them. And this was the
reason why the Romans suffered greatly, without being able to
revenge themselves upon their enemies; so they were galled all
the way, and their ranks were put into disorder, and those that
were thus put out of their ranks were slain; among whom were
Priscus, the commander of the sixth legion, and Longinus, the
tribune, and Emilius Secundus, the commander of a troop of
horsemen. So it was not without difficulty that they got to
Gabao, their former camp, and that not without the loss of a
great part of their baggage. There it was that Cestius staid two
days, and was in great distress to know what he should do in
these circumstances; but when on the third day he saw a still
much greater number of enemies, and all the parts round about him
full of Jews, he understood that his delay was to his own
detriment, and that if he staid any longer there, he should have
still more enemies upon him.

8. That therefore he might fly the faster, he gave orders to cast
away what might hinder his army's march; so they killed the mules
and other creatures, excepting those that carried their darts and
machines, which they retained for their own use, and this
principally because they were afraid lest the Jews should seize
upon them. He then made his army march on as far as Bethoron. Now
the Jews did not so much press upon them when they were in large
open places; but when they were penned up in their descent
through narrow passages, then did some of them get before, and
hindered them from getting out of them; and others of them thrust
the hinder-most down into the lower places; and the whole
multitude extended themselves over against the neck of the
passage, and covered the Roman army with their darts. In which
circumstances, as the footmen knew not how to defend themselves,
so the danger pressed the horsemen still more, for they were so
pelted, that they could not march along the road in their ranks,
and the ascents were so high, that the cavalry were not able to
march against the enemy; the precipices also and valleys into
which they frequently fell, and tumbled down, were such on each
side of them, that there was neither place for their flight, nor
any contrivance could be thought of for their defense; till the
distress they were at last in was so great, that they betook
themselves to lamentations, and to such mournful cries as men use
in the utmost despair: the joyful acclamations of the Jews also,
as they encouraged one another, echoed the sounds back again,
these last composing a noise of those that at once rejoiced and
were in a rage. Indeed, things were come to such a pass, that the
Jews had almost taken Cestius's entire army prisoners, had not
the night come on, when the Romans fled to Bethoron, and the Jews
seized upon all the places round about them, and watched for
their coming out [in the morning].

9. And then it was that Cestius, despairing of obtaining room for
a public march, contrived how he might best run away; and when he
had selected four hundred of the most courageous of his soldiers,
he placed them at the strongest of their fortifications, and gave
order, that when they went up to the morning guard, they should
erect their ensigns, that the Jews might be made to believe that
the entire army was there still, while he himself took the rest
of his forces with him, and marched, without any noise, thirty
furlongs. But when the Jews perceived, in the morning, that the
camp was empty, they ran upon those four hundred who had deluded
them, and immediately threw their darts at them, and slew them;
and then pursued after Cestius. But he had already made use of a
great part of the night in his flight, and still marched quicker
when it was day; insomuch that the soldiers, through the
astonishment and fear they were in, left behind them their
engines for sieges, and for throwing of stones, and a great part
of the instruments of war. So the Jews went on pursuing the
Romans as far as Antipatris; after which, seeing they could not
overtake them, they came back, and took the engines, and spoiled
the dead bodies, and gathered the prey together which the Romans
had left behind them, and came back running and singing to their
metropolis; while they had themselves lost a few only, but had
slain of the Romans five thousand and three hundred footmen, and
three hundred and eighty horsemen. This defeat happened on the
eighth day of the month Dius, [Marchesvan,] in the twelfth year
of the reign of Nero.

CHAPTER 9.

Cestius Sends Ambassadors To Nero. The People Of Damascus Slay
Those Jews That Lived With Them. The People Of Jerusalem After
They Had [Left Off] Pursuing Cestius, Return To The City And Get
Things Ready For Its Defense And Make A Great Many Generals For,
Their Armies And Particularly Josephus The Writer Of These Books.
Some Account Of His Administration.

1. After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most
eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when
it was going to sink; Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were
brethren, together with Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was the
commander of king Agrippa's forces, ran away from the city, and
went to Cestius. But then how Antipas, who had been besieged with
them in the king's palace, but would not fly away with them, was
afterward slain by the seditious, we shall relate hereafter.
However, Cestius sent Saul and his friends, at their own desire,
to Achaia, to Nero, to inform him of the great distress they were
in, and to lay the blame of their kindling the war upon Florus,
as hoping to alleviate his own danger, by provoking his
indignation against Florus.

2. In the mean time, the people of Damascus, when they were
informed of the destruction of the Romans, set about the
slaughter of those Jews that were among them; and as they had
them already cooped up together in the place of public exercises,
which they had done out of the suspicion they had of them, they
thought they should meet with no difficulty in the attempt; yet
did they distrust their own wives, which were almost all of them
addicted to the Jewish religion; on which account it was that
their greatest concern was, how they might conceal these things
from them; so they came upon the Jews, and cut their throats, as
being in a narrow place, in number ten thousand, and all of them
unarmed, and this in one hour's time, without any body to disturb
them.

3. But as to those who had pursued after Cestius, when they were
returned back to Jerusalem, they overbore some of those that
favored the Romans by violence, and some them persuaded [by
en-treaties] to join with them, and got together in great numbers
in the temple, and appointed a great many generals for the war.
Joseph also, the son of Gorion, (31) and Ananus the high priest,
were chosen as governors of all affairs within the city, and with
a particular charge to repair the walls of the city; for they did
not ordain Eleazar the son of Simon to that office, although he
had gotten into his possession the prey they had taken from the
Romans, and the money they had taken from Cestius, together with
a great part of the public treasures, because they saw he was of
a tyrannical temper, and that his followers were, in their
behavior, like guards about him. However, the want they were in
of Eleazar's money, and the subtle tricks used by him, brought
all so about, that the people were circumvented, and submitted
themselves to his authority in all public affairs.

4. They also chose other generals for Idumea; Jesus, the son of
Sapphias, one of the high priests; and Eleazar, the son of
Ananias, the high priest; they also enjoined Niger, the then
governor of Idumea, (32) who was of a family that belonged to
Perea, beyond Jordan, and was thence called the Peraite, that he
should be obedient to those fore-named commanders. Nor did they
neglect the care of other parts of the country; but Joseph the
son of Simon was sent as general to Jericho, as was Manasseh to
Perea, and John, the Esscue, to the toparchy of Thamna; Lydda was
also added to his portion, and Joppa, and Emmaus. But John, the
son of Matthias, was made governor of the toparchies of
Gophnitica and Acrabattene; as was Josephus, the son of Matthias,
of both the Galilees. Gamala also, which was the strongest city
in those parts, was put under his command.

5. So every one of the other commanders administered the affairs
of his portion with that alacrity and prudence they were masters
of; but as to Josephus, when he came into Galilee, his first care
was to gain the good-will of the people of that country, as
sensible that he should thereby have in general good success,
although he should fail in other points. And being conscious to
himself that if he communicated part of his power to the great
men, he should make them his fast friends; and that he should
gain the same favor from the multitude, if he executed his
commands by persons of their own country, and with whom they were
well acquainted; he chose out seventy of the most prudent men,
and those elders in age, and appointed them to be rulers of all
Galilee, as he chose seven judges in every city to hear the
lesser quarrels; for as to the greater causes, and those wherein
life and death were concerned, he enjoined they should be brought
to him and the seventy (33) elders.

6. Josephus also, when he had settled these rules for determining
causes by the law, with regard to the people's dealings one with
another, betook himself to make provisions for their safety
against external violence; and as he knew the Romans would fall
upon Galilee, he built walls in proper places about Jotapata, and
Bersabee, and Selamis; and besides these, about Caphareccho, and
Japha, and Sigo, and what they call Mount Tabor, and Tarichee,
and Tiberias. Moreover, he built walls about the caves near the
lake of Gennesar, which places lay in the Lower Galilee; the same
he did to the places of Upper Galilee, as well as to the rock
called the Rock of the Achabari, and to Seph, and Jamnith, and
Meroth; and in Gaulonitis he fortified Seleucia, and Sogane, and
Gamala; but as to those of Sepphoris, they were the only people
to whom he gave leave to build their own walls, and this because
he perceived they were rich and wealthy, and ready to go to war,
without standing in need of any injunctions for that purpose. The
case was the same with Gischala, which had a wall built about it
by John the son of Levi himself, but with the consent of
Josephus; but for the building of the rest of the fortresses, he
labored together with all the other builders, and was present to
give all the necessary orders for that purpose. He also got
together an army out of Galilee, of more than a hundred thousand
young men, all of which he armed with the old weapons which he
had collected together and prepared for them.

7. And when he had considered that the Roman power became
invincible, chiefly by their readiness in obeying orders, and the
constant exercise of their arms, he despaired of teaching these
his men the use of their arms, which was to be obtained by
experience; but observing that their readiness in obeying orders
was owing to the multitude of their officers, he made his
partitions in his army more after the Roman manner, and appointed
a great many subalterns. He also distributed the soldiers into
various classes, whom he put under captains of tens, and captains
of hundreds, and then under captains of thousands; and besides
these, he had commanders of larger bodies of men. He also taught
them to give the signals one to another, and to call and recall
the soldiers by the trumpets, how to expand the wings of an army,
and make them wheel about; and when one wing hath had success, to
turn again and assist those that were hard set, and to join in
the defense of what had most suffered. He also continually
instructed them ill what concerned the courage of the soul, and
the hardiness of the body; and, above all, he exercised them for
war, by declaring to them distinctly the good order of the
Romans, and that they were to fight with men who, both by the
strength of their bodies and courage of their souls, had
conquered in a manner the whole habitable earth. He told them
that he should make trial of the good order they would observe in
war, even before it came to any battle, in case they would
abstain from the crimes they used to indulge themselves in, such
as theft, and robbery, and rapine, and from defrauding their own
countrymen, and never to esteem the harm done to those that were
so near of kin to them to be any advantage to themselves; for
that wars are then managed the best when the warriors preserve a
good conscience; but that such as are ill men in private life
will not only have those for enemies which attack them, but God
himself also for their antagonist.

8. And thus did he continue to admonish them. Now he chose for
the war such an army as was sufficient, i.e. sixty thousand
footmen, and two hundred and fifty horsemen; (34) and besides
these, on which he put the greatest trust, there were about four
thousand five hundred mercenaries; he had also six hundred men as
guards of his body. Now the cities easily maintained the rest of
his army, excepting the mercenaries, for every one of the cities
enumerated above sent out half their men to the army, and
retained the other half at home, in order to get provisions for
them; insomuch that the one part went to the war, and the other
part to their work, and so those that sent out their corn were
paid for it by those that were in arms, by that security which
they enjoyed from them.

CHAPTER 21.

Concerning John Of Gichala. Josephus Uses Stratagems Against The
Plots John Laid Against Him And Recovers Certain Cities Which Had
Revolted From Him.

1. Now as Josephus was thus engaged in the administration of the
affairs of Galilee, there arose a treacherous person, a man of
Gischala, the son of Levi, "whose name was John. His character
was that of a very cunning and very knavish person, beyond the
ordinary rate of the other men of eminence there, and for wicked
practices he had not his fellow any where. Poor he was at first,
and for a long time his wants were a hinderance to him in his
wicked designs. He was a ready liar, and yet very sharp in
gaining credit to his fictions: he thought it a point of virtue
to delude people, and would delude even such as were the dearest
to him. He was a hypocritical pretender to humanity, but where he
had hopes of gain, he spared not the shedding of blood: his
desires were ever carried to great things, and he encouraged his
hopes from those mean wicked tricks which he was the author of.
He had a peculiar knack at thieving; but in some time he got
certain companions in his impudent practices; at first they were
but few, but as he proceeded on in his evil course, they became
still more and more numerous. He took care that none of his
partners should be easily caught in their rogueries, but chose
such out of the rest as had the strongest constitutions of body,
and the greatest courage of soul, together with great skill in
martial affairs; as he got together a band of four hundred men,
who came principally out of the country of Tyre, and were
vagabonds that had run away from its villages; and by the means
of these he laid waste all Galilee, and irritated a considerable
number, who were in great expectation of a war then suddenly to
arise among them.

2. However, John's want of money had hitherto restrained him in
his ambition after command, and in his attempts to advance
himself. But when he saw that Josephus was highly pleased with
the activity of his temper, he persuaded him, in the first place,
to intrust him with the repairing of the walls of his native
city, [Gischala,] in which work he got a great deal of money from
the rich citizens. He after that contrived a very shrewd trick,
and pretending that the Jews who dwelt in Syria were obliged to
make use of oil that was made by others than those of their own
nation, he desired leave of Josephus to send oil to their
borders; so he bought four amphorae with such Tyrian money as was
of the value of four Attic drachmae, and sold every half-amphora
at the same price. And as Galilee was very fruitful in oil, and
was peculiarly so at that time, by sending away great quantities,
and having the sole privilege so to do, he gathered an immense
sum of money together, which money he immediately used to the
disadvantage of him who gave him that privilege; and, as he
supposed, that if he could once overthrow Josephus, he should
himself obtain the government of Galilee; so he gave orders to
the robbers that were under his command to be more zealous in
their thievish expeditions, that by the rise of many that desired
innovations in the country, he might either catch their general
in his snares, as he came to the country's assistance, and then
kill him; or if he should overlook the robbers, he might accuse
him for his negligence to the people of the country. He also
spread abroad a report far and near that Josephus was delivering
up the administration of affairs to the Romans; and many such
plots did he lay, in order to ruin him.

3. Now at the same time that certain young men of the village
Dabaritta, who kept guard in the Great Plain laid snares for
Ptolemy, who was Agrippa's and Bernice's steward, and took from
him all that he had with him; among which things there were a
great many costly garments, and no small number of silver cups,
and six hundred pieces of gold; yet were they not able to conceal
what they had stolen, but brought it all to Josephus, to
Tarichee. Hereupon he blamed them for the violence they had
offered to the king and queen, and deposited what they brought to
him with Eneas, the most potent man of Taricheae, with an
intention of sending the things back to the owners at a proper
time; which act of Josephus brought him into the greatest danger;
for those that had stolen the things had an indignation at him,
both because they gained no share of it for themselves, and
because they perceived beforehand what was Josephus's intention,
and that he would freely deliver up what had cost them so much
pains to the king and queen. These ran away by night to their
several villages, and declared to all men that Josephus was going
to betray them: they also raised great disorders in all the
neighboring cities, insomuch that in the morning a hundred
thousand armed men came running together; which multitude was
crowded together in the hippodrome at Taricheae, and made a very
peevish clamor against him; while some cried out, that they
should depose the traitor; and others, that they should burn him.
Now John irritated a great many, as did also one Jesus, the son
of Sapphias, who was then governor of Tiberias. Then it was that
Josephus's friends, and the guards of his body, were so
affrighted at this violent assault of the multitude, that they
all fled away but four; and as he was asleep, they awaked him, as
the people were going to set fire to the house. And although
those four that remained with him persuaded him to run away, he
was neither surprised at his being himself deserted, nor at the
great multitude that came against him, but leaped out to them
with his clothes rent, and ashes sprinkled on his head, with his
hands behind him, and his sword hanging at his neck. At this
sight his friends, especially those of Tarichae, commiserated his
condition; but those that came out of the country, and those in
their neighborhood, to whom his government seemed burdensome,
reproached him, and bid him produce the money which belonged to
them all immediately, and to confess the agreement he had made to
betray them; for they imagined, from the habit in which he
appeared, that he would deny nothing of what they suspected
concerning him, and that it was in order to obtain pardon that he
had put himself entirely into so pitiable a posture. But this
humble appearance was only designed as preparatory to a stratagem
of his, who thereby contrived to set those that were so angry at
him at variance one with another about the things they were angry
at. However, he promised he would confess all: hereupon he was
permitted to speak, when he said," I did neither intend to send
this money back to Agrippa, nor to gain it myself; for I did
never esteem one that was your enemy to be my friend, nor did I
look upon what would tend to your disadvantage to be my
advantage. But, O you people of Tariehete, I saw that your city
stood in more need than others of fortifications for your
security, and that it wanted money in order for the building it a
wall. I was also afraid lest the people of Tiberias and other
cities should lay a plot to seize upon these spoils, and
therefore it was that I intended to retain this money privately,
that I might encompass you with a wall. But if this does not
please you, I will produce what was brought me, and leave it to
you to plunder it; but if I have conducted myself so well as to
please you, you may if you please punish your benefactor." 
4. Hereupon the people of Taricheae loudly commended him; but
those of Tiberias, with the rest of the company, gave him hard
names, and threatened what they would do to him; so both sides
left off quarrelling with Josephus, and fell on quarrelling with
one another. So he grew bold upon the dependence he had on his
friends, which were the people of Taricheae, and about forty
thousand in number, and spake more freely to the whole multitude,
and reproached them greatly for their rashness; and told them,
that with this money he would build walls about Taricheae, and
would put the other cities in a state of security also; for that
they should not want money, if they would but agree for whose
benefit it was to be procured, and would not suffer themselves to
be irritated against him who procured it for them.

5. Hereupon the rest of the multitude that had been deluded
retired; but yet so that they went away angry, and two thousand
of them made an assault upon him in their armor; and as he was
already gone to his own house, they stood without and threatened
him. On which occasion Josephus again used a second stratagem to
escape them; for he got upon the top of his house, and with his
right hand desired them to be silent, and said to them, "I cannot
tell what you would have, nor can hear what you say, for the
confused noise you make;" but he said that he would comply with
all their demands, in case they would but send some of their
number in to him that might talk with him about it. And when the
principal of them, with their leaders, heard this, they came into
the house. He then drew them to the most retired part of the
house, and shut the door of that hall where he put them, and then
had them whipped till every one of their inward parts appeared
naked. In the mean time the multitude stood round the house, and
supposed that he had a long discourse with those that were gone
in about what they claimed of him. He had then the doors set open
immediately, and sent the men out all bloody, which so terribly
aftrighted those that had before threatened him, that they threw
away their arms and ran away.

6. But as for John, his envy grew greater [upon this escape of
Josephus], and he framed a new plot against him; he pretended to
be sick, and by a letter desired that Josephus would give him
leave to use the hot baths that were at Tiberias, for the
recovery of his health. Hereupon Josephus, who hitherto suspected
nothing of John's plots against him, wrote to the governors of
the city, that they would provide a lodging and necessaries for
John; which favors, when he had made use of, in two days' time he
did what he came about; some he corrupted with delusive frauds,
and others with money, and so persuaded them to revolt from
Josephus. This Silas, who was appointed guardian of the city by
Josephus, wrote to him immediately, and informed him of the plot
against him; which epistle when Josephus had received, he marched
with great diligence all night, and came early in the morning to
Tiberias; at which time the rest of the multitude met him. But
John, who suspected that his coming was not for his advantage,
sent however one of his friends, and pretended that he was sick,
and that being confined to his bed, he could not come to pay him
his respects. But as soon as Josephus had got the people of
Tiberias together in the stadium, and tried to discourse with
them about the letters that he had received, John privately sent
some armed men, and gave them orders to slay him. But when the
people saw that the armed men were about to draw their swords,
they cried out; at which cry Josephus turned himself about, and
when he saw that the swords were just at his throat, he marched
away in great haste to the sea-shore, and left off that speech
which he was going to make to the people, upon an elevation of
six cubits high. He then seized on a ship which lay in the haven,
and leaped into it, with two of his guards, and fled away into
the midst of the lake.

7. But now the soldiers he had with him took up their arms
immediately, and marched against the plotters; but Josephus was
afraid lest a civil war should be raised by the envy of a few
men, and bring the city to ruin; so he sent some of his party to
tell them, that they should do no more than provide for their own
safety; that they should not kill any body, nor accuse any for
the occasion they had afforded [of disorder]. Accordingly, these
men obeyed his orders, and were quiet; but the people of the
neighboring country, when they were informed of this plot, and of
the plotter, they got together in great multitudes to oppose
John. But he prevented their attempt, and fled away to Gischala,
his native city, while the Galileans came running out of their
several cities to Josephus; and as they were now become many ten
thousands of armed men, they cried out, that they were come
against John the common plotter against their interest, and would
at the same time burn him, and that city which had received him.
Hereupon Josephus told them that he took their good-will to him
kindly, but still he restrained their fury, and intended to
subdue his enemies by prudent conduct, rather than by slaying
them; so he excepted those of every city which had joined in this
revolt with John, by name, who had readily been shown him by
these that came from every city, and caused public proclamation
to be made, that he would seize upon the effects of those that
did not forsake John within five days' time, and would burn both
their houses and their families with fire. Whereupon three
thousand of John's party left him immediately, who came to
Josephus, and threw their arms down at his feet. John then betook
himself, together with his two thousand Syrian runagates, from
open attempts, to more secret ways of treachery. Accordingly, he
privately sent messengers to Jerusalem, to accuse Josephus, as
having to great power, and to let them know that he would soon
come as a tyrant to their metropolis, unless they prevented him.
This accusation the people were aware of beforehand, but had no
regard to it. However, some of the grandees, out of envy, and
some of the rulers also, sent money to John privately, that he
might be able to get together mercenary soldiers, in order to
fight Josephus; they also made a decree of themselves, and this
for recalling him from his government, yet did they not think
that decree sufficient; so they sent withal two thousand five
hundred armed men, and four persons of the highest rank amongst
them; Joazar the son of Nomicus, and Ananias the son of Sadduk,
as also Simon and Judas the sons of Jonathan, all very able men
in speaking, that these persons might withdraw the good-will of
the people from Josephus. These had it in charge, that if he
would voluntarily come away, they should permit him to [come and]
give an account of his conduct; but if he obstinately insisted
upon continuing in his government, they should treat him as an
enemy. Now Josephus's friends had sent him word that an army was
coming against him, but they gave him no notice beforehand what
the reason of their coming was, that being only known among some
secret councils of his enemies; and by this means it was that
four cities revolted from him immediately, Sepphoris, and Gamala,
and Gischala, and Tiberias. Yet did he recover these cities
without war; and when he had routed those four commanders by
stratagems, and had taken the most potent of their warriors, he
sent them to Jerusalem; and the people [of Galilee] had great
indignation at them, and were in a zealous disposition to slay,
not only these forces, but those that sent them also, had not
these forces prevented it by running away.

8. Now John was detained afterward within the walls of Gischala,
by the fear he was in of Josephus; but within a few days Tiberias
revolted again, the people within it inviting king Agrippa [to
return to the exercise of his authority there]. And when he did
not come at the time appointed, and when a few Roman horsemen
appeared that day, they expelled Josephus out of the city. Now
this revolt of theirs was presently known at Taricheae; and as
Josephus had sent out all the soldiers that were with him to
gather corn, he knew not how either to march out alone against
the revolters, or to stay where he was, because he was afraid the
king's soldiers might prevent him if he tarried, and might get
into the city; for he did not intend to do any thing on the next
day, because it was the sabbath day, and would hinder his
proceeding. So he contrived to circumvent the revolters by a
stratagem; and in the first place he ordered the gates of
Taricheae to be shut, that nobody might go out and inform [those
of Tiberias], for whom it was intended, what stratagem he was
about; he then got together all the ships that were upon the
lake, which were found to be two hundred and thirty, and in each
of them he put no more than four mariners. So he sailed to
Tiberias with haste, and kept at such a distance from the city,
that it was not easy for the people to see the vessels, and
ordered that the empty vessels should float up and down there,
while himself, who had but seven of his guards with him, and
those unarmed also, went so near as to be seen; but when his
adversaries, who were still reproaching him, saw him from the
walls, they were so astonished that they supposed all the ships
were full of armed men, and threw down their arms, and by signals
of intercession they besought him to spare the city.

9. Upon this Josephus threatened them terribly, and reproached
them, that when they were the first that took up arms against the
Romans, they should spend their force beforehand in civil
dissensions, and do what their enemies desired above all things;
and that besides they should endeavor so hastily to seize upon
him, who took care of their safety, and had not been ashamed to
shut the gates of their city against him that built their walls;
that, however, he would admit of any intercessors from them that
might make some excuse for them, and with whom he would make such
agreements as might be for the city's security. Hereupon ten of
the most potent men of Tiberias came down to him presently; and
when he had taken them into one of his vessels, he ordered them
to be carried a great way off from the city. He then commanded
that fifty others of their senate, such as were men of the
greatest eminence, should come to him, that they also might give
him some security on their behalf. After which, under one new
pretense or another, he called forth others, one after another,
to make the leagues between them. He then gave order to the
masters of those vessels which he had thus filled to sail away
immediately for Taricheae, and to confine those men in the prison
there; till at length he took all their senate, consisting of six
hundred persons, and about two thousand of the populace, and
carried them away to Taricheae. (35)

10. And when the rest of the people cried out, that it was one
Clitus that was the chief author of this revolt, they desired him
to spend his anger upon him [only]; but Josephus, whose intention
it was to slay nobody, commanded one Levius, belonging to his
guards, to go out of the vessel, in order to cut off both
Clitus's hands; yet was Levius afraid to go out by himself alone
to such a large body of enemies, and refused to go. Now Clitus
saw that Josephus was in a great passion in the ship, and ready
to leap out of it, in order to execute the punishment himself; he
begged therefore from the shore, that he would leave him one of
his hands; which Josephus agreed to, upon condition that he would
himself cutoff the other hand; accordingly he drew his sword, and
with his right hand cut off his left, so great was the fear he
was in of Josephus himself. And thus he took the people of
Tiberias prisoners, and recovered the city again with empty ships
and seven of his guard. Moreover, a few days afterward he retook
Gischala, which had revolted with the people of Sepphoris, and
gave his soldiers leave to plunder it; yet did he get all the
plunder together, and restored it to the inhabitants; and the
like he did to the inhabitants of Sepphoris and Tiberias. For
when he had subdued those cities, he had a mind, by letting them
be plundered, to give them some good instruction, while at the
same time he regained their good-will by restoring them their
money again.

CHAPTER 22.

The Jews Make All Ready For The War; And Simon, The Son Of
Gioras, Falls To Plundering.

1. And thus were the disturbances of Galilee quieted, when, upon
their ceasing to prosecute their civil dissensions, they betook
themselves to make preparations for the war with the Romans. Now
in Jerusalem the high priest Artanus, and do as many of the men
of power as were not in the interest of the Romans, both repaired
the walls, and made a great many warlike instruments, insomuch
that in all parts of the city darts and all sorts of armor were
upon the anvil. Although the multitude of the young men were
engaged in exercises, without any regularity, and all places were
full of tumultuous doings; yet the moderate sort were exceedingly
sad; and a great many there were who, out of the prospect they
had of the calamities that were coming upon them, made great
lamentations. There were also such omens observed as were
understood to be forerunners of evils by such as loved peace, but
were by those that kindled the war interpreted so as to suit
their own inclinations; and the very state of the city, even
before the Romans came against it, was that of a place doomed to
destruction. However, Ananus's concern was this, to lay aside,
for a while, the preparations for the war, and to persuade the
seditious to consult their own interest, and to restrain the
madness of those that had the name of zealots; but their violence
was too hard for him; and what end he came to we shall relate
hereafter.

2. But as for the Acrabbene toparchy, Simon, the son of Gioras,
got a great number of those that were fond of innovations
together, and betook himself to ravage the country; nor did he
only harass the rich men's houses, but tormented their bodies,
and appeared openly and beforehand to affect tyranny in his
government. And when an army was sent against him by Artanus, and
the other rulers, he and his band retired to the robbers that
were at Masada, and staid there, and plundered the country of
Idumea with them, till both Ananus and his other adversaries were
slain; and until the rulers of that country were so afflicted
with the multitude of those that were slain, and with the
continual ravage of what they had, that they raised an army, and
put garrisons into the villages, to secure them from those
insults. And in this state were the affairs of Judea at that
time.

WAR BOOK 2 FOOTNOTES

(1) Hear Dean Aldrich's note on this place: "The law or Custom of
the Jews (says he) requires seven days' mourning for the dead,
Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 8. sect. 4; whence the author of the Book of
Ecclesiasticus, ch. 22:12, assigns seven days as the proper time
of mourning for the dead, and, ch. 38:17, enjoins men to mourn
for the dead, that they may not be evil spoken of; for, as
Josephus says presently, if any one omits this mourning [funeral
feast], he is not esteemed a holy person. How it is certain that
such a seven days' mourning has been customary from times of the
greatest antiquity, Genesis 1:10. Funeral feasts are also
mentioned as of considerable antiquity, Ezekiel 24:17; Jeremiah
16:7; Prey. 31:6; Deuteronomy 26:14; Josephus, Of the War B. III.
ch. 9. sect. 5.

(2) This holding a council in the temple of Apollo, in the
emperor's palace at Rome, by Augustus, and even the building of
this temple magnificently by himself in that palace, are exactly
agreeable to Augustus, in his elder years, as Aldrich and from
Suttonius and Propertius.

(3) Here we have a strong confirmation that it was Xerxes, and
not Artaxerxes, under whom the main part of the Jews returned out
of the Babylonian captivity, i.e. in the days of Ezra and
Nehemiah. The same thing is in the Antiquities, B. XI. ch.6

(4) This practice of the Essens, in refusing to swear, and
esteeming swearing in ordinary occasions worse than perjury, is
delivered here in general words, as are the parallel injunctions
of our Savior, Matthew 6:34; 23:16; and of St. James, 5:12; but
all admit of particular exceptions for solemn causes, and on
great and necessary occasions. Thus these very Essens, who here
do so zealously avoid swearing, are related, in the very next
section, to admit none till they take tremendous oaths to perform
their several duties to God, and to their neighbor, without
supposing they thereby break this rule, Not to swear at all. The
case is the same in Christianity, as we learn from the
Apostolical Constitutions, which although they agree with Christ
and St. James, in forbidding to swear in general, ch. 5:12; 6:2,
3; yet do they explain it elsewhere, by avoiding to swear
falsely, and to swear often and in vain, ch. 2:36; and again, by
"not swearing at all," but withal adding, that "if that cannot be
avoided, to swear truly," ch. 7:3; which abundantly explain to us
the nature of the measures of this general injunction.

(5) This mention of the "names of angels," so particularly
preserved by the Essens, (if it means more than those
"messengers" which were employed to bring, them the peculiar
books of their Sect,) looks like a prelude to that "worshipping
of angels," blamed by St. Paul, as superstitious and unlawful, in
some such sort of people as these Essens were, Colossians 2:8; as
is the prayer to or towards the sun for his rising every morning,
mentioned before, sect. 5, very like those not much later
observances made mention of in the preaching of Peter, Authent.
Rec. Part II. p. 669, and regarding a kind of worship of angels,
of the month, and of the moon, and not celebrating the new moons,
or other festivals, unless the moon appeared. Which, indeed,
seems to me the earliest mention of any regard to the phases in
fixing the Jewish calendar, of which the Talmud and later Rabbins
talk so much, and upon so very little ancient foundation.

(6) Of these Jewish or Essene (and indeed Christian) doctrines
concerning souls, both good and bad, in Hades, see that excellent
discourse, or homily, of our Josephus concerning Hades, at the
end of the volume.

(7) Dean Aldrich reckons up three examples of this gift of
prophecy in several of these Essens out of Josephus himself, viz.
in the History of the War, B. I. ch. 3. sect. 5, Judas foretold
the death of Antigonus at Strato's Tower; B. II. ch. 7. sect. 3,
Simon foretold that Archelaus should reign but nine or ten years;
and Antiq. B. XV. ch. 10. sect. 4, 5, Menuhem foretold that Herod
should be king, and should reign tyrannically, and that for more
than twenty or even thirty years. All which came to pass
accordingly.

(8) There is so much more here about the Essens than is cited
from Josephus in Porphyry and Eusebius, and yet so much less
about the Pharisees and Sadducees, the two other Jewish sects,
than would naturally be expected in proportion to the Essens or
third sect, nay, than seems to be referred to by himself
elsewhere, that one is tempted to suppose Josephus had at first
written less of the one, and more of the two others, than his
present copies afford us; as also, that, by some unknown
accident, our present copies are here made up of the larger
edition in the first case, and of the smaller in the second. See
the note in Havercamp's edition. However, what Josephus says in
the name of the Pharisees, that only the souls of good men go out
of one body into another, although all souls be immortal, and
still the souls of the bad are liable to eternal punishment; as
also what he says afterwards, Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 1. sect. 3,
that the soul's vigor is immortal, and that under the earth they
receive rewards or punishments according as their lives have been
virtuous or vicious in the present world; that to the bad is
allotted an eternal prison, but that the good are permitted to
live again in this world; are nearly agreeable to the doctrines
of Christianity. Only Josephus's rejection of the return of the
wicked into other bodies, or into this world, which he grants to
the good, looks somewhat like a contradiction to St. Paul's
account of the doctrine of the Jews, that they "themselves
allowed that there should be a resurrection of the dead, both of
the just and unjust," Acts 24:15. Yet because Josephus's account
is that of the Pharisees, and St. Patti's that of the Jews in
general, and of himself the contradiction is not very certain.

(9) We have here, in that Greek MS. which was once Alexander
Petavius's, but is now in the library at Leyden, two most
remarkable additions to the common copies, though declared worth
little remark by the editor; which, upon the mention of
Tiberius's coming to the empire, inserts first the famous
testimony of Josephus concerning Jesus Christ, as it stands
verbatim in the Antiquities, B. XVIII. ch. 3. sect. 3, with some
parts of that excellent discourse or homily of Josephus
concerning Hades, annexed to the work. But what is here
principally to be noted is this, that in this homily, Josephus
having just mentioned Christ, as "God the Word, and the Judge of
the world, appointed by the Father," etc., adds, that "he had
himself elsewhere spoken about him more nicely or particularly."

(10) This use of corban, or oblation, as here applied to the
sacred money dedicated to God in the treasury of the temple,
illustrates our Savior's words, Mark 7:11, 12.

(11) Tacitus owns that Caius commanded the Jews to place his
effigies in their temple, though he be mistaken when he adds that
the Jews thereupon took arms.

(12) This account of a place near the mouth of the river Belus in
Phoenicia, whence came that sand out of which the ancients made
their glass, is a known thing in history, particularly in Tacitus
and Strabo, and more largely in Pliny.

(13) This Memnon had several monuments, and one of them appears,
both by Strabo and Diodorus, to have been in Syria, and not
improbably in this very place.

(14) Reland notes here, that the Talmud in recounting ten sad
accidents for which the Jews ought to rend their garments,
reckons this for one, "When they hear that the law of God is
burnt."

(15) This Ummidius, or Numidius, or, as Tacitus calls him,
Vinidius Quadratus, is mentioned in an ancient inscription, still
preserved, as Spanhelm here informs us, which calls him Urnmidius
Quadratus.

(16) Take the character of this Felix (who is well known from the
Acts of the Apostles, particularly from his trembling when St.
Paul discoursed of "righteousness, chastity, and judgment to
come," Acts 24:5; and no wonder, when we have elsewhere seen that
he lived in adultery with Drusilla, another man's wife, (Antiq.
B. XX. ch. 7. sect. 1) in the words of Tacitus, produced here by
Dean Aldrich: "Felix exercised," says Tacitas, "the authority of
a king, with the disposition of a slave, and relying upon the
great power of his brother Pallas at court, thought he might
safely be guilty of all kinds of wicked practices." Observe also
the time when he was made procurator, A.D. 52; that when St. Paul
pleaded his cause before him, A.D. 58, he might have been "many
years a judge unto that nation," as St. Paul says he had then
been, Acts 24:10. But as to what Tacitus here says, that before
the death of Cumanus, Felix was procurator over Samaria only,
does not well agree with St. Paul's words, who would hardly have
called Samaria a Jewish nation. In short, since what Tacitus here
says is about countries very remote from Rome, where he lived;
since what he says of two Roman procurators, the one over
Galilee, the other over Samaria at the same time, is without
example elsewhere; and since Josephus, who lived at that very
time in Judea, appears to have known nothing of this
procuratorship of Felix, before the death of Cureanus; I much
suspect the story itself as nothing better than a mistake of
Tacitus, especially when it seems not only omitted, but
contradicted by Josephus; as any one may find that compares their
histories together. Possibly Felix might have been a subordinate
judge among the Jews some time before under Cureanus, but that he
was in earnest a procurator of Samaria before I do not believe.
Bishop Pearson, as well as Bishop Lloyd, quote this account, but
with a doubtful clause: confides Tacito, "If we may believe
Tacitus." Pears. Anhal. Paulin. p. 8; Marshall's Tables, at A.D.
49.

(17) i.e. Herod king of Chalcis.

(18) Not long after this beginning of Florus, the wickedest of
all the Roman procurators of Judea, and the immediate occasion of
the Jewish war, at the twelfth year of Nero, and the seventeenth
of Agrippa, or A.D. 66, the history in the twenty books of
Josephus's Antiquities ends, although Josephus did not finish
these books till the thirteenth of Domitian, or A.D. 93,
twenty-seven years afterward; as he did not finish their
Appendix, containing an account of his own life, till Agrippa was
dead, which happened in the third year of Trajan, or A. D. 100,
as I have several times observed before.

(19) Here we may note, that three millions of the Jews were
present at the passover, A.D. 65; which confirms what Josephus
elsewhere informs us of, that at a passover a little later they
counted two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred paschal
lambs, which, at twelve to each lamb, which is no immoderate
calculation, come to three millions and seventy-eight thousand.
See B. VI. ch. 9. sect. 3.

(20) Take here Dr. Hudson's very pertinent note. "By this
action," says he, "the killing of a bird over an earthen vessel,
the Jews were exposed as a leprous people; for that was to be
done by the law in the cleansing of a leper, Leviticus 14. It is
also known that the Gentiles reproached the Jews as subject to
the leprosy, and believed that they were driven out of Egypt on
that account. This that eminent person Mr. Reland suggested to
me."

(21) Here we have examples of native Jews who were of the
equestrian order among the Romans, and so ought never to have
been whipped or crucified, according to the Roman laws. See
almost the like case in St. Paul himself, Acts 22:25-29.

(22) This vow which Bernice (here and elsewhere called queen, not
only as daughter and sister to two kings, Agrippa the Great, and
Agrippa junior, but the widow of Herod king of Chalcis) came now
to accomplish at Jerusalem was not that of a Nazarite, but such a
one as religious Jews used to make, in hopes of any deliverance
from a disease, or other danger, as Josephus here intimates.
However, these thirty days' abode at Jerusalem, for fasting and
preparation against the oblation of a proper sacrifice, seems to
be too long, unless it were wholly voluntary in this great lady.
It is not required in the law of Moses relating to Nazarites,
Numbers 6., and is very different from St. Paul's time for such
preparation, which was but one day, Acts 21:26. So we want
already the continuation of the Antiquities to afford us light
here, as they have hitherto done on so many occasions elsewhere.
Perhaps in this age the traditions of the Pharisees had obliged
the Jews to this degree of rigor, not only as to these thirty
days' preparation, but as to the going barefoot all that time,
which here Bernice submitted to also. For we know that as God's
and our Savior's yoke is usually easy, and his burden
comparatively light, in such positive injunctions, Matthew 11:30,
so did the scribes and Pharisees sometimes "bind upon men heavy
burdens, and grievous to be borne," even when they themselves
"would not touch them with one of their fingers," Matthew 23:4;
Luke 11:46. However, Noldius well observes, De Herod. No. 404,
414, that Juvenal, in his sixth satire, alludes to this
remarkable penance or submission of this Bernice to Jewish
discipline, and jests upon her for it; as do Tacitus, Dio,
Suetonius, and Sextus Aurelius mention her as one well known at
Rome.--Ibid.

(23) I take this Bezetha to be that small hill adjoining to the
north side of the temple, whereon was the hospital with five
porticoes or cloisters, and beneath which was the sheep pool of
Bethesda; into which an angel or messenger, at a certain season,
descended, and where he or they who were the "first put into the
pool" were cured, John 5:1 etc. This situation of Bezetha, in
Josephus, on the north side of the temple, and not far off the
tower Antonia, exactly agrees to the place of the same pool at
this day; only the remaining cloisters are but three. See
Maundrel, p. 106. The entire buildings seem to have been called
the New City, and this part, where was the hospital, peculiarly
Bezetha or Bethesda. See ch. 19. sect. 4.

(24) In this speech of king Agrippa we have an authentic account
of the extent and strength of the Roman empire when the Jewish
war began. And this speech with other circumstances in Josephus,
demonstrate how wise and how great a person Agrippa was, and why
Josephus elsewhere calls him a most wonderful or admirable man,
Contr. Ap. I. 9. He is the same Agrippa who said to Paul," Almost
thou persuadest me to be a Christian," Acts 26;28; and of whom
St. Paul said, "He was expert in all the customs and questions of
the Jews," yet. 3. See another intimation of the limits of the
same Roman empire, Of the War, B. III. ch. 5. sect. 7. But what
seems to me very remarkable here is this, that when Josephus, in
imitation of the Greeks and Romans, for whose use he wrote his
Antiquities, did himself frequently he into their they appear, by
the politeness of their composition, and their flights of
oratory, to be not the real speeches of the persons concerned,
who usually were no orators, but of his own elegant composure,
the speech before us is of another nature, full of undeniable
facts, and composed in a plain and unartful, but moving way; so
it appears to be king Agrippa's own speech, and to have been
given Josephus by Agrippa himself, with whom Josephus had the
greatest friendship. Nor may we omit Agrippa's constant doctrine
here, that this vast Roman empire was raised and supported by
Divine Providence, and that therefore it was in vain for the
Jews, or any others, to think of destroying it. Nor may we
neglect to take notice of Agrippa's solemn appeal to the angels
here used; the like appeals to which we have in St. Paul, 1
Timothy 5:22, and by the apostles in general, in the form of the
ordination of bishops, Constitut. Apost. VIII. 4.

(25) Julius Caesar had decreed that the Jews of Jerusalem should
pay an annual tribute to the Romans, excepting the city Joppa,
and for the sabbatical year; as Spanheim observes from the Antiq.
B. XIV. ch. 10. sect. 6.

(26) Of this Sohemus we have mention made by Tacitus. We also
learn from Dio that his father was king of the Arabians of
Iturea, [which Iturea is mentioned by St. Luke, ch. 3:1.] both
whose testimonies are quoted here by Dr. Hudson. See Noldius, No.
371.

(27) Spanheim notes on the place, that this later Antiochus, who
was called Epiphaues, is mentioned by Dio, LIX. p. 645, and that
he is mentioned by Josephus elsewhere twice also, B.V. ch. 11.
sect. 3; and Antiq. B. XIX. ch. 8. sect. I.

(28) Here we have an eminent example of that Jewish language,
which Dr. Wail truly observes, we several times find used in the
sacred writings; I mean, where the words "all" or" whole
multitude,"etc. are used for much the greatest part only; but not
so as to include every person, without exception; for when
Josephus had said that "the whole multitude" [all the males] of
Lydda were gone to the feast of tabernacles, he immediately adds,
that, however, no fewer than fifty of them appeared, and were
slain by the Romans. Other examples somewhat like this I have
observed elsewhere in Josephus, but, as I think, none so
remarkable as this. See Wall's Critical Observations on the Old
Testament, p. 49, 50.

(29) We have also, in this and the next section, two eminent
facts to be observed, viz. the first example, that I remember, in
Josephus, of the onset of the Jews' enemies upon their country
when their males were gone up to Jerusalem to one of their three
sacred festivals; which, during the theocracy, God had promised
to preserve them from, Exodus 34:24. The second fact is this, the
breach of the sabbath by the seditions Jews in an offensive
fight, contrary to the universal doctrine and practice of their
nation in these ages, and even contrary to what they themselves
afterward practiced in the rest of this war. See the note on
Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 2. sect. 4.

(30) There may another very important, and very providential,
reason be here assigned for this strange and foolish retreat of
Cestius; which, if Josephus had been now a Christian, he might
probably have taken notice of also; and that is, the affording
the Jewish Christians in the city an opportunity of calling to
mind the prediction and caution given them by Christ about
thirty-three years and a half before, that "when they should see
the abomination of desolation" [the idolatrous Roman armies, with
the images of their idols in their ensigns, ready to lay
Jerusalem desolate] "stand where it ought not;" or, "in the holy
place;" or, "when they should see Jerusalem any one instance of a
more unpolitic, but more providential, compassed with armies;"
they should then "flee to the mound conduct than this retreat of
Cestius visible during this whole rains." By complying with which
those Jewish Christians fled I siege of Jerusalem; which yet was
providentially such a "great to the mountains of Perea, and
escaped this destruction. See tribulation, as had not been from
the beginning of the world to that time; no, Lit. Accompl. of
Proph. p. 69, 70. Nor was there, perhaps, nor ever should
be."--Ibid. p. 70, 71.

(31) From this name of Joseph the son of Gorion, or Gorion the
son of Joseph, as B. IV. ch. 3. sect. 9, one of the governors of
Jerusalem, who was slain at the beginning of the tumults by the
zealots, B. IV. ch. 6. sect. 1, the much later Jewish author of a
history of that nation takes his title, and yet personates our
true Josephus, the son of Matthias; but the cheat is too gross to
be put upon the learned world.

(32) We may observe here, that the Idumeans, as having been
proselytes of justice since the days of John Hyrcanus, during
about one hundred and ninety-five years, were now esteemed as
part of the Jewish nation, and these provided of a Jewish
commander accordingly. See the note upon Antiq. B. XIII.. ch. 9.
sect. 1.

(33) We see here, and in Josephus's account of his own life,
sect. 14, how exactly he imitated his legislator Moses, or
perhaps only obeyed what he took to be his perpetual law, in
appointing seven lesser judges, for smaller causes, in particular
cities, and perhaps for the first hearing of greater causes, with
the liberty of an appeal to seventy-one supreme judges,
especially in those causes where life and death were concerned;
as Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 14; and of his Life, sect. 14. See
also Of the War, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4. Moreover, we find, sect.
7, that he imitated Moses, as well as the Romans, in the number
and distribution of the subaltern officers of his army, as Exodus
18:25; Deuteronomy 1:15; and in his charge against the offenses
common among soldiers, as Denteronomy 13:9; in all which he
showed his great wisdom and piety, and skillful conduct in
martial affairs. Yet may we discern in his very high character of
Artanus the high priest, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 2, who seems to have
been the same who condemned St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, to be
stoned, under Albinus the procurator, that when he wrote these
books of the War, he was not so much as an Ebionite Christian;
otherwise he would not have failed, according to his usual
custom, to have reckoned this his barbarous murder as a just
punishment upon him for that his cruelty to the chief, or rather
only Christian bishop of the circumcision. Nor, had he been then
a Christian, could he immediately have spoken so movingly of the
causes of the destruction of Jerusalem, without one word of
either the condemnation of James, or crucifixion of Christ, as he
did when he was become a Christian afterward.

(34) I should think that an army of sixty thousand footmen should
require many more than two hundred and fifty horsemen; and we
find Josephus had more horsemen under his command than two
hundred and fifty in his future history. I suppose the number of
the thousands is dropped in our present copies.

(35) I cannot but think this stratagem of Josephus, which is
related both here and in his Life, sect. 32, 33, to be one of the
finest that ever was invented and executed by any warrior
whatsoever.

BOOK III.

Containing The Interval Of About One Year.

From Vespasian's Coming To Subdue The Jews To The Taking Of
Gamala.

CHAPTER 1.

Vespasian Is Sent Into Syria By Nero In Order To Make War With
The Jews.

1. When Nero was informed of the Romans' ill success in Judea, a
concealed consternation and terror, as is usual in such cases,
fell upon him; although he openly looked very big, and was very
angry, and said that what had happened was rather owing to the
negligence of the commander, than to any valor of the enemy: and
as he thought it fit for him, who bare the burden of the whole
empire, to despise such misfortunes, he now pretended so to do,
and to have a soul superior to all such sad accidents whatsoever.
Yet did the disturbance that was in his soul plainly appear by
the solicitude he was in [how to recover his affairs again]. 
2. And as he was deliberating to whom he should commit the care
of the East, now it was in so great a commotion, and who might be
best able to punish the Jews for their rebellion, and might
prevent the same distemper from seizing upon the neighboring
nations also, - he found no one but Vespasian equal to the task,
and able to undergo the great burden of so mighty a war, seeing
he was growing an old man already in the camp, and from his youth
had been exercised in warlike exploits: he was also a man that
had long ago pacified the west, and made it subject to the
Romans, when it had been put into disorder by the Germans; he had
also recovered to them Britain by his arms, which had been little
known before (1) whereby he procured to his father Claudius to
have a triumph bestowed on him without any sweat or labor of his
own.

3. So Nero esteemed these circumstances as favorable omens, and
saw that Vespasian's age gave him sure experience, and great
skill, and that he had his sons as hostages for his fidelity to
himself, and that the flourishing age they were in would make
them fit instruments under their father's prudence. Perhaps also
there was some interposition of Providence, which was paving the
way for Vespasian's being himself emperor afterwards. Upon the
whole, he sent this man to take upon him the command of the
armies that were in Syria; but this not without great encomiums
and flattering compellations, such as necessity required, and
such as might mollify him into complaisance. So Vespasian sent
his son Titus from Achaia, where he had been with Nero, to
Alexandria, to bring back with him from thence the fifth and. the
tenth legions, while he himself, when he had passed over the
Hellespont, came by land into Syria, where he gathered together
the Roman forces, with a considerable number of auxiliaries from
the kings in that neighborhood.

CHAPTER 2.

A Great Slaughter About Ascalon. Vespasian Comes To Ptolemais. 
1. Now the Jews, after they had beaten Cestius, were so much
elevated with their unexpected success, that they could not
govern their zeal, but, like people blown up into a flame by
their good fortune, carried the war to remoter places.
Accordingly, they presently got together a great multitude of all
their most hardy soldiers, and marched away for Ascalon. This is
an ancient city that is distant from Jerusalem five hundred and
twenty furlongs, and was always an enemy to the Jews; on which
account they determined to make their first effort against it,
and to make their approaches to it as near as possible. This
excursion was led on by three men, who were the chief of them
all, both for strength and sagacity; Niger, called the Persite,
Silas of Babylon, and besides them John the Essene. Now Ascalon
was strongly walled about, but had almost no assistance to be
relied on [near them], for the garrison consisted of one cohort
of footmen, and one troop of horsemen, whose captain was
Antonius.

2. These Jews, therefore, out of their anger, marched faster than
ordinary, and, as if they had come but a little way, approached
very near the city, and were come even to it; but Antonius, who
was not unapprized of the attack they were going to make upon the
city, drew out his horsemen beforehand, and being neither daunted
at the multitude, nor at the courage of the enemy, received their
first attacks with great bravery; and when they crowded to the
very walls, he beat them off. Now the Jews were unskillful in
war, but were to fight with those who were skillful therein; they
were footmen to fight with horsemen; they were in disorder, to
fight those that were united together; they were poorly armed, to
fight those that were completely so; they were to fight more by
their rage than by sober counsel, and were exposed to soldiers
that were exactly obedient; and did every thing they were bidden
upon the least intimation. So they were easily beaten; for as
soon as ever their first ranks were once in disorder, they were
put to flight by the enemy's cavalry, and those of them that came
behind such as crowded to the wall fell upon their own party's
weapons, and became one another's enemies; and this so long till
they were all forced to give way to the attacks of the horsemen,
and were dispersed all the plain over, which plain was wide, and
all fit for the horsemen; which circumstance was very commodious
for the Romans, and occasioned the slaughter of the greatest
number of the Jews; for such as ran away, they could overrun
them, and make them turn back; and when they had brought them
back after their flight, and driven them together, they ran them
through, and slew a vast number of them, insomuch that others
encompassed others of them, and drove them before them
whithersoever they turned themselves, and slew them easily with
their arrows; and the great number there were of the Jews seemed
a solitude to themselves, by reason of the distress they were in,
while the Romans had such good success with their small number,
that they seemed to themselves to be the greater multitude. And
as the former strove zealously under their misfortunes, out of
the shame of a sudden flight, and hopes of the change in their
success, so did the latter feel no weariness by reason of their
good fortune; insomuch that the fight lasted till the evening,
till ten thousand men of the Jews' side lay dead, with two of
their generals, John and Silas, and the greater part of the
remainder were wounded, with Niger, their remaining general, who
fled away together to a small city of Idumea, called Sallis. Some
few also of the Romans were wounded in this battle.

3. Yet were not the spirits of the Jews broken by so great a
calamity, but the losses they had sustained rather quickened
their resolution for other attempts; for, overlooking the dead
bodies which lay under their feet, they were enticed by their
former glorious actions to venture on a second destruction; so
when they had lain still so little a while that their wounds were
not yet thoroughly cured, they got together all their forces, and
came with greater fury, and in much greater numbers, to Ascalon.
But their former ill fortune followed them, as the consequence of
their unskilfulness, and other deficiencies in war; for Antonius
laid ambushes for them in the passages they were to go through,
where they fell into snares unexpectedly, and where they were
encompassed about with horsemen, before they could form
themselves into a regular body for fighting, and were above eight
thousand of them slain; so all the rest of them ran away, and
with them Niger, who still did a great many bold exploits in his
flight. However, they were driven along together by the enemy,
who pressed hard upon them, into a certain strong tower belonging
to a village called Bezedeh However, Antonius and his party, that
they might neither spend any considerable time about this tower,
which was hard to be taken, nor suffer their commander, and the
most courageous man of them all, to escape from them, they set
the wall on fire; and as the tower was burning, the Romans went
away rejoicing, as taking it for granted that Niger was
destroyed; but he leaped out of the tower into a subterraneous
cave, in the innermost part of it, and was preserved; and on the
third day afterward he spake out of the ground to those that with
great lamentation were searching for him, in order to give him a
decent funeral; and when he was come out, he filled all the Jews
with an unexpected joy, as though he were preserved by God's
providence to be their commander for the time to come.

4. And now Vespasian took along with him his army from Antioch,
(which is the metropolis of Syria, and without dispute deserves
the place of the third city in the habitable earth that was under
the Roman empire, (2) both in magnitude, and other marks of
prosperity,) where he found king Agrippa, with all his forces,
waiting for his coming, and marched to Ptolemais. At this city
also the inhabitants of Sepphoris of Galilee met him, who were
for peace with the Romans. These citizens had beforehand taken
care of their own safety, and being sensible of the power of the
Romans, they had been with Cestius Gallus before Vespasian came,
and had given their faith to him, and received the security of
his right hand, and had received a Roman garrison; and at this
time withal they received Vespasian, the Roman general, very
kindly, and readily promised that they would assist him against
their own countrymen. Now the general delivered them, at their
desire, as many horsemen and footmen as he thought sufficient to
oppose the incursions of the Jews, if they should come against
them. And indeed the danger of losing Sepphoris would be no small
one, in this war that was now beginning, seeing it was the
largest city of Galilee, and built in a place by nature very
strong, and might be a security of the whole nation's [fidelity
to the Romans].

CHAPTER 3.

A Description Op Galilee, Samaria, And Judea.

1. Now Phoenicia and Syria encompass about the Galilees, which
are two, and called the Upper Galilee and the Lower. They are
bounded toward the sun-setting, with the borders of the territory
belonging to Ptolemais, and by Carmel; which mountain had
formerly belonged to the Galileans, but now belonged to the
Tyrians; to which mountain adjoins Gaba, which is called the City
of Horsemen, because those horsemen that were dismissed by Herod
the king dwelt therein; they are bounded on the south with
Samaria and Scythopolis, as far as the river Jordan; on the east
with Hippeae and Gadaris, and also with Ganlonitis, and the
borders of the kingdom of Agrippa; its northern parts are hounded
by Tyre, and the country of the Tyrians. As for that Galilee
which is called the Lower, it, extends in length from Tiberias to
Zabulon, and of the maritime places Ptolemais is its neighbor;
its breadth is from the village called Xaloth, which lies in the
great plain, as far as Bersabe, from which beginning also is
taken the breadth of the Upper Galilee, as far as the village
Baca, which divides the land of the Tyrians from it; its length
is also from Meloth to Thella, a village near to Jordan.

2. These two Galilees, of so great largeness, and encompassed
with so many nations of foreigners, have been always able to make
a strong resistance on all occasions of war; for the Galileans
are inured to war from their infancy, and have been always very
numerous; nor hath the country been ever destitute of men of
courage, or wanted a numerous set of them; for their soil is
universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of
trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to
take pains in its cultivation, by its fruitfulness; accordingly,
it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies
idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many
villages there are here are every where so full of people, by the
richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain above
fifteen thousand inhabitants.

3. In short, if any one will suppose that Galilee is inferior to
Perea in magnitude, he will be obliged to prefer it before it in
its strength; for this is all capable of cultivation, and is
every where fruitful; but for Perea, which is indeed much larger
in extent, the greater part of it is desert and rough, and much
less disposed for the production of the milder kinds of fruits;
yet hath it a moist soil [in other parts], and produces all kinds
of fruits, and its plains are planted with trees of all sorts,
while yet the olive tree, the vine, and the palm tree are chiefly
cultivated there. It is also sufficiently watered with torrents,
which issue out of the mountains, and with springs that never
fail to run, even when the torrents fail them, as they do in the
dog-days. Now the length of Perea is from Macherus to Pella, and
its breadth from Philadelphia to Jordan; its northern parts are
bounded by Pella, as we have already said, as well as its Western
with Jordan; the land of Moab is its southern border, and its
eastern limits reach to Arabia, and Silbonitis, and besides to
Philadelphene and Gerasa.

4. Now as to the country of Samaria, it lies between Judea and
Galilee; it begins at a village that is in the great plain called
Ginea, and ends at the Acrabbene toparchy, and is entirely of the
same nature with Judea; for both countries are made up of hills
and valleys, and are moist enough for agriculture, and are very
fruitful. They have abundance of trees, and are full of autumnal
fruit, both that which grows wild, and that which is the effect
of cultivation. They are not naturally watered by many rivers,
but derive their chief moisture from rain-water, of which they
have no want; and for those rivers which they have, all their
waters are exceeding sweet: by reason also of the excellent grass
they have, their cattle yield more milk than do those in other
places; and, what is the greatest sign of excellency and of
abundance, they each of them are very full of people.

5. In the limits of Samaria and Judea lies the village Anuath,
which is also named Borceos. This is the northern boundary of
Judea. The southern parts of Judea, if they be measured
lengthways, are bounded by a Village adjoining to the confines of
Arabia; the Jews that dwell there call it Jordan. However, its
breadth is extended from the river Jordan to Joppa. The city
Jerusalem is situated in the very middle; on which account some
have, with sagacity enough, called that city the Navel of the
country. Nor indeed is Judea destitute of such delights as come
from the sea, since its maritime places extend as far as
Ptolemais: it was parted into eleven portions, of which the royal
city Jerusalem was the supreme, and presided over all the
neighboring country, as the head does over the body. As to the
other cities that were inferior to it, they presided over their
several toparchies; Gophna was the second of those cities, and
next to that Acrabatta, after them Thamna, and Lydda, and Emmaus,
and Pella, and Idumea, and Engaddi, and Herodium, and Jericho;
and after them came Jamnia and Joppa, as presiding over the
neighboring people; and besides these there was the region of
Gamala, and Gaulonitis, and Batanea, and Trachonitis, which are
also parts of the kingdom of Agrippa. This [last] country begins
at Mount Libanus, and the fountains of Jordan, and reaches
breadthways to the lake of Tiberias; and in length is extended
from a village called Arpha, as far as Julias. Its inhabitants
are a mixture of Jews and Syrians. And thus have I, with all
possible brevity, described the country of Judea, and those that
lie round about it.

CHAPTER 4.

Josephus Makes An Attempt Upon Sepphoris But Is Repelled. Titus
Comes With A Great Army To Ptolemais.

1. Now the auxiliaries which were sent to assist the people of
Sepphoris, being a thousand horsemen, and six thousand footmen,
under Placidus the tribune, pitched their camp in two bodies in
the great plain. The foot were put into the city to be a guard to
it, but the horse lodged abroad in the camp. These last, by
marching continually one way or other, and overrunning the parts
of the adjoining country, were very troublesome to Josephus and
his men; they also plundered all the places that were out of the
city's liberty, and intercepted such as durst go abroad. On this
account it was that Josephus marched against the city, as hoping
to take what he had lately encompassed with so strong a wall,
before they revolted from the rest of the Galileans, that the
Romans would have much ado to take it; by which means he proved
too weak, and failed of his hopes, both as to the forcing the
place, and as to his prevailing with the people of Sepphoris to
deliver it up to him. By this means he provoked the Romans to
treat the country according to the law of war; nor did the
Romans, out of the anger they bore at this attempt, leave off,
either by night or by day, burning the places in the plain, and
stealing away the cattle that were in the country, and killing
whatsoever appeared capable of fighting perpetually, and leading
the weaker people as slaves into captivity; so that Galilee was
all over filled with fire and blood; nor was it exempted from any
kind of misery or calamity, for the only refuge they had was
this, that when they were pursued, they could retire to the
cities which had walls built them by Josephus.

2. But as to Titus, he sailed over from Achaia to Alexandria, and
that sooner than the winter season did usually permit; so he took
with him those forces he was sent for, and marching with great
expedition, he came suddenly to Ptolemais, and there finding his
father, together with the two legions, the fifth and the tenth,
which were the most eminent legions of all, he joined them to
that fifteenth legion which was with his father; eighteen cohorts
followed these legions; there came also five cohorts from
Cesarea, with one troop of horsemen, and five other troops of
horsemen from Syria. Now these ten cohorts had severally a
thousand footmen, but the other thirteen cohorts had no more than
six hundred footmen apiece, with a hundred and twenty horsemen.
There were also a considerable number of auxiliaries got
together, that came from the kings Antiochus, and Agrippa, and
Sohemus, each of them contributing one thousand footmen that were
archers, and a thousand horsemen. Malchus also, the king of
Arabia, sent a thousand horsemen, besides five thousand footmen,
the greatest part of which were archers; so that the whole army,
including the auxiliaries sent by the kings, as well horsemen as
footmen, when all were united together, amounted to sixty
thousand, besides the servants, who, as they followed in vast
numbers, so because they had been trained up in war with the
rest, ought not to be distinguished from the fighting men; for as
they were in their masters' service in times of peace, so did
they undergo the like dangers with them in times of war, insomuch
that they were inferior to none, either in skill or in strength,
only they were subject to their masters.

CHAPTER 5.

A Description Of The Roman Armies And Roman Camps And Of Other
Particulars For Which The Romans Are Commended.

1. Now here one cannot but admire at the precaution of the
Romans, in providing themselves of such household servants, as
might not only serve at other times for the common offices of
life, but might also be of advantage to them in their wars. And,
indeed, if any one does but attend to the other parts of their
military discipline, he will be forced to confess that their
obtaining so large a dominion hath been the acquisition of their
valor, and not the bare gift of fortune; for they do not begin to
use their weapons first in time of war, nor do they then put
their hands first into motion, while they avoided so to do in
times of peace; but, as if their weapons did always cling to
them, they have never any truce from warlike exercises; nor do
they stay till times of war admonish them to use them; for their
military exercises differ not at all from the real use of their
arms, but every soldier is every day exercised, and that with
great diligence, as if it were in time of war, which is the
reason why they bear the fatigue of battles so easily; for
neither can any disorder remove them from their usual regularity,
nor can fear affright them out of it, nor can labor tire them;
which firmness of conduct makes them always to overcome those
that have not the same firmness; nor would he be mistaken that
should call those their exercises unbloody battles, and their
battles bloody exercises. Nor can their enemies easily surprise
them with the suddenness of their incursions; for as soon as they
have marched into an enemy's land, they do not begin to fight
till they have walled their camp about; nor is the fence they
raise rashly made, or uneven; nor do they all abide ill it, nor
do those that are in it take their places at random; but if it
happens that the ground is uneven, it is first leveled: their
camp is also four-square by measure, and carpenters are ready, in
great numbers, with their tools, to erect their buildings for
them. (3)

2. As for what is within the camp, it is set apart for tents, but
the outward circumference hath the resemblance to a wall, and is
adorned with towers at equal distances, where between the towers
stand the engines for throwing arrows and darts, and for slinging
stones, and where they lay all other engines that can annoy the
enemy, all ready for their several operations. They also erect
four gates, one at every side of the circumference, and those
large enough for the entrance of the beasts, and wide enough for
making excursions, if occasion should require. They divide the
camp within into streets, very conveniently, and place the tents
of the commanders in the middle; but in the very midst of all is
the general's own tent, in the nature of a temple, insomuch, that
it appears to be a city built on the sudden, with its
market-place, and place for handicraft trades, and with seats for
the officers superior and inferior, where, if any differences
arise, their causes are heard and determined. The camp, and all
that is in it, is encompassed with a wall round about, and that
sooner than one would imagine, and this by the multitude and the
skill of the laborers; and, if occasion require, a trench is
drawn round the whole, whose depth is four cubits, and its
breadth equal.

3. When they have thus secured themselves, they live together by
companies, with quietness and decency, as are all their other
affairs managed with good order and security. Each company hath
also their wood, and their corn, and their water brought them,
when they stand in need of them; for they neither sup nor dine as
they please themselves singly, but all together. Their times also
for sleeping, and watching, and rising are notified beforehand by
the sound of trumpets, nor is any thing done without such a
signal; and in the morning the soldiery go every one to their
centurions, and these centurions to their tribunes, to salute
them; with whom all the superior officers go to the general of
the whole army, who then gives them of course the watchword and
other orders, to be by them cared to all that are under their
command; which is also observed when they go to fight, and
thereby they turn themselves about on the sudden, when there is
occasion for making sallies, as they come back when they are
recalled in crowds also.

4. Now when they are to go out of their camp, the trumpet gives a
sound, at which time nobody lies still, but at the first
intimation they take down their tents, and all is made ready for
their going out; then do the trumpets sound again, to order them
to get ready for the march; then do they lay their baggage
suddenly upon their mules, and other beasts of burden, and stand,
as at the place of starting, ready to march; when also they set
fire to their camp, and this they do because it will be easy for
them to erect another camp, and that it may not ever be of use to
their enemies. Then do the trumpets give a sound the third time,
that they are to go out, in order to excite those that on any
account are a little tardy, that so no one may be out of his rank
when the army marches. Then does the crier stand at the general's
right hand, and asks them thrice, in their own tongue, whether
they be now ready to go out to war or not? To which they reply as
often, with a loud and cheerful voice, saying, "We are ready."
And this they do almost before the question is asked them: they
do this as filled with a kind of martial fury, and at the same
time that they so cry out, they lift up their right hands also. 
5. When, after this, they are gone out of their camp, they all
march without noise, and in a decent manner, and every one keeps
his own rank, as if they were going to war. The footmen are armed
with breastplates and head-pieces, and have swords on each side;
but the sword which is upon their left side is much longer than
the other, for that on the right side is not longer than a span.
Those foot-men also that are chosen out from the rest to be about
the general himself have a lance and a buckler, but the rest of
the foot soldiers have a spear and a long buckler, besides a saw
and a basket, a pick-axe and an axe, a thong of leather and a
hook, with provisions for three days, so that a footman hath no
great need of a mule to carry his burdens. The horsemen have a
long sword on their right sides, axed a long pole in their hand;
a shield also lies by them obliquely on one side of their horses,
with three or more darts that are borne in their quiver, having
broad points, and not smaller than spears. They have also
head-pieces and breastplates, in like manner as have all the
footmen. And for those that are chosen to be about the general,
their armor no way differs from that of the horsemen belonging to
other troops; and he always leads the legions forth to whom the
lot assigns that employment.

6. This is the manner of the marching and resting of the Romans,
as also these are the several sorts of weapons they use. But when
they are to fight, they leave nothing without forecast, nor to be
done off-hand, but counsel is ever first taken before any work is
begun, and what hath been there resolved upon is put in execution
presently; for which reason they seldom commit any errors; and if
they have been mistaken at any time, they easily correct those
mistakes. They also esteem any errors they commit upon taking
counsel beforehand to be better than such rash success as is
owing to fortune only; because such a fortuitous advantage tempts
them to be inconsiderate, while consultation, though it may
sometimes fail of success, hath this good in it, that it makes
men more careful hereafter; but for the advantages that arise
from chance, they are not owing to him that gains them; and as to
what melancholy accidents happen unexpectedly, there is this
comfort in them, that they had however taken the best
consultations they could to prevent them.

7. Now they so manage their preparatory exercises of their
weapons, that not the bodies of the soldiers only, but their
souls may also become stronger: they are moreover hardened for
war by fear; for their laws inflict capital punishments, not only
for soldiers running away from the ranks, but for slothfulness
and inactivity, though it be but in a lesser degree; as are their
generals more severe than their laws, for they prevent any
imputation of cruelty toward those under condemnation, by the
great rewards they bestow on the valiant soldiers; and the
readiness of obeying their commanders is so great, that it is
very ornamental in peace; but when they come to a battle, the
whole army is but one body, so well coupled together are their
ranks, so sudden are their turnings about, so sharp their hearing
as to what orders are given them, so quick their sight of the
ensigns, and so nimble are their hands when they set to work;
whereby it comes to pass that what they do is done quickly, and
what they suffer they bear with the greatest patience. Nor can we
find any examples where they have been conquered in battle, when
they came to a close fight, either by the multitude of the
enemies, or by their stratagems, or by the difficulties in the
places they were in; no, nor by fortune neither, for their
victories have been surer to them than fortune could have granted
them. In a case, therefore, where counsel still goes before
action, and where, after taking the best advice, that advice is
followed by so active an army, what wonder is it that Euphrates
on the east, the ocean on the west, the most fertile regions of
Libya on the south, and the Danube and the Rhine on the north,
are the limits of this empire? One might well say that the Roman
possessions are not inferior to the Romans themselves.

8. This account I have given the reader, not so much with the
intention of commending the Romans, as of comforting those that
have been conquered by them, and for the deterring others from
attempting innovations under their government. This discourse of
the Roman military conduct may also perhaps be of use to such of
the curious as are ignorant of it, and yet have a mind to know
it. I return now from this digression.

CHAPTER 6.

Placidus Attempts To Take Jotapata And Is Beaten Off. Vespasian
Marches Into Galilee.

1. And now Vespasian, with his son Titus, had tarried some time
at Ptolemais, and had put his army in order. But when Placidus,
who had overrun Galilee, and had besides slain a number of those
whom he had caught, (which were only the weaker part of the
Galileans, and such as were of timorous souls,) saw that the
warriors ran always to those cities whose walls had been built by
Josephus, he marched furiously against Jotapata, which was of
them all the strongest, as supposing he should easily take it by
a sudden surprise, and that he should thereby obtain great honor
to himself among the commanders, and bring a great advantage to
them in their future campaign; because if this strongest place of
them all were once taken, the rest would be so aftrighted as to
surrender themselves. But he was mightily mistaken in his
undertaking; for the men of Jotapata were apprized of his coming
to attack them, and came out of the city, and expected him there.
So they fought the Romans briskly when they least expected it,
being both many in number, and prepared for fighting, and of
great alacrity, as esteeming their country, their wives, and
their children to be in danger, and easily put the Romans to
flight, and wounded many of them, and slew seven of them; (4)
because their retreat was not made in a disorderly manner,
be-cause the strokes only touched the surface of their bodies,
which were covered with their armor in all parts, and because the
Jews did rather throw their weapons upon them from a great
distance, than venture to come hand to hand with them, and had
only light armor on, while the others were completely armed.
However, three men of the Jews' side were slain, and a few
wounded; so Placidus, finding himself unable to assault the city,
ran away.

2. But as Vespasian had a great mind to fall upon Galilee, he
marched out of Ptolemais, having put his army into that order
wherein the Romans used to march. He ordered those auxiliaries
which were lightly armed, and the archers, to march first, that
they might prevent any sudden insults from the enemy, and might
search out the woods that looked suspiciously, and were capable
of ambuscades. Next to these followed that part of the Romans
which was completely armed, both footmen ,and horsemen. Next to
these followed ten out of every hundred, carrying along with them
their arms, and what was necessary to measure out a camp withal;
and after them, such as were to make the road even and straight,
and if it were any where rough and hard to be passed over, to
plane it, and to cut down the woods that hindered their march,
that the army might not be in distress, or tired with their
march. Behind these he set such carriages of the army as belonged
both to himself and to the other commanders, with a considerable
number of their horsemen for their security. After these he
marched himself, having with him a select body of footmen, and
horsemen, and pikemen. After these came the peculiar cavalry of
his own legion, for there were a hundred and twenty horsemen that
peculiarly belonged to every legion. Next to these came the mules
that carried the engines for sieges, and the other warlike
machines of that nature. After these came the commanders of the
cohorts and tribunes, having about them soldiers chosen out of
the rest. Then came the ensigns encompassing the eagle, which is
at the head of every Roman legion, the king, and the strongest of
all birds, which seems to them a signal of dominion, and an omen
that they shall conquer all against whom they march; these sacred
ensigns are followed by the trumpeters. Then came the main army
in their squadrons and battalions, with six men in depth, which
were followed at last by a centurion, who, according to custom,
observed the rest. As for the servants of every legion, they all
followed the footmen, and led the baggage of the soldiers, which
was borne by the mules and other beasts of burden. But behind all
the legions carne the whole multitude of the mercenaries; and
those that brought up the rear came last of all for the security
of the whole army, being both footmen, and those in their armor
also, with a great number of horsemen.

3. And thus did Vespasian march with his army, and came to the
bounds of Galileo, where he pitched his camp and restrained his
soldiers, who were eager for war; he also showed his army to the
enemy, in order to affright them, and to afford them a season for
repentance, to see whether they would change their minds before
it came to a battle, and at the same time he got things ready for
besieging their strong minds. And indeed this sight of the
general brought many to repent of their revolt, and put them all
into a consternation; for those that were in Josephus's camp,
which was at the city called Garis, not far from Sepphoris, when
they heard that the war was come near them, and that the Romans
would suddenly fight them hand to hand, dispersed themselves and
fled, not only before they came to a battle, but before the enemy
ever came in sight, while Josephus and a few others were left
behind; and as he saw that he had not an army sufficient to
engage the enemy, that the spirits of the Jews were sunk, and
that the greater part would willingly come to terms, if they
might be credited, he already despaired of the success of the
whole war, and determined to get as far as he possibly could out
of danger; so he took those that staid along with him, and fled
to Tiberias.

CHAPTER 7.

Vespasian, When He Had Taken The City Gadaea Marches To Jotapata.
After A Long Siege The City Is Betrayed By A Deserter, And Taken
By Vespasian.

1. So Vespasian marched to the city Gadara, and took it upon the
first onset, because he found it destitute of any considerable
number of men grown up and fit for war. He came then into it, and
slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy on any age
whatsoever; and this was done out of the hatred they bore the
nation, and because of the iniquity they had been guilty of in
the affair of Cestius. He also set fire not only to the city
itself, but to all the villas and small cities that were round
about it; some of them were quite destitute of inhabitants, and
out of some of them he carried the inhabitants as slaves into
captivity.

2. As to Josephus, his retiring to that city which he chose as
the most fit for his security, put it into great fear; for the
people of Tiberias did not imagine that he would have run away,
unless he had entirely despaired of the success of the war. And
indeed, as to that point, they were not mistaken about his
opinion; for he saw whither the affairs of the Jews would tend at
last, and was sensible that they had but one way of escaping, and
that was by repentance. However, although he expected that the
Romans would forgive him, yet did he chose to die many times
over, rather than to betray his country, and to dishonor that
supreme command of the army which had been intrusted with him, or
to live happily under those against whom he was sent to fight. He
determined, therefore, to give an exact account of affairs to the
principal men at Jerusalem by a letter, that he might not, by too
much aggrandizing the power of the enemy, make them too timorous;
nor, by relating that their power beneath the truth, might
encourage them to stand out when they were perhaps disposed to
repentance. He also sent them word, that if they thought of
coming to terms, they must suddenly write him an answer; or if
they resolved upon war, they must send him an army sufficient to
fight the Romans. Accordingly, he wrote these things, and sent
messengers immediately to carry his letter to Jerusalem.

3. Now Vespasian was very desirous of demolishing Jotapata, for
he had gotten intelligence that the greatest part of the enemy
had retired thither, and that it was, on other accounts, a place
of great security to them. Accordingly, he sent both foot-men and
horsemen to level the road, which was mountainous and rocky, not
without difficulty to be traveled over by footmen, but absolutely
impracticable for horsemen. Now these workmen accomplished what
they were about in four days' time, and opened a broad way for
the army. On the fifth day, which was the twenty-first of the
month Artemisius, (Jyar,) Josephus prevented him, and came from
Tiberias, and went into Jotapata, and raised the drooping spirits
of the Jews. And a certain deserter told this good news to
Vespasian, that Josephus had removed himself thither, which made
him make haste to the city, as supposing that with taking that he
should take all Judea, in case he could but withal get Josephus
under his power. So he took this news to be of the vastest
advantage to him, and believed it to be brought about by the
providence of God, that he who appeared to be the most prudent
man of all their enemies, had, of his own accord, shut himself up
in a place of sure custody. Accordingly, he sent Placidus with a
thousand horsemen, and Ebutius a decurion, a person that was of
eminency both in council and in action, to encompass the city
round, that Josephus might not escape away privately.

4. Vespasian also, the very next day, took his whole army and
followed them, and by marching till late in the evening, arrived
then at Jotapata; and bringing his army to the northern side of
the city, he pitched his camp on a certain small hill which was
seven furlongs from the city, and still greatly endeavored to be
well seen by the enemy, to put them into a consternation; which
was indeed so terrible to the Jews immediately, that no one of
them durst go out beyond the wall. Yet did the Romans put off the
attack at that time, because they had marched all the day,
although they placed a double row of battalions round the city,
with a third row beyond them round the whole, which consisted of
cavalry, in order to stop up every way for an exit; which thing
making the Jews despair of escaping, excited them to act more
boldly; for nothing makes men fight so desperately in war as
necessity.

5. Now when the next day an assault was made by the Romans, the
Jews at first staid out of the walls and opposed them, and met
them, as having formed themselves a camp before the city walls.
But when Vespasian had set against them the archers and slingers,
and the whole multitude that could throw to a great distance, he
permitted them to go to work, while he himself, with the footmen,
got upon an acclivity, whence the city might easily be taken.
Josephus was then in fear for the city, and leaped out, and all
the Jewish multitude with him; these fell together upon the
Romans in great numbers, and drove them away from the wall, and
performed a great many glorious and bold actions. Yet did they
suffer as much as they made the enemy suffer; for as despair of
deliverance encouraged the Jews, so did a sense of shame equally
encourage the Romans. These last had skill as well as strength;
the other had only courage, which armed them, and made them fight
furiously. And when the fight had lasted all day, it was put an
end to by the coming on of the night. They had wounded a great
many of the Romans, and killed of them thirteen men; of the Jews'
side seventeen were slain, and six hundred wounded.

6. On the next day the Jews made another attack upon the Romans,
and went out of the walls and fought a much more desperate battle
with them titan before. For they were now become more courageous
than formerly, and that on account of the unexpected good
opposition they had made the day before, as they found the Romans
also to fight more desperately; for a sense of shame inflamed
these into a passion, as esteeming their failure of a sudden
victory to be a kind of defeat. Thus did the Romans try to make
an impression upon the Jews till the fifth day continually, while
the people of Jotapata made sallies out, and fought at the walls
most desperately; nor were the Jews affrighted at the strength of
the enemy, nor were the Romans discouraged at the difficulties
they met with in taking the city.

7. Now Jotapata is almost all of it built on a precipice, having
on all the other sides of it every way valleys immensely deep and
steep, insomuch that those who would look down would have their
sight fail them before it reaches to the bottom. It is only to be
come at on the north side, where the utmost part of the city is
built on the mountain, as it ends obliquely at a plain. This
mountain Josephus had encompassed with a wall when he fortified
the city, that its top might not be capable of being seized upon
by the enemies. The city is covered all round with other
mountains, and can no way be seen till a man comes just upon it.
And this was the strong situation of Jotapata.

8. Vespasian, therefore, in order to try how he might overcome
the natural strength of the place, as well as the bold defense of
the Jews, made a resolution to prosecute the siege with vigor. To
that end he called the commanders that were under him to a
council of war, and consulted with them which way the assault
might be managed to the best advantage. And when the resolution
was there taken to raise a bank against that part of the wall
which was practicable, he sent his whole army abroad to get the
materials together. So when they had cut down all the trees on
the mountains that adjoined to the city, and had gotten together
a vast heap of stones, besides the wood they had cut down, some
of them brought hurdles, in order to avoid the effects of the
darts that were shot from above them. These hurdles they spread
over their banks, under cover whereof they formed their bank, and
so were little or nothing hurt by the darts that were thrown upon
them from the wall, while others pulled the neighboring hillocks
to pieces, and perpetually brought earth to them; so that while
they were busy three sorts of ways, nobody was idle. However, the
Jews cast great stones from the walls upon the hurdles which
protected the men, with all sorts of darts also; and the noise of
what could not reach them was yet so terrible, that it was some
impediment to the workmen.

9. Vespasian then set the engines for throwing stones and darts
round about the city. The number of the engines was in all a
hundred and sixty, and bid them fall to work, and dislodge those
that were upon the wall. At the same time such engines as were
intended for that purpose threw at once lances upon them with a
great noise, and stones of the weight of a talent were thrown by
the engines that were prepared for that purpose, together with
fire, and a vast multitude of arrows, which made the wall so
dangerous, that the Jews durst not only not come upon it, but
durst not come to those parts within the walls which were reached
by the engines; for the multitude of the Arabian archers, as well
also as all those that threw darts and slung stones, fell to work
at the same time with the engines. Yet did not the otters lie
still, when they could not throw at the Romans from a higher
place; for they then made sallies out of the city, like private
robbers, by parties, and pulled away the hurdles that covered the
workmen, and killed them when they were thus naked; and when
those workmen gave way, these cast away the earth that composed
the bank, and burnt the wooden parts of it, together with the
hurdles, till at length Vespasian perceived that the intervals
there were between the works were of disadvantage to him; for
those spaces of ground afforded the Jews a place for assaulting
the Romans. So he united the hurdles, and at the same time joined
one part of the army to the other, which prevented the private
excursions of the Jews.

10. And when the bank was now raised, and brought nearer than
ever to the battlements that belonged to the walls, Josephus
thought it would be entirely wrong in him if he could make no
contrivances in opposition to theirs, and that might be for the
city's preservation; so he got together his workmen, and ordered
them to build the wall higher; and while they said that this was
impossible to be done while so many darts were thrown at them, he
invented this sort of cover for them: He bid them fix piles, and
expand before them the raw hides of oxen newly killed, that these
hides by yielding and hollowing themselves when the stones were
thrown at them might receive them, for that the other darts would
slide off them, and the fire that was thrown would be quenched by
the moisture that was in them. And these he set before the
workmen, and under them these workmen went on with their works in
safety, and raised the wall higher, and that both by day and by
night, fill it was twenty cubits high. He also built a good
number of towers upon the wall, and fitted it to strong
battlements. This greatly discouraged the Romans, who in their
own opinions were already gotten within the walls, while they
were now at once astonished at Josephus's contrivance, and at the
fortitude of the citizens that were in the city.

11. And now Vespasian was plainly irritated at the great subtlety
of this stratagem, and at the boldness of the citizens of
Jotapata; for taking heart again upon the building of this wall,
they made fresh sallies upon the Romans, and had every day
conflicts with them by parties, together with all such
contrivances, as robbers make use of, and with the plundering of
all that came to hand, as also with the setting fire to all the
other works; and this till Vespasian made his army leave off
fighting them, and resolved to lie round the city, and to starve
them into a surrender, as supposing that either they would be
forced to petition him for mercy by want of provisions, or if
they should have the courage to hold out till the last, they
should perish by famine: and he concluded he should conquer them
the more easily in fighting, if he gave them an interval, and
then fell upon them when they were weakened by famine; but still
he gave orders that they should guard against their coming out of
the city.

12. Now the besieged had plenty of corn within the city, and
indeed of all necessaries, but they wanted water, because there
was no fountain in the city, the people being there usually
satisfied with rain water; yet is it a rare thing in that country
to have rain in summer, and at this season, during the siege,
they were in great distress for some contrivance to satisfy their
thirst; and they were very sad at this time particularly, as if
they were already in want of water entirely, for Josephus seeing
that the city abounded with other necessaries, and that the men
were of good courage, and being desirous to protract the siege to
the Romans longer than they expected, ordered their drink to be
given them by measure; but this scanty distribution of water by
measure was deemed by them as a thing more hard upon them than
the want of it; and their not being able to drink as much as they
would made them more desirous of drinking than they otherwise had
been; nay, they were as much disheartened hereby as if they were
come to the last degree of thirst. Nor were the Romans
unacquainted with the state they were in, for when they stood
over against them, beyond the wall, they could see them running
together, and taking their water by measure, which made them
throw their javelins thither the place being within their reach,
and kill a great many of them.

13. Hereupon Vespasian hoped that their receptacles of water
would in no long time be emptied, and that they would be forced
to deliver up the city to him; but Josephus being minded to break
such his hope, gave command that they should wet a great many of
their clothes, and hang them out about the battlements, till the
entire wall was of a sudden all wet with the running down of the
water. At this sight the Romans were discouraged, and under
consternation, when they saw them able to throw away in sport so
much water, when they supposed them not to have enough to drink
themselves. This made the Roman general despair of taking the
city by their want of necessaries, and to betake himself again to
arms, and to try to force them to surrender, which was what the
Jews greatly desired; for as they despaired of either themselves
or their city being able to escape, they preferred a death in
battle before one by hunger and thirst.

14. However, Josephus contrived another stratagem besides the
foregoing, to get plenty of what they wanted. There was a certain
rough and uneven place that could hardly be ascended, and on that
account was not guarded by the soldiers; so Josephus sent out
certain persons along the western parts of the valley, and by
them sent letters to whom he pleased of the Jews that were out of
the city, and procured from them what necessaries soever they
wanted in the city in abundance; he enjoined them also to creep
generally along by the watch as they came into the city, and to
cover their backs with such sheep-skins as had their wool upon
them, that if any one should spy them out in the night time, they
might be believed to be dogs. This was done till the watch
perceived their contrivance, and encompassed that rough place
about themselves.

15. And now it was that Josephus perceived that the city could
not hold out long, and that his own life would be in doubt if he
continued in it; so he consulted how he and the most potent men
of the city might fly out of it. When the multitude understood
this, they came all round about him, and begged of him not to
overlook them while they entirely depended on him, and him alone;
for that there was still hope of the city's deliverance, if he
would stay with them, because every body would undertake any
pains with great cheerfulness on his account, and in that case
there would be some comfort for them also, though they should be
taken: that it became him neither to fly from his enemies, nor to
desert his friends, nor to leap out of that city, as out of a
ship that was sinking in a storm, into which he came when it was
quiet and in a calm; for that by going away he would be the cause
of drowning the city, because nobody would then venture to oppose
the enemy when he was once gone, upon whom they wholly confided. 
16. Hereupon Josephus avoided letting them know that he was to go
away to provide for his own safety, but told them that he would
go out of the city for their sakes; for that if he staid with
them, he should be able to do them little good while they were in
a safe condition; and that if they were once taken, he should
only perish with them to no purpose; but that if he were once
gotten free from this siege, he should be able to bring them very
great relief; for that he would then immediately get the
Galileans together, out of the country, in great multitudes, and
draw the Romans off their city by another war. That he did not
see what advantge he could bring to them now, by staying among
them, but only provoke the Romans to besiege them more closely,
as esteeming it a most valuable thing to take him; but that if
they were once informed that he was fled out of the city, they
would greatly remit of their eagerness against it. Yet did not
this plea move the people, but inflamed them the more to hang
about him. Accordingly, both the children and the old men, and
the women with their infants, came mourning to him, and fell down
before him, and all of them caught hold of his feet, and held him
fast, and besought him, with great lamentations, that he would
take his share with them in their fortune; and I think they did
this, not that they envied his deliverance, but that they hoped
for their own; for they could not think they should suffer any
great misfortune, provided Josephus would but stay with them. 

17. Now Josephus thought, that if he resolved to stay, it would
be ascribed to their entreaties; and if he resolved to go away by
force, he should be put into custody. His commiseration also of
the people under their lamentations had much broken that his
eagerness to leave them; so he resolved to stay, and arming
himself with the common despair of the citizens, he said to them,
"Now is the time to begin to fight in earnest, when there is no
hope of deliverance left. It is a brave thing to prefer glory
before life, and to set about some such noble undertaking as may
be remembered by late posterity." Having said this, he fell to
work immediately, and made a sally, and dispersed the enemies'
out-guards, and ran as far as the Roman camp itself, and pulled
the coverings of their tents to pieces, that were upon their
banks, and set fire to their works. And this was the manner in
which he never left off fighting, neither the next day, nor the
day after it, but went on with it for a considerable number of
both days and nights.

18. Upon this, Vespasian, when he saw the Romans distressed by
these sallies, (though they were ashamed to be made to run away
by the Jews; and when at any time they made the Jews run away,
their heavy armor would not let them pursue them far; while the
Jews, when they had performed any action, and before they could
be hurt themselves, still retired into the city,) ordered his
armed men to avoid their onset, and not fight it out with men
under desperation, while nothing is more courageous than despair;
but that their violence would be quenched when they saw they
failed of their purposes, as fire is quenched when it wants fuel;
and that it was proper for the Romans to gain their victories as
cheap as they could, since they are not forced to fight, but only
to enlarge their own dominions. So he repelled the Jews in great
measure by the Arabian archers, and the Syrian slingers, and by
those that threw stones at them, nor was there any intermission
of the great number of their offensive engines. Now the Jews
suffered greatly by these engines, without being able to escape
from them; and when these engines threw their stones or javelins
a great way, and the Jews were within their reach, they pressed
hard upon the Romans, and fought desperately, without sparing
either soul or body, one part succoring another by turns, when it
was tired down.

19. When, therefore, Vespasian looked upon himself as in a manner
besieged by these sallies of the Jews, and when his banks were
now not far from the walls, he determined to make use of his
battering ram. This battering ram is a vast beam of wood like the
mast of a ship, its forepart is armed with a thick piece of iron
at the head of it, which is so carved as to be like the head of a
ram, whence its name is taken. This ram is slung in the air by
ropes passing over its middle, and is hung like the balance in a
pair of scales from another beam, and braced by strong beams that
pass on both sides of it, in the nature of a cross. When this ram
is pulled backward by a great number of men with united force,
and then thrust forward by the same men, with a mighty noise, it
batters the walls with that iron part which is prominent. Nor is
there any tower so strong, or walls so broad, that can resist any
more than its first batteries, but all are forced to yield to it
at last. This was the experiment which the Roman general betook
himself to, when he was eagerly bent upon taking the city; but
found lying in the field so long to be to his disadvantage,
because the Jews would never let him be quiet. So these Romans
brought the several engines for galling an enemy nearer to the
walls, that they might reach such as were upon the wall, and
endeavored to frustrate their attempts; these threw stones and
javelins at them; in the like manner did the archers and slingers
come both together closer to the wall. This brought matters to
such a pass that none of the Jews durst mount the walls, and then
it was that the other Romans brought the battering ram that was
cased with hurdles all over, and in the tipper part was secured
by skins that covered it, and this both for the security of
themselves and of the engine. Now, at the very first stroke of
this engine, the wall was shaken, and a terrible clamor was
raised by the people within the city, as if they were already
taken.

20. And now, when Josephus saw this ram still battering the same
place, and that the wall would quickly be thrown down by it, he
resolved to elude for a while the force of the engine. With this
design he gave orders to fill sacks with chaff, and to hang them
down before that place where they saw the ram always battering,
that the stroke might be turned aside, or that the place might
feel less of the strokes by the yielding nature of the chaff.
This contrivance very much delayed the attempts of the Romans,
because, let them remove their engine to what part they pleased,
those that were above it removed their sacks, and placed them
over against the strokes it made, insomuch that the wall was no
way hurt, and this by diversion of the strokes, till the Romans
made an opposite contrivance of long poles, and by tying hooks at
their ends, cut off the sacks. Now when the battering ram thus
recovered its force, and the wall having been but newly built,
was giving way, Josephus and those about him had afterward
immediate recourse to fire, to defend themselves withal;
whereupon they took what materials soever they had that were but
dry, and made a sally three ways, and set fire to the machines,
and the hurdles, and the banks of the Romans themselves; nor did
the Romans well know how to come to their assistance, being at
once under a consternation at the Jews' boldness, and being
prevented by the flames from coming to their assistance; for the
materials being dry with the bitumen and pitch that were among
them, as was brimstone also, the fire caught hold of every thing
immediately, and what cost the Romans a great deal of pains was
in one hour consumed.

21. And here a certain Jew appeared worthy of our relation and
commendation; he was the son of Sameas, and was called Eleazar,
and was born at Saab, in Galilee. This man took up a stone of a
vast bigness, and threw it down from the wall upon the ram, and
this with so great a force, that it broke off the head of the
engine. He also leaped down, and took up the head of the ram from
the midst of them, and without any concern carried it to the top
of the wall, and this while he stood as a fit mark to he pelted
by all his enemies. Accordingly, he received the strokes upon his
naked body, and was wounded with five darts; nor did he mind any
of them while he went up to the top of the wall, where he stood
in the sight of them all, as an instance of the greatest
boldness; after which he drew himself on a heap with his wounds
upon him, and fell down together with the head of the ram. Next
to him, two brothers showed their courage; their names were Netir
and Philip, both of them of the village Ruma, and both of them
Galileans also; these men leaped upon the soldiers of the tenth
legion, and fell upon the Romans with such a noise and force as
to disorder their ranks, and to put to flight all upon whomsoever
they made their assaults.

22. After these men's performances, Josephus, and the rest of the
multitude with him, took a great deal of fire, and burnt both the
machines and their coverings, with the works belonging to the
fifth and to the tenth legion, which they put to flight; when
others followed them immediately, and buried those instruments
and all their materials under ground. However, about the evening,
the Romans erected the battering ram again, against that part of
the wall which had suffered before; where a certain Jew that
defended the city from the Romans hit Vespasian with a dart in
his foot, and wounded him a little, the distance being so great,
that no mighty impression could be made by the dart thrown so far
off. However, this caused the greatest disorder among the Romans;
for when those who stood near him saw his blood, they were
disturbed at it, and a report went abroad, through the whole
army, that the general was wounded, while the greatest part left
the siege, and came running together with surprise and fear to
the general; and before them all came Titus, out of the concern
he had for his father, insomuch that the multitude were in great
confusion, and this out of the regard they had for their general,
and by reason of the agony that the son was in. Yet did the
father soon put an end to the son's fear, and to the disorder the
army was under, for being superior to his pains, and endeavoring
soon to be seen by all that had been in a fright about him, he
excited them to fight the Jews more briskly; for now every body
was willing to expose himself to danger immediately, in order to
avenge their general; and then they encouraged one another with
loud voices, and ran hastily to the walls.

23. But still Josephus and those with him, although they fell
down dead one upon another by the darts and stones which the
engines threw upon them, yet did not they desert the wall, but
fell upon those who managed the ram, under the protection of the
hurdles, with fire, and iron weapons, and stones; and these could
do little or nothing, but fell themselves perpetually, while they
were seen by those whom they could not see, for the light of
their own flame shone about them, and made them a most visible
mark to the enemy, as they were in the day time, while the
engines could not be seen at a great distance, and so what was
thrown at them was hard to be avoided; for the force with which
these engines threw stones and darts made them hurt several at a
time, and the violent noise of the stones that were cast by the
engines was so great, that they carried away the pinnacles of the
wall, and broke off the corners of the towers; for no body of men
could be so strong as not to be overthrown to the last rank by
the largeness of the stones. And any one may learn the force of
the engines by what happened this very night; for as one of those
that stood round about Josephus was near the wall, his head was
carried away by such a stone, and his skull was flung as far as
three furlongs. In the day time also, a woman with child had her
belly so violently struck, as she was just come out of her house,
that the infant was carried to the distance of half a furlong, so
great was the force of that engine. The noise of the instruments
themselves was very terrible, the sound of the darts and stones
that were thrown by them was so also; of the same sort was that
noise the dead bodies made, when they were dashed against the
wall; and indeed dreadful was the clamor which these things
raised in the women within the city, which was echoed back at the
same time by the cries of such as were slain; while the whole
space of ground whereon they fought ran with blood, and the wall
might have been ascended over by the bodies of the dead
carcasses; the mountains also contributed to increase the noise
by their echoes; nor was there on that night any thing of terror
wanting that could either affect the hearing or the sight: yet
did a great part of those that fought so hard for Jotapata fall
manfully, as were a great part of them wounded. However, the
morning watch was come ere the wall yielded to the machines
employed against it, though it had been battered without
intermission. However, those within covered their bodies with
their armor, and raised works over against that part which was
thrown down, before those machines were laid by which the Romans
were to ascend into the city.

24. In the morning Vespasian got his army together, in order to
take the city [by storm], after a little recreation upon the hard
pains they had been at the night before; and as he was desirous
to draw off those that opposed him from the places where the wall
had been thrown down, he made the most courageous of the horsemen
get off their horses, and placed them in three ranks over against
those ruins of the wall, but covered with their armor on every
side, and with poles in their hands, that so these might begin
their ascent as soon as the instruments for such ascent were
laid; behind them he placed the flower of the footmen; but for
the rest of the horse, he ordered them to extend themselves over
against the wall, upon the whole hilly country, in order to
prevent any from escaping out of the city when it should be
taken; and behind these he placed the archers round about, and
commanded them to have their darts ready to shoot. The same
command he gave to the slingers, and to those that managed the
engines, and bid them to take up other ladders, and have them
ready to lay upon those parts of the wall which were yet
untouched, that the besieged might be engaged in trying to hinder
their ascent by them, and leave the guard of the parts that were
thrown down, while the rest of them should be overborne by the
darts cast at them, and might afford his men an entrance into the
city.

25. But Josephus, understanding the meaning of Vespasian's
contrivance, set the old men, together with those that were tired
out, at the sound parts of the wall, as expecting no harm from
those quarters, but set the strongest of his men at the place
where the wall was broken down, and before them all six men by
themselves, among whom he took his share of the first and
greatest danger. He also gave orders, that when the legions made
a shout, they should stop their ears, that they might not be
affrighted at it, and that, to avoid the multitude of the enemy's
darts, they should bend down on their knees, and cover themselves
with their shields, and that they should retreat a little
backward for a while, till the archers should have emptied their
quivers; but that When the Romans should lay their instruments
for ascending the walls, they should leap out on the sudden, and
with their own instruments should meet the enemy, and that every
one should strive to do his best, in order not to defend his own
city, as if it were possible to be preserved, but in order to
revenge it, when it was already destroyed; and that they should
set before their eyes how their old men were to be slain, and
their children and wives were to be killed immediately by the
enemy; and that they would beforehand spend all their fury, on
account of the calamities just coming upon them, and pour it out
on the actors.

26. And thus did Josephus dispose of both his bodies of men; but
then for the useless part of the citizens, the women and
children, when they saw their city encompassed by a threefold
army, (for none of the usual guards that had been fighting before
were removed,) when they also saw, not only the walls thrown
down, but their enemies with swords in their hands, as also the
hilly country above them shining with their weapons, d the darts
in the hands of the Arabian archers, they made a final and
lamentable outcry of the destruction, as if the misery were not
only threatened, but actually come upon them already. But
Josephus ordered the women to be shut up in their houses, lest
they should render the warlike actions of the men too effeminate,
by making them commiserate their condition, and commanded them to
hold their peace, and threatened them if they did not, while he
came himself before the breach, where his allotment was; for all
those who brought ladders to the other places, he took no notice
of them, but earnestly waited for the shower of arrows that was
coming.

27. And now the trumpeters of the several Roman legions sounded
together, and the army made a terrible shout; and the darts, as
by order, flew so last, that they intercepted the light. However,
Josephus's men remembered the charges he had given them, they
stopped their ears at the sounds, and covered their bodies
against the darts; and as to the engines that were set ready to
go to work, the Jews ran out upon them, before those that should
have used them were gotten upon them. And now, on the ascending
of the soldiers, there was a great conflict, and many actions of
the hands and of the soul were exhibited; while the Jews did
earnestly endeavor, in the extreme danger they were in, not to
show less courage than those who, without being in danger, fought
so stoutly against them; nor did they leave struggling with the
Romans till they either fell down dead themselves, or killed
their antagonists. But the Jews grew weary with defending
themselves continually, and had not enough to come in their
places, and succor them; while, on the side of the Romans, fresh
men still succeeded those that were tired; and still new men soon
got upon the machines for ascent, in the room of those that were
thrust down; those encouraging one another, and joining side to
side with their shields, which were a protection to them, they
became a body of men not to be broken; and as this band thrust
away the Jews, as though they were themselves but one body, they
began already to get upon the wall.

28. Then did Josephus take necessity for his counselor in this
utmost distress, (which necessity is very sagacious in invention
when it is irritated by despair,) and gave orders to pour
scalding oil upon those whose shields protected them. Whereupon
they soon got it ready, being many that brought it, and what they
brought being a great quantity also, and poured it on all sides
upon the Romans, and threw down upon them their vessels as they
were still hissing from the heat of the fire: this so burnt the
Romans, that it dispersed that united band, who now tumbled clown
from the wall with horrid pains, for the oil did easily run down
the whole body from head to foot, under their entire armor, and
fed upon their flesh like flame itself, its fat and unctuous
nature rendering it soon heated and slowly cooled; and as the men
were cooped up in their head-pieces and breastplates, they could
no way get free from this burning oil; they could only leap and
roll about in their pains, as they fell down from the bridges
they had laid. And as they thus were beaten back, and retired to
their own party, who still pressed them forward, they were easily
wounded by those that were behind them.

29. However, in this ill success of the Romans, their courage did
not fail them, nor did the Jews want prudence to oppose them; for
the Romans, although they saw their own men thrown down, and in a
miserable condition, yet were they vehemently bent against those
that poured the oil upon them; while every one reproached the man
before him as a coward, and one that hindered him from exerting
himself; and while the Jews made use of another stratagem to
prevent their ascent, and poured boiling fenugreek upon the
boards, in order to make them slip and fall down; by which means
neither could those that were coming up, nor those that were
going down, stand on their feet; but some of them fell backward
upon the machines on which they ascended, and were trodden upon;
many of them fell down upon the bank they had raised, and when
they were fallen upon it were slain by the Jews; for when the
Romans could not keep their feet, the Jews being freed from
fighting hand to hand, had leisure to throw their darts at them.
So the general called off those soldiers in the evening that had
suffered so sorely, of whom the number of the slain was not a
few, while that of the wounded was still greater; but of the
people of Jotapata no more than six men were killed, although
more than three hundred were carried off wounded. This fight
happened on the twentieth day of the month Desius [Sivan]. 
30. Hereupon Vespasian comforted his army on occasion of what
happened, and as he found them angry indeed, but rather wanting
somewhat to do than any further exhortations, he gave orders to
raise the banks still higher, and to erect three towers, each
fifty feet high, and that they should cover them with plates of
iron on every side, that they might be both firm by their weight,
and not easily liable to be set on fire. These towers he set upon
the banks, and placed upon them such as could shoot darts and
arrows, with the lighter engines for throwing stones and darts
also; and besides these, he set upon them the stoutest men among
the slingers, who not being to be seen by reason of the height
they stood upon, and the battlements that protected them, might
throw their weapons at those that were upon the wall, and were
easily seen by them. Hereupon the Jews, not being easily able to
escape those darts that were thrown down upon their heads, nor to
avenge themselves on those whom they could not see, and
perceiving that the height of the towers was so great, that a
dart which they threw with their hand could hardly reach it, and
that the iron plates about them made it very hard to come at them
by fire, they ran away from the walls, and fled hastily out of
the city, and fell upon those that shot at them. And thus did the
people of Jotapata resist the Romans, while a great number of
them were every day killed, without their being able to retort
the evil upon their enemies; nor could they keep them out of the
city without danger to themselves.

31. About this time it was that Vespasian sent out Trajan against
a city called Japha, that lay near to Jotapata, and that desired
innovations, and was puffed up with the unexpected length of the
opposition of Jotapata. This Trajan was the commander of the
tenth legion, and to him Vespasian committed one thousand
horsemen, and two thousand footmen. When Trajan came to the city,
he found it hard to be taken, for besides the natural strength of
its situation, it was also secured by a double wall; but when he
saw the people of this city coming out of it, and ready to fight
him, he joined battle with them, and after a short resistance
which they made, he pursued after them; and as they fled to their
first wall, the Romans followed them so closely, that they fell
in together with them: but when the Jews were endeavoring to get
again within their second wall, their fellow citizens shut them
out, as being afraid that the Romans would force themselves in
with them. It was certainly God therefore who brought the Romans
to punish the Galileans, and did then expose the people of the
city every one of them manifestly to be destroyed by their bloody
enemies; for they fell upon the gates in great crowds, and
earnestly calling to those that kept them, and that by their
names also, yet had they their throats cut in the very midst of
their supplications; for the enemy shut the gates of the first
wall, and their own citizens shut the gates of the second, so
they were enclosed between two walls, and were slain in great
numbers together; many of them were run through by swords of
their own men, and many by their own swords, besides an immense
number that were slain by the Romans. Nor had they any courage to
revenge themselves; for there was added to the consternation they
were in from the enemy, their being betrayed by their own
friends, which quite broke their spirits; and at last they died,
cursing not the Romans, but their own citizens, till they were
all destroyed, being in number twelve thousand. So Trajan
gathered that the city was empty of people that could fight, and
although there should a few of them be therein, he supposed that
they would be too timorous to venture upon any opposition; so he
reserved the taking of the city to the general. Accordingly, he
sent messengers to Vespasian, and desired him to send his son
Titus to finish the victory he had gained. Vespasian hereupon
imagining there might be some pains still necessary, sent his son
with an army of five hundred horsemen, and one thousand footmen.
So he came quickly to the city, and put his army in order, and
set Trajan over the left wing, while he had the right himself,
and led them to the siege: and when the soldiers brought ladders
to be laid against the wall on every side, the Galileans opposed
them from above for a while; but soon afterward they left the
walls. Then did Titus's men leap into the city, and seized upon
it presently; but when those that were in it were gotten
together, there was a fierce battle between them; for the men of
power fell upon the Romans in the narrow streets, and the women
threw whatsoever came next to hand at them, and sustained a fight
with them for six hours' time; but when the fighting men were
spent, the rest of the multitude had their throats cut, partly in
the open air, and partly in their own houses, both young and old
together. So there were no males now remaining, besides infants,
which, with the women, were carried as slaves into captivity; so
that the number of the slain, both now in the city and at the
former fight, was fifteen thousand, and the captives were two
thousand one hundred and thirty. This calamity befell the
Galileans on the twenty-fifth day of the month Desius [Sivan.] 
32. Nor did the Samaritans escape their share of misfortunes at
this time; for they assembled themselves together upon file
mountain called Gerizzim, which is with them a holy mountain, and
there they remained; which collection of theirs, as well as the
courageous minds they showed, could not but threaten somewhat of
war; nor were they rendered wiser by the miseries that had come
upon their neighboring cities. They also, notwithstanding the
great success the Romans had, marched on in an unreasonable
manner, depending on their own weakness, and were disposed for
any tumult upon its first appearance. Vespasian therefore thought
it best to prevent their motions, and to cut off the foundation
of their attempts. For although all Samaria had ever garrisons
settled among them, yet did the number of those that were come to
Mount Gerizzim, and their conspiracy together, give ground for
fear what they would be at; he therefore sent I thither Cerealis,
the commander of the fifth legion, with six hundred horsemen, and
three thousand footmen, who did not think it safe to go up to the
mountain, and give them battle, because many of the enemy were on
the higher part of the ground; so he encompassed all the lower
part of the mountain with his army, and watched them all that
day. Now it happened that the Samaritans, who were now destitute
of water, were inflamed with a violent heat, (for it was summer
time, and the multitude had not provided themselves with
necessaries,) insomuch that some of them died that very day with
heat, while others of them preferred slavery before such a death
as that was, and fled to the Romans; by whom Cerealis understood
that those which still staid there were very much broken by their
misfortunes. So he went up to the mountain, and having placed his
forces round about the enemy, he, in the first place, exhorted
them to take the security of his right hand, and come to terms
with him, and thereby save themselves; and assured them, that if
they would lay down their arms, he would secure them from any
harm; but when he could not prevail with them, he fell upon them
and slew them all, being in number eleven thousand and six
hundred. This was done on the twenty-seventh day of the month
Desius [Sivan]. And these were the calamities that befell the
Samaritans at this time.

33. But as the people of Jotapata still held out manfully, and
bore up tinder their miseries beyond all that could be hoped for,
on the forty-seventh day [of the siege] the banks cast up by the
Romans were become higher than the wall; on which day a certain
deserter went to Vespasian, and told him how few were left in the
city, and how weak they were, and that they had been so worn out
with perpetual watching, and as perpetual fighting, that they
could not now oppose any force that came against them, and that
they might he taken by stratagem, if any one would attack them;
for that about the last watch of the night, when they thought
they might have some rest from the hardships they were under, and
when a morning sleep used to come upon them, as they were
thoroughly weary, he said the watch used to fall asleep;
accordingly his advice was, that they should make their attack at
that hour. But Vespasian had a suspicion about this deserter, as
knowing how faithful the Jews were to one another, and how much
they despised any punishments that could be inflicted on them;
this last because one of the people of Jotapata had undergone all
sorts of torments, and though they made him pass through a fiery
trial of his enemies in his examination, yet would he inform them
nothing of the affairs within the city, and as he was crucified,
smiled at them. However, the probability there was in the
relation itself did partly confirm the truth of what the deserter
told them, and they thought he might probably speak truth.
However, Vespasian thought they should be no great sufferers if
the report was a sham; so he commanded them to keep the man in
custody, and prepared the army for taking the city.

34. According to which resolution they marched without noise, at
the hour that had been told them, to the wall; and it was Titus
himself that first got upon it, with one of his tribunes,
Domitius Sabinus, and had a few of the fifteenth legion along
with him. So they cut the throats of the watch, and entered the
city very quietly. After these came Cerealis the tribune, and
Placidus, and led on those that were tinder them. Now when the
citadel was taken, and the enemy were in the very midst of the
city, and when it was already day, yet was not the taking of the
city known by those that held it; for a great many of them were
fast asleep, and a great mist, which then by chance fell upon the
city, hindered those that got up from distinctly seeing the case
they were in, till the whole Roman army was gotten in, and they
were raised up only to find the miseries they were under; and as
they were slaying, they perceived the city was taken. And for the
Romans, they so well remembered what they had suffered during the
siege, that they spared none, nor pitied any, but drove the
people down the precipice from the citadel, and slew them as they
drove them down; at which time the difficulties of the place
hindered those that were still able to fight from defending
themselves; for as they were distressed in the narrow streets,
and could not keep their feet sure along the precipice, they were
overpowered with the crowd of those that came fighting them down
from the citadel. This provoked a great many, even of those
chosen men that were about Josephus, to kill themselves with
their own hands; for when they saw that they could kill none of
the Romans, they resolved to prevent being killed by the Romans,
and got together in great numbers in the utmost parts of the
city, and killed themselves.

35. However, such of the watch as at the first perceived they
were taken, and ran away as fast as they could, went up into one
of the towers on the north side of the city, and for a while
defended themselves there; but as they were encompassed with a
multitude of enemies, they tried to use their right hands when it
was too late, and at length they cheerfully offered their necks
to be cut off by those that stood over them. And the Romans might
have boasted that the conclusion of that siege was without blood
[on their side] if there had not been a centurion, Antonius, who
was slain at the taking of the city. His death was occasioned by
the following treachery; for there was one of those that were
fled into the caverns, which were a great number, who desired
that this Antonius would reach him his right hand for his
security, and would assure him that he would preserve him, and
give him his assistance in getting up out of the cavern;
accordingly, he incautiously reached him his right hand, when the
other man prevented him, and stabbed him under his loins with a
spear, and killed him immediately.

36. And on this day it was that the Romans slew all the multitude
that appeared openly; but on the following days they searched the
hiding-places, and fell upon those that were under ground, and in
the caverns, and went thus through every age, excepting the
infants and the women, and of these there were gathered together
as captives twelve hundred; and as for those that were slain at
the taking of the city, and in the former fights, they were
numbered to be forty thousand. So Vespasian gave order that the
city should be entirely demolished, and all the fortifications
burnt down. And thus was Jotapata taken, in the thirteenth year
of the reign of Nero, on the first day of the month Panemus
[Tamuz].

CHAPTER 8.

How Josephus Was Discovered By A Woman, And Was Willing To
Deliver Himself Up To The Romans; And What Discourse He Had With
His Own Men, When They Endeavored To Hinder Him; And What He Said
To Vespasian, When He Was Brought To Him; And After What Manner
Vespasian Used Him Afterward.

1. And now the Romans searched for Josephus, both out of the
hatred they bore him, and because their general was very desirous
to have him taken; for he reckoned that if he were once taken,
the greatest part of the war would be over. They then searched
among the dead, and looked into the most concealed recesses of
the city; but as the city was first taken, he was assisted by a
certain supernatural providence; for he withdrew himself from the
enemy when he was in the midst of them, and leaped into a certain
deep pit, whereto there adjoined a large den at one side of it,
which den could not be seen by those that were above ground; and
there he met with forty persons of eminency that had concealed
themselves, and with provisions enough to satisfy them for not a
few days. So in the day time he hid himself from the enemy, who
had seized upon all places, and in the night time he got up out
of the den and looked about for some way of escaping, and took
exact notice of the watch; but as all places were guarded every
where on his account, that there was no way of getting off
unseen, he went down again into the den. Thus he concealed
himself two days; but on the third day, when they had taken a
woman who had been with them, he was discovered. Whereupon
Vespasian sent immediately and zealously two tribunes, Paulinus
and Gallicanus, and ordered them to give Josephus their right
hands as a security for his life, and to exhort him to come up. 

2. So they came and invited the man to come up, and gave him
assurances that his life should be preserved: but they did not
prevail with him; for he gathered suspicions from the probability
there was that one who had done so many things against the Romans
must suffer for it, though not from the mild temper of those that
invited him. However, he was afraid that he was invited to come
up in order to be punished, until Vespasian sent besides these a
third tribune, Nicanor, to him; he was one that was well known to
Josephus, and had been his familiar acquaintance in old time.
When he was come, he enlarged upon the natural mildness of the
Romans towards those they have once conquered; and told him that
he had behaved himself so valiantly, that the commanders rather
admired than hated him; that the general was very desirous to
have him brought to him, not in order to punish him, for that he
could do though he should not come voluntarily, but that he was
determined to preserve a man of his courage. He moreover added
this, that Vespasian, had he been resolved to impose upon him,
would not have sent to him a friend of his own, nor put the
fairest color upon the vilest action, by pretending friendship
and meaning perfidiousness; nor would he have himself acquiesced,
or come to him, had it been to deceive him.

3. Now as Josephus began to hesitate with himself about Nicanor's
proposal, the soldiery were so angry, that they ran hastily to
set fire to the den; but the tribune would not permit them so to
do, as being very desirous to take the man alive. And now, as
Nicanor lay hard at Josephus to comply, and he understood how the
multitude of the enemies threatened him, he called to mind the
dreams which he had dreamed in the night time, whereby God had
signified to him beforehand both the future calamities of the
Jews, and the events that concerned the Roman emperors. Now
Josephus was able to give shrewd conjectures about the
interpretation of such dreams as have been ambiguously delivered
by God. Moreover, he was not unacquainted with the prophecies
contained in the sacred books, as being a priest himself, and of
the posterity of priests: and just then was he in an ecstasy; and
setting before him the tremendous images of the dreams he had
lately had, he put up a secret prayer to God, and said, "Since it
pleaseth thee, who hast created the Jewish nation, to depress the
same, and since all their good fortune is gone over to the
Romans, and since thou hast made choice of this soul of mine to
foretell what is to come to pass hereafter, I willingly give them
my hands, and am content to live. And I protest openly that I do
not go over to the Romans as a deserter of the Jews, but as a
minister from thee."

4. When he had said this, he complied with Nicanor's invitation.
But when those Jews who had fled with him understood that he
yielded to those that invited him to come up, they came about him
in a body, and cried out, "Nay, indeed, now may the laws of our
forefathers, which God ordained himself, well groan to purpose;
that God we mean who hath created the souls of the Jews of such a
temper, that they despise death. O Josephus! art thou still fond
of life? and canst thou bear to see the light in a state of
slavery? How soon hast thou forgotten thyself! How many hast thou
persuaded to lose their lives for liberty! Thou hast therefore
had a false reputation for manhood, and a like false reputation
for wisdom, if thou canst hope for preservation from those
against whom thou hast fought so zealously, and art however
willing to be preserved by them, if they be in earnest. But
although the good fortune of the Romans hath made thee forget
thyself, we ought to take care that the glory of our forefathers
may not be tarnished. We will lend thee our right hand and a
sword; and if thou wilt die willingly, thou wilt die as general
of the Jews; but if unwillingly, thou wilt die as a traitor to
them." As soon as they said this, they began to thrust their
swords at him, and threatened they would kill him, if he thought
of yielding himself to the Romans.

5. Upon this Josephus was afraid of their attacking him, and yet
thought he should be a betrayer of the commands of God, if he
died before they were delivered. So he began to talk like a
philosopher to them in the distress he was then in, when he said
thus to them: "O my friends, why are we so earnest to kill
ourselves? and why do we set our soul and body, which are such
dear companions, at such variance? Can any one pretend that I am
not the man I was formerly? Nay, the Romans are sensible how that
matter stands well enough. It is a brave thin to die in war; but
so that it be according to the law of war, by the hand of
conquerors. If, therefore, I avoid death from the sword of the
Romans, I am truly worthy to be killed by my own sword, and my
own hand; but if they admit of mercy, and would spare their
enemy, how much more ought we to have mercy upon ourselves, and
to spare ourselves? For it is certainly a foolish thing to do
that to ourselves which we quarrel with them for doing to us. I
confess freely that it is a brave thing to die for liberty; but
still so that it be in war, and done by those who take that
liberty from us; but in the present case our enemies do neither
meet us in battle, nor do they kill us. Now he is equally a
coward who will not die when he is obliged to die, and he who
will die when he is not obliged so to do. What are we afraid of,
when we will not go up to the Romans? Is it death? If so, what we
are afraid of, when we but suspect our enemies will inflict it on
us, shall we inflict it on ourselves for certain? But it may be
said we must be slaves. And are we then in a clear state of
liberty at present? It may also be said that it is a manly act
for one to kill himself. No, certainly, but a most unmanly one;
as I should esteem that pilot to be an arrant coward, who, out of
fear of a storm, should sink his ship of his own accord. Now
self-murder is a crime most remote from the common nature of all
animals, and an instance of impiety against God our Creator; nor
indeed is there any animal that dies by its own contrivance, or
by its own means, for the desire of life is a law engraven in
them all; on which account we deem those that openly take it away
from us to be our enemies, and those that do it by treachery are
punished for so doing. And do not you think that God is very
angry when a man does injury to what he hath bestowed on him? For
from him it is that we have received our being, and we ought to
leave it to his disposal to take that being away from us. The
bodies of all men are indeed mortal, and are created out of
corruptible matter; but the soul is ever immortal, and is a
portion of the divinity that inhabits our bodies. Besides, if any
one destroys or abuses a depositum he hath received from a mere
man, he is esteemed a wicked and perfidious person; but then if
any one cast out of his body this Divine depositum, can we
imagine that he who is thereby affronted does not know of it?
Moreover, our law justly ordains that slaves which run away from
their master shall be punished, though the masters they run away
from may have been wicked masters to them. And shall we endeavor
to run away from God, who is the best of all masters, and not
guilty of impeity? Do not you know that those who depart out of
this life according to the law of nature, and pay that debt which
was received from God, when he that lent it us is pleased to
require it back again, enjoy eternal fame; that their houses and
their posterity are sure, that their souls are pure and obedient,
and obtain a most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the
revolutions of ages, they are again sent into pure bodies; while
the souls of those whose hands have acted madly against
themselves are received by the darkest place in Hades, and while
God, who is their Father, punishes those that offend against
either of them in their posterity? for which reason God hates
such doings, and the crime is punished by our most wise
legislator. Accordingly, our laws determine that the bodies of
such as kill themselves should be exposed till the sun be set,
without burial, although at the same time it be allowed by them
to be lawful to bury our enemies [sooner]. The laws of other
nations also enjoin such men's hands to be cut off when they are
dead, which had been made use of in destroying themselves when
alive, while they reckoned that as the body is alien from the
soul, so is the hand alien from the body. It is therefore, my
friends, a right thing to reason justly, and not add to the
calamities which men bring upon us impiety towards our Creator.
If we have a mind to preserve ourselves, let us do it; for to be
preserved by those our enemies, to whom we have given so many
demonstrations of our courage, is no way inglorious; but if we
have a mind to die, it is good to die by the hand of those that
have conquered us. For nay part, I will not run over to our
enemies' quarters, in order to be a traitor to myself; for
certainly I should then be much more foolish than those that
deserted to the enemy, since they did it in order to save
themselves, and I should do it for destruction, for my own
destruction. However, I heartily wish the Romans may prove
treacherous in this matter; for if, after their offer of their
right hand for security, I be slain by them, I shall die
cheerfully, and carry away with me the sense of their
perfidiousness, as a consolation greater than victory itself." 
6. Now these and many the like motives did Josephus use to these
men to prevent their murdering themselves; but desperation had
shut their ears, as having long ago devoted themselves to die,
and they were irritated at Josephus. They then ran upon him with
their swords in their hands, one from one quarter, and another
from another, and called him a coward, and everyone of them
appeared openly as if he were ready to smite him; but he calling
to one of them by name, and looking like a general to another,
and taking a third by the hand, and making a fourth ashamed of
himself, by praying him to forbear, and being in this condition
distracted with various passions, (as he well might in the great
distress he was then in,) he kept off every one of their swords
from killing him, and was forced to do like such wild beasts as
are encompassed about on every side, who always turn themselves
against those that last touched them. Nay, some of their right
hands were debilitated by the reverence they bare to their
general in these his fatal calamities, and their swords dropped
out of their hands; and not a few of them there were, who, when
they aimed to smite him with their swords, they were not
thoroughly either willing or able to do it.

7. However, in this extreme distress, he was not destitute of his
usual sagacity; but trusting himself to the providence of God, he
put his life into hazard [in the manner following]: "And now,"
said he, "since it is resolved among you that you will die, come
on, let us commit our mutual deaths to determination by lot. He
whom the lot falls to first, let him be killed by him that hath
the second lot, and thus fortune shall make its progress through
us all; nor shall any of us perish by his own right hand, for it
would be unfair if, when the rest are gone, somebody should
repent and save himself." This proposal appeared to them to be
very just; and when he had prevailed with them to determine this
matter by lots, he drew one of the lots for himself also. He who
had the first lot laid his neck bare to him that had the next, as
supposing that the general would die among them immediately; for
they thought death, if Josephus might but die with them, was
sweeter than life; yet was he with another left to the last,
whether we must say it happened so by chance, or whether by the
providence of God. And as he was very desirous neither to be
condemned by the lot, nor, if he had been left to the last, to
imbrue his right hand in the blood of his countrymen, he
persuaded him to trust his fidelity to him, and to live as well
as himself.

8. Thus Josephus escaped in the war with the Romans, and in this
his own war with his friends, and was led by Nicanor to
Vespasian. But now all the Romans ran together to see him; and as
the multitude pressed one upon another about their general, there
was a tumult of a various kind; while some rejoiced that Josephus
was taken, and some threatened him, and some crowded to see him
very near; but those that were more remote cried out to have this
their enemy put to death, while those that were near called to
mind the actions he had done, and a deep concern appeared at the
change of his fortune. Nor were there any of the Roman
commanders, how much soever they had been enraged at him before,
but relented when they came to the sight of him. Above all the
rest, Titus's own valor, and Josephus's own patience under his
afflictions, made him pity him, as did also the commiseration of
his age, when he recalled to mind that but a little while ago he
was fighting, but lay now in the hands of his enemies, which made
him consider the power of fortune, and how quick is the turn of
affairs in war, and how no state of men is sure; for which reason
he then made a great many more to be of the same pitiful temper
with himself, and induced them to commiserate Josephus. He was
also of great weight in persuading his father to preserve him.
However, Vespasian gave strict orders that he should be kept with
great caution, as though he would in a very little time send him
to Nero. (5)

9. When Josephus heard him give those orders, he said that he had
somewhat in his mind that he would willingly say to himself
alone. When therefore they were all ordered to withdraw,
excepting Titus and two of their friends, he said, "Thou, O
Vespasian, thinkest no more than that thou hast taken Josephus
himself captive; but I come to thee as a messenger of greater
tidings; for had not I been sent by God to thee, I knew what was
the law of the Jews in this case? and how it becomes generals to
die. Dost thou send me to Nero? For why? Are Nero's successors
till they come to thee still alive? Thou, O Vespasian, art Caesar
and emperor, thou, and this thy son. Bind me now still faster,
and keep me for thyself, for thou, O Caesar, are not only lord
over me, but over the land and the sea, and all mankind; and
certainly I deserve to be kept in closer custody than I now am
in, in order to be punished, if I rashly affirm any thing of
God." When he had said this, Vespasian at present did not believe
him, but supposed that Josephus said this as a cunning trick, in
order to his own preservation; but in a little time he was
convinced, and believed what he said to be true, God himself
erecting his expectations, so as to think of obtaining the
empire, and by other signs fore-showing his advancement. He also
found Josephus to have spoken truth on other occasions; for one
of those friends that were present at that secret conference said
to Josephus, "I cannot but wonder how thou couldst not foretell
to the people of Jotapata that they should be taken, nor couldst
foretell this captivity which hath happened to thyself, unless
what thou now sayest be a vain thing, in order to avoid the rage
that is risen against thyself." To which Josephus replied, "I did
foretell to the people of Jotapata that they would be taken on
the forty-seventh day, and that I should be caught alive by the
Romans." Now when Vespasian had inquired of the captives
privately about these predictions, he found them to be true, and
then he began to believe those that concerned himself. Yet did he
not set Josephus at liberty from his hands, but bestowed on him
suits of clothes, and other precious gifts; he treated him also
in a very obliging manner, and continued so to do, Titus still
joining his interest ill the honors that were done him.

CHAPTER 9.

How Joppa Was Taken, And Tiberias Delivered Up.

1. Now Vespasian returned to Ptolemais on the fourth day of the
month Panemus, [Tamus] and from thence he came to Cesarea, which
lay by the sea-side. This was a very great city of Judea, and for
the greatest part inhabited by Greeks: the citizens here received
both the Roman army and its general, with all sorts of
acclamations and rejoicings, and this partly out of the good-will
they bore to the Romans, but principally out of the hatred they
bore to those that were conquered by them; on which account they
came clamoring against Josephus in crowds, and desired he might
be put to death. But Vespasian passed over this petition
concerning him, as offered by the injudicious multitude, with a
bare silence. Two of the legions also he placed at Cesarea, that
they might there take their winter-quarters, as perceiving the
city very fit for such a purpose; but he placed the tenth and the
fifth at Scythopolis, that he might not distress Cesarea with the
entire army. This place was warm even in winter, as it was
suffocating hot in the summer time, by reason of its situation in
a plain, and near to the sea [of Galilee].

2. In the mean time, there were gathered together as well such as
had seditiously got out from among their enemies, as those that
had escaped out of the demolished cities, which were in all a
great number, and repaired Joppa, which had been left desolate by
Cestius, that it might serve them for a place of refuge; and
because the adjoining region had been laid waste in the war, and
was not capable of supporting them, they determined to go off to
sea. They also built themselves a great many piratical ships, and
turned pirates upon the seas near to Syria, and Phoenicia, and
Egypt, and made those seas unnavigable to all men. Now as soon as
Vespasian knew of their conspiracy, he sent both footmen and
horsemen to Joppa, which was unguarded in the night time;
however, those that were in it perceived that they should be
attacked, and were afraid of it; yet did they not endeavor to
keep the Romans out, but fled to their ships, and lay at sea all
night, out of the reach of their darts. 

3. Now Joppa is not naturally a haven, for it ends in a rough
shore, where all the rest of it is straight, but the two ends
bend towards each other, where there are deep precipices, and
great stones that jut out into the sea, and where the chains
wherewith Andromeda was bound have left their footsteps, which
attest to the antiquity of that fable. But the north wind opposes
and beats upon the shore, and dashes mighty waves against the
rocks which receive them, and renders the haven more dangerous
than the country they had deserted. Now as those people of Joppa
were floating about in this sea, in the morning there fell a
violent wind upon them; it is called by those that sail there
"the black north wind," and there dashed their ships one against
another, and dashed some of them against the rocks, and carried
many of them by force, while they strove against the opposite
waves, into the main sea; for the shore was so rocky, and had so
many of the enemy upon it, that they were afraid to come to land;
nay, the waves rose so very high, that they drowned them; nor was
there any place whither they could fly, nor any way to save
themselves; while they were thrust out of the sea, by the
violence of the wind, if they staid where they were, and out of
the city by the violence of the Romans. And much lamentation
there was when the ships were dashed against one another, and a
terrible noise when they were broken to pieces; and some of the
multitude that were in them were covered with waves, and so
perished, and a great many were embarrassed with shipwrecks. But
some of them thought that to die by their own swords was lighter
than by the sea, and so they killed themselves before they were
drowned; although the greatest part of them were carried by the
waves, and dashed to pieces against the abrupt parts of the
rocks, insomuch that the sea was bloody a long way, and the
maritime parts were full of dead bodies; for the Romans came upon
those that were carried to the shore, and destroyed them; and the
number of the bodies that were thus thrown out of the sea was
four thousand and two hundred. The Romans also took the city
without opposition, and utterly demolished it.

4. And thus was Joppa taken twice by the Romans in a little time;
but Vespasian, in order to prevent these pirates from coming
thither any more, erected a camp there, where the citadel of
Joppa had been, and left a body of horse in it, with a few
footmen, that these last might stay there and guard the camp, and
the horsemen might spoil the country that lay round it, and might
destroy the neighboring villages and smaller cities. So these
troops overran the country, as they were ordered to do, and every
day cut to pieces and laid desolate the whole region.

5. But now, when the fate of Jotapata was related at Jerusalem, a
great many at the first disbelieved it, on account of the
vastness of the calamity, and because they had no eye-witness to
attest the truth of what was related about it; for not one person
was saved to be a messenger of that news, but a fame was spread
abroad at random that the city was taken, as such fame usually
spreads bad news about. However, the truth was known by degrees,
from the places near Jotapata, and appeared to all to be too
true. Yet were there fictitious stories added to what was really
done; for it was reported that Josephus was slain at the taking
of the city, which piece of news filled Jerusalem full of sorrow.
In every house also, and among all to whom any of the slain were
allied, there was a lamentation for them; but the mourning for
the commander was a public one; and some mourned for those that
had lived with them, others for their kindred, others for their
friends, and others for their brethren, but all mourned for
Josephus; insomuch that the lamentation did not cease in the city
before the thirtieth day; and a great many hired mourners,(5)
with their pipes, who should begin the melancholy ditties for
them.

6. But as the truth came out in time, it appeared how the affairs
of Jotapata really stood; yet was it found that the death of
Josephus was a fiction; and when they understood that he was
alive, and was among the Romans, and that the commanders treated
him at another rate than they treated captives, they were as
vehemently angry at him now as they had showed their good-will
before, when he appeared to have been dead. He was also abused by
some as having been a coward, and by others as a deserter; and
the city was full of indignation at him, and of reproaches cast
upon him; their rage was also aggravated by their afflictions,
and more inflamed by their ill success; and what usually becomes
an occasion of caution to wise men, I mean affliction, became a
spur to them to venture on further calamities, and the end of one
misery became still the beginning of another; they therefore
resolved to fall on the Romans the more vehemently, as resolving
to be revenged on him in revenging themselves on the Romans. And
this was the state of Jerusalem as to the troubles which now came
upon it.

7. But Vespasian, in order to see the kingdom of Agrippa, while
the king persuaded himself so to do, (partly in order to his
treating the general and his army in the best and most splendid
manner his private affairs would enable him to do, and partly
that he might, by their means, correct such things as were amiss
in his government,) he removed from that Cesarea which was by the
sea-side, and went to that which is called Cesarea Philippi (6)
and there he refreshed his army for twenty days, and was himself
feasted by king Agrippa, where he also returned public thanks to
God for the good success he had had in his undertakings. But as
soon as he was informed that Tiberias was fond of innovations,
and that Tarichere had revolted, both which cities were parts of
the kingdom of Agrippa, and was satisfied within himself that the
Jews were every where perverted [from their obedience to their
governors], he thought it seasonable to make an expedition
against these cities, and that for the sake of Agrippa, and in
order to bring his cities to reason. So he sent away his son
Titus to [the other] Cesarea, that he might bring the army that
lay there to Seythopous, which is the largest city of Decapolis,
and in the neighborhood of Tiberias, whither he came, and where
he waited for his son. He then came with three legions, and
pitched his camp thirty furlongs off Tiberias, at a certain
station easily seen by the innovators; it is named Sennabris. He
also sent Valerian, a decurion, with fifty horsemen, to speak
peaceably to those that were in the city, and to exhort them to
give him assurances of their fidelity; for he had heard that the
people were desirous of peace, but were obliged by some of the
seditious part to join with them, and so were forced to fight for
them. When Valerian had marched up to the place, and was near the
wall, he alighted off his horse, and made those that were with
him to do the same, that they might not be thought to come to
skirmish with them; but before they could come to a discourse one
with another, the most potent men among the seditious made a
sally upon them armed; their leader was one whose name was Jesus,
the son of Shaphat, the principal head of a band of robbers. Now
Valerian, neither thinking it safe to fight contrary to the
commands of the general, though he were secure of a victory, and
knowing that it was a very hazardous undertaking for a few to
fight with many, for those that were unprovided to fight those
that were ready, and being on other accounts surprised at this
unexpected onset of the Jews, he ran away on foot, as did five of
the rest in like manner, and left their horses behind them; which
horses Jesus led away into the city, and rejoiced as if they had
taken them in battle, and not by treachery.

8. Now the seniors of the people, and such as were of principal
authority among them, fearing what would be the issue of this
matter, fled to the camp of the Romans; they then took their king
along with them, and fell down before Vespasian, to supplicate
his favor, and besought him not to overlook them, nor to impute
the madness of a few to the whole city, to spare a people that
have been ever civil and obliging to the Romans; but to bring the
authors of this revolt to due punishment, who had hitherto so
watched them, that though they were zealous to give them the
security of their right hands of a long time, yet could they not
accomplish the same. With these supplications the general
complied, although he were very angry at the whole city about the
carrying off his horses, and this because he saw that Agrippa was
under a great concern for them. So when Vespasian and Agrippa had
accepted of their right hands by way of security, Jesus and his
party thought it not safe for them to continue at Tiberias, so
they ran away to Tarichete. The next day Vespasian sent Trajan
before with some horsemen to the citadel, to make trial of the
multitude, whether they were all disposed for peace; and as soon
as he knew that the people were of the same mind with the
petitioner, he took his army, and went to the city; upon which
the citizens opened to him their gates, and met him with
acclamations of joy, and called him their savior and benefactor.
But as the army was a great while in getting in at the gates,
they were so narrow, Vespasian commanded the south wall to be
broken down, and so made a broad passage for their entrance.
However, he charged them to abstain from rapine and injustice, in
order to gratify the king; and on his account spared the rest of
the wall, while the king undertook for them that they should
continue [faithful to the Romans] for the time to come. And thus
did he restore this city to a quiet state, after it had been
grievously afflicted by the sedition. 

CHAPTER 10.

How Taricheae Was Taken. A Description Of The River Jordan, And
Of The Country Of Gennesareth.

1. And now Vespasian pitched his camp between this city and
Taricheae, but fortified his camp more strongly, as suspecting
that he should be forced to stay there, and have a long war; for
all the innovators had gotten together at Taricheae, as relying
upon the strength of the city, and on the lake that lay by it.
This lake is called by the people of the country the Lake of
Gennesareth. The city itself is situated like Tiberias, at the
bottom of a mountain, and on those sides which are not washed by
the sea, had been strongly fortified by Josephus, though not so
strongly as Tiberias; for the wall of Tiberias had been built at
the beginning of the Jews' revolt, when he had great plenty of
money, and great power, but Tarichese partook only the remains of
that liberality, Yet had they a great number of ships gotten
ready upon the lake, that, in case they were beaten at land, they
might retire to them; and they were so fitted up, that they might
undertake a Sea-fight also. But as the Romans were building a
wall about their camp, Jesu and his party were neither affrighted
at their number, nor at the good order they were in, but made a
sally upon them; and at the very first onset the builders of the
wall were dispersed; and these pulled what little they had before
built to pieces; but as soon as they saw the armed men getting
together, and before they had suffered any thing themselves, they
retired to their own men. But then the Romans pursued them, and
drove them into their ships, where they launched out as far as
might give them the opportunity of reaching the Romans with what
they threw at them, and then cast anchor, and brought their ships
close, as in a line of battle, and thence fought the enemy from
the sea, who were themselves at land. But Vespasian hearing that
a great multitude of them were gotten together in the plain that
was before the city, he thereupon sent his son, with six hundred
chosen horsemen, to disperse
them.

2. But when Titus perceived that the enemy was very numerous, he
sent to his father, and informed him that he should want more
forces. But as he saw a great many of the horsemen eager to
fight, and that before any succors could come to them, and that
yet some of them were privately under a sort of consternation at
the multitude of the Jews, he stood in a place whence he might be
heard, and said to them, "My brave Romans! for it is right for me
to put you in mind of what nation you are, in the beginning of my
speech, that so you may not be ignorant who you are, and who they
are against whom we are going to fight. For as to us, Romans, no
part of the habitable earth hath been able to escape our hands
hitherto; but as for the Jews, that I may speak of them too,
though they have been already beaten, yet do they not give up the
cause; and a sad thing it would be for us to grow wealthy under
good success, when they bear up under their misfortunes. As to
the alacrity which you show publicly, I see it, and rejoice at
it; yet am I afraid lest the multitude of the enemy should bring
a concealed fright upon some of you: let such a one consider
again, who we are that are to fight, and who those are against
whom we are to fight. Now these Jews, though they be very bold
and great despisers of death, are but a disorderly body, and
unskillful in war, and may rather be called a rout than an army;
while I need say nothing of our skill and our good order; for
this is the reason why we Romans alone are exercised for war in
time of peace, that we may not think of number for number when we
come to fight with our enemies: for what advantage should we reap
by our continual sort of warfare, if we must still be equal in
number to such as have not been used to war. Consider further,
that you are to have a conflict with men in effect unarmed, while
you are well armed; with footmen, while you are horsemen; with
those that have no good general, while you have one; and as these
advantages make you in effect manifold more than you are, so do
their disadvantages mightily diminish their number. Now it is not
the multitude of men, though they be soldiers, that manages wars
with success, but it is their bravery that does it, though they
be but a few; for a few are easily set in battle-array, and can
easily assist one another, while over-numerous armies are more
hurt by themselves than by their enemies. It is boldness and
rashness, the effects of madness, that conduct the Jews. Those
passions indeed make a great figure when they succeed, but are
quite extinguished upon the least ill success; but we are led on
by courage, and obedience, and fortitude, which shows itself
indeed in our good fortune, but still does not for ever desert us
in our ill fortune. Nay, indeed, your fighting is to be on
greater motives than those of the Jews; for although they run the
hazard of war for liberty, and for their country, yet what can be
a greater motive to us than glory? and that. it may never be
said, that after we have got dominion of the habitable earth, the
Jews are able to confront us. We must also reflect upon this,
that there is no fear of our suffering any incurable disaster in
the present case; for those that are ready to assist us are many,
and at hand also; yet it is in our power to seize upon this
victory ourselves; and I think we ought to prevent the coming of
those my father is sending to us for our assistance, that our
success may be peculiar to ourselves, and of greater reputation
to us. And I cannot but think this an opportunity wherein my
father, and I, and you shall be all put to the trial, whether he
be worthy of his former glorious performances, whether I be his
son in reality, and whether you be really my soldiers; for it is
usual for my father to conquer; and for myself, I should not bear
the thoughts of returning to him if I were once taken by the
enemy. And how will you be able to avoid being ashamed, if you do
not show equal courage with your commander, when he goes before
you into danger? For you know very well that I shall go into the
danger first, and make the first attack upon the enemy. Do not
you therefore desert me, but persuade yourselves that God will be
assisting to my onset. Know this also before we begin, that we
shall now have better success than we should have, if we were to
fight at a distance."

3. As Titus was saying this, an extraordinary fury fell upon the
men; and as Trajan was already come before the fight began, with
four hundred horsemen, they were uneasy at it, because the
reputation of the victory would be diminished by being common to
so many. Vespasian had also sent both Antonius and Silo, with two
thousand archers, and had given it them in charge to seize upon
the mountain that was over against the city, and repel those that
were upon the wall; which archers did as they were commanded, and
prevented those that attempted to assist them that way; And now
Titus made his own horse march first against the enemy, as did
the others with a great noise after him, and extended themselves
upon the plain as wide as the enemy which confronted them; by
which means they appeared much more numerous than they really
were. Now the Jews, although they were surprised at their onset,
and at their good order, made resistance against their attacks
for a little while; but when they were pricked with their long
poles, and overborne by the violent noise of the horsemen, they
came to be trampled under their feet; many also of them were
slain on every side, which made them disperse themselves, and run
to the city, as fast as every one of them were able. So Titus
pressed upon the hindmost, and slew them; and of the rest, some
he fell upon as they stood on heaps, and some he prevented, and
met them in the mouth, and run them through; many also he leaped
upon as they fell one upon another, and trod them down, and cut
off all the retreat they had to the wall, and turned them back
into the plain, till at last they forced a passage by their
multitude, and got away, and ran into the city.

4. But now there fell out a terrible sedition among them within
the city; for the inhabitants themselves, who had possessions
there, and to whom the city belonged, were not disposed to fight
from the very beginning; and now the less so, because they had
been beaten; but the foreigners, which were very numerous, would
force them to fight so much the more, insomuch that there was a
clamor and a tumult among them, as all mutually angry one at
another. And when Titus heard this tumult, for he was not far
from the wall, he cried out," Fellow soldiers, now is the time;
and why do we make any delay, when God is giving up the Jews to
us? Take the victory which is given you: do not you hear what a
noise they make? Those that have escaped our hands are ill an
uproar against one another. We have the city if we make haste;
but besides haste, we must undergo some labor, and use some
courage; for no great thing uses to be accomplished without
danger: accordingly, we must not only prevent their uniting
again, which necessity will soon compel them to do, but we must
also prevent the coming of our own men to our assistance, that,
as few as we are, we may conquer so great a multitude, and may
ourselves alone take the city:"

5. As soon as ever Titus had said this, he leaped upon his horse,
and rode apace down to the lake; by which lake he marched, and
entered into the city the first of them all, as did the others
soon after him. Hereupon those that were upon the walls were
seized with a terror at the boldness of the attempt, nor durst
any one venture to fight with him, or to hinder him; so they left
guarding the city, and some of those that were about Jesus fled
over the country, while others of them ran down to the lake, and
met the enemy in the teeth, and some were slain as they were
getting up into the ships, but others of them as they attempted
to overtake those that were already gone aboard. There was also a
great slaughter made in the city, while those foreigners that had
not fled away already made opposition; but the natural
inhabitants were killed without fighting: for in hopes of Titus's
giving them his right hand for their security, and out of a
consciousness that they had not given any consent to the war,
they avoided fighting, till Titus had slain the authors of this
revolt, and then put a stop to any further slaughters, out of
commiseration of these inhabitants of the place. But for those
that had fled to the lake, upon seeing the city taken, they
sailed as far as they possibly could from the enemy.

6. Hereupon Titus sent one of his horsemen to his father, and let
him know the good news of what he had done; at which, as was
natural, he was very joyful, both on account of the courage and
glorious actions of his son; for he thought that now the greatest
part of the war was over. He then came thither himself, and set
men to guard the city, and gave them command to take care that
nobody got privately out of it, but to kill such as attempted so
to do. And on the next day he went down to the lake, and
commanded that vessels should be fitted up, in order to pursue
those that had escaped in the ships. These vessels were quickly
gotten ready accordingly, because there was great plenty of
materials, and a great number of artificers also.

7. Now this lake of Gennesareth is so called from the country
adjoining to it. Its breadth is forty furlongs, and its length
one hundred and forty; its waters are sweet, and very agreeable
for drinking, for they are finer than the thick waters of other
fens; the lake is also pure, and on every side ends directly at
the shores, and at the sand; it is also of a temperate nature
when you draw it up, and of a more gentle nature than river or
fountain water, and yet always cooler than one could expect in so
diffuse a place as this is. Now when this water is kept in the
open air, it is as cold as that snow which the country people are
accustomed to make by night in summer. There are several kinds of
fish in it, different both to the taste and the sight from those
elsewhere. It is divided into two parts by the river Jordan. Now
Panium is thought to be the fountain of Jordan, but in reality it
is carried thither after an occult manner from the place called
Phiala: this place lies as you go up to Trachonitis, and is a
hundred and twenty furlongs from Cesarea, and is not far out of
the road on the right hand; and indeed it hath its name of Phiala
[vial or bowl] very justly, from the roundness of its
circumference, as being round like a wheel; its water continues
always up to its edges, without either sinking or running over.
And as this origin of Jordan was formerly not known, it was
discovered so to be when Philip was tetrarch of Trachonitis; for
he had chaff thrown into Phiala, and it was found at Paninto,
where the ancients thought the fountain-head of the river was,
whither it had been therefore carried [by the waters]. As for
Panium itself, its natural beauty had been improved by the royal
liberality of Agrippa, and adorned at his expenses. Now Jordan's
visible stream arises from this cavern, and divides the marshes
and fens of the lake Semechonitis; when it hath run another
hundred and twenty furlongs, it first passes by the city Julias,
and then passes through the middle of the lake Gennesareth; after
which it runs a long way over a desert, and then makes its exit
into the lake Asphaltitis.

8. The country also that lies over against this lake hath the
same name of Gennesareth; its nature is wonderful as well as its
beauty; its soil is so fruitful that all sorts of trees can grow
upon it, and the inhabitants accordingly plant all sorts of trees
there; for the temper of the air is so well mixed, that it agrees
very well with those several sorts, particularly walnuts, which
require the coldest air, flourish there in vast plenty; there are
palm trees also, which grow best in hot air; fig trees also and
olives grow near them, which yet require an air that is more
temperate. One may call this place the ambition of nature, where
it forces those plants that are naturally enemies to one another
to agree together; it is a happy contention of the seasons, as if
every one of them laid claim to this country; for it not only
nourishes different sorts of autumnal fruit beyond men's
expectation, but preserves them a great while; it supplies men
with the principal fruits, with grapes and figs continually,
during ten months of the year (7) and the rest of the fruits as
they become ripe together through the whole year; for besides the
good temperature of the air, it is also watered from a most
fertile fountain. The people of the country call it Capharnaum.
Some have thought it to be a vein of the Nile, because it
produces the Coracin fish as well as that lake does which is near
to Alexandria. The length of this country extends itself along
the banks of this lake that bears the same name for thirty
furlongs, and is in breadth twenty, And this is the nature of
that place.

9. But now, when the vessels were gotten ready, Vespasian put
upon ship-board as many of his forces as he thought sufficient to
be too hard for those that were upon the lake, and set sail after
them. Now these which were driven into the lake could neither fly
to the land, where all was in their enemies' hand, and in war
against them; nor could they fight upon the level by sea, for
their ships were small and fitted only for piracy; they were too
weak to fight with Vespasian's vessels, and the mariners that
were in them were so few, that they were afraid to come near the
Romans, who attacked them in great numbers. However, as they
sailed round about the vessels, and sometimes as they came near
them, they threw stones at the Romans when they were a good way
off, or came closer and fought them; yet did they receive the
greatest harm themselves in both cases. As for the stones they
threw at the Romans, they only made a sound one after another,
for they threw them against such as were in their armor, while
the Roman darts could reach the Jews themselves; and when they
ventured to come near the Romans, they became sufferers
themselves before they could do any harm to the ether, and were
drowned, they and their ships together. As for those that
endeavored to come to an actual fight, the Romans ran many of
them through with their long poles. Sometimes the Romans leaped
into their ships, with swords in their hands, and slew them; but
when some of them met the vessels, the Romans caught them by the
middle, and destroyed at once their ships and themselves who were
taken in them. And for such as were drowning in the sea, if they
lifted their heads up above the water, they were either killed by
darts, or caught by the vessels; but if, in the desperate case
they were in, they attempted to swim to their enemies, the Romans
cut off either their heads or their hands; and indeed they were
destroyed after various manners every where, till the rest being
put to flight, were forced to get upon the land, while the
vessels encompassed them about [on the sea]: but as many of these
were repulsed when they were getting ashore, they were killed by
the darts upon the lake; and the Romans leaped out of their
vessels, and destroyed a great many more upon the land: one might
then see the lake all bloody, and full of dead bodies, for not
one of them escaped. And a terrible stink, and a very sad sight
there was on the following days over that country; for as for the
shores, they were full of shipwrecks, and of dead bodies all
swelled; and as the dead bodies were inflamed by the sun, and
putrefied, they corrupted the air, insomuch that the misery was
not only the object of commiseration to the Jews, but to those
that hated them, and had been the authors of that misery. This
was the upshot of the sea-fight. The number of the slain,
including those that were killed in the city before, was six
thousand and five hundred.

10. After this fight was over, Vespasian sat upon his tribunal at
Taricheae, in order to distinguish the foreigners from the old
inhabitants; for those foreigners appear to have begun the war.
So he deliberated with the other commanders, whether he ought to
save those old inhabitants or not. And when those commanders
alleged that the dismission of them would be to his own
disadvantage, because, when they were once set at liberty, they
would not be at rest, since they would be people destitute of
proper habitations, and would he able to compel such as they fled
to fight against us, Vespasian acknowledged that they did not
deserve to be saved, and that if they had leave given them to fly
away, they would make use of it against those that gave them that
leave. But still he considered with himself after what manner
they should be slain (8) for if he had them slain there, he
suspected the people of the country would thereby become his
enemies; for that to be sure they would never bear it, that so
many that had been supplicants to him should be killed; and to
offer violence to them, after he had given them assurances of
their lives, he could not himself bear to do it. However, his
friends were too hard for him, and pretended that nothing against
Jews could be any impiety, and that he ought to prefer what was
profitable before what was fit to be done, where both could not
be made consistent. So he gave them an ambiguous liberty to do as
they advised, and permitted the prisoners to go along no other
road than that which led to Tiberias only. So they readily
believed what they desired to be true, and went along securely,
with their effects, the way which was allowed them, while the
Romans seized upon all the road that led to Tiberias, that none
of them might go out of it, and shut them up in the city. Then
came Vespasian, and ordered them all to stand in the stadium, and
commanded them to kill the old men, together with the others that
were useless, which were in number a thousand and two hundred.
Out of the young men he chose six thousand of the strongest, and
sent them to Nero, to dig through the Isthmus, and sold the
remainder for slaves, being thirty thousand and four hundred,
besides such as he made a present of to Agrippa; for as to those
that belonged to his kingdom, he gave him leave to do what he
pleased with them; however, the king sold these also for slaves;
but for the rest of the multitude, who were Trachonites, and
Gaulanites, and of Hippos, and some of Gadara, the greatest part
of them were seditious persons and fugitives, who were of such
shameful characters, that they preferred war before peace. These
prisoners were taken on the eighth day of the month Gorpiaeus
[Elul].

WAR BOOK 3 NOTES

(1) Take the confirmation of this in the words of Suetonius, here
produced by Dr. Hudson: "In the reign of Claudius," says he,
"Vespasian, for the sake of Narcissus, was sent as a lieutenant
of a legion into Germany. Thence he removed into Britain "
battles with the enemy." In Vesp. sect. 4. We may also here note
from Josephus, that Claudius the emperor, who triumphed for the
conquest of Britain, was enabled so to do by Vespasian's conduct
and bravery, and that he is here styled "the father of
Vespasian."

(2) Spanheim and Reland both agree, that the two cities here
esteemed greater than Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, were Rome
and Alexandria; nor is there any occasion for doubt in so plain a
case.

(3) This description of the exact symmetry and regularity of the
Roman army, and of the Roman encampments, with the sounding their
trumpets, etc. and order of war, described in this and the next
chapter, is so very like to the symmetry and regularity of the
people of Israel in the wilderness, (see Description of the
Temples, ch. 9.,) that one cannot well avoid the supposal, that
the one was the ultimate pattern of the other, and that the
tactics of the ancients were taken from the rules given by God to
Moses. And it is thought by some skillful in these matters, that
these accounts of Josephus, as to the Roman camp and armor, and
conduct in war, are preferable to those in the Roman authors
themselves.

(4) I cannot but here observe an Eastern way of speaking,
frequent among them, but not usual among us, where the word
"only" or "alone" is not set down, but perhaps some way supplied
in the pronunciation. Thus Josephus here says, that those of
Jotapata slew seven of the Romans as they were marching off,
because the Romans' retreat was regular, their bodies were
covered over with their armor, and the Jews fought at some
distance; his meaning is clear, that these were the reasons why
they slew only, or no more than seven. I have met with many the
like examples in the Scriptures, in Josephus, etc.; but did not
note down the particular places. This observation ought to be
borne in mind upon many occasions.

(5) These public mourners, hired upon the supposed death of
Josephus, and the real death of many more, illustrate some
passages in the Bible, which suppose the same custom, as Matthew
11:17, where the reader may consult the notes of Grotius.

(6) Of this Cesarea Philippi (twice mentioned in our New
Testament, Matthew 16:13; Mark 8;27) there are coins still
extant, Spanheim here informs us.

(7) I do not know where to find the law of Moses here mentioned
by Josephus, and afterwards by Eleazar, 13. VII. ch. 8. sect. 7,
and almost implied in B. I. ch. 13. sect. 10, by Josephus's
commendation of Phasaelus for doing so; I mean, whereby Jewish
generals and people were obliged to kill themselves, rather than
go into slavery under heathens. I doubt this would have been no
better than "self-murder;" and I believe it was rather some vain
doctrine, or interpretation, of the rigid Pharisees, or Essens,
or Herodiaus, than a just consequence from any law of God
delivered by Moses.

(7) It may be worth our while to observe here, that near this
lake of Gennesareth grapes and figs hang on the trees ten months
of the year. We may observe also, that in Cyril of Jerusalem,
Cateehes. 18. sect. 3, which was delivered not long before
Easter, there were no fresh leaves of fig trees, nor bunches of
fresh grapes in Judea; so that when St. Mark says, ch. 11. ver.
13, that our Savior, soon after the same time of the year, came
and "found leaves" on a fig tree near Jerusalem, but "no figs,
because the time of" new "figs" ripening "was not yet," he says
very true; nor were they therefore other than old leaves which
our Savior saw, and old figs which he expected, and which even
with us commonly hang on the trees all winter long.

(8) This is the most cruel and barbarous action that Vespasian
ever did in this whole war, as he did it with great reluctance
also. It was done both after public assurance given of sparing
the prisoners' lives, and when all knew and confessed that these
prisoners were no way guilty of any sedition against the Romans.
Nor indeed did Titus now give his consent, so far as appears, nor
ever act of himself so barbarously; nay, soon after this, Titus
grew quite weary of shedding blood, and of punishing the innocent
with the guilty, and gave the people of Gischala leave to keep
the Jewish sabbath, B. IV. ch. 2. sect. 3, 5, in the midst of
their siege. Nor was Vespasian disposed to do what he did, till
his officers persuaded him, and that from two principal topics,
viz. that nothing could be unjust that was done against Jews; and
that when both cannot be consistent, advantage must prevail over
justice. Admirable court doctrines these!

BOOK IV.
                       
  Containing The Interval Of About One Year.
                        
  
    From The Siege Of Gamala To The Coming
        Of Titus To Besiege Jerusalem.
                        
  
                  CHAPTER 1.
                       
                       
        The Siege And Taking Of Gamala.
                        
1. Now all those Galileans who, after the taking of Jotapata,  
had revolted from the Romans, did, upon the conquest of

Taricheae, deliver themselves up to them again. And the
Romans received all the fortresses and the cities, excepting
Gischala and those that had seized upon Mount Tabor; Gamala also,
which is a city ever against Tarichem, but on the other side of
the lake, conspired with them. This city lay Upon the borders of
Agrippa's kingdom, as also did Sogana and Scleucia. And these
were both parts of Gaulanitis; for Sogana was a part of that
called the Upper Gaulanitis, as was Gamala of the Lower; while
Selcucia was situated at the lake Semechouitis, which lake is
thirty furlongs in breadth, and sixty in length; its marshes
reach as far as the place Daphne, which in other respects is a
delicious place, and hath such fountains as supply water to what
is called Little Jordan, under the temple of the golden calf, (1)
where it is sent into Great Jordan. Now Agrippa had united Sogana
and Seleucia by leagues to himself, at the very beginning of the
revolt from the Romans; yet did not Gamala accede to them, but
relied upon the difficulty of the place, which was greater than
that of Jotapata, for it was situated upon a rough ridge of a
high mountain, with a kind of neck in the middle: where it begins
to ascend, it lengthens itself, and declines as much downward
before as behind, insomuch that it is like a camel in figure,
from whence it is so named, although the people of the
  country do not pronounce it accurately. Both on the side and
the face there are abrupt parts divided from the rest, and ending
in vast deep valleys; yet are the parts behind, where they are
joined to the mountain, somewhat easier of ascent than the other;
but then the people belonging to the place have cut an oblique
ditch there, and made that hard to be ascended also. On its
acclivity, which is straight, houses are built, and those very
thick and close to one another. The city also hangs so strangely,
that it looks as if it would fall down upon itself, so sharp is
it at the top. It is exposed to the south, and its southern
mount, which reaches to an immense height, was in the nature of a
citadel to the city; and above that was a precipice, not walled
about, but extending itself to an immense depth. There was also a
spring of water within the wall, at the utmost limits of the
city.
  
  2. As this city was naturally hard to be taken, so had
  Josephus, by building a wall about it, made it still stronger,
as also by ditches and mines under ground. The people that
  were in it were made more bold by the nature of the place than
the people of Jotapata had been, but it had much fewer fighting
men in it; and they had such a confidence in the situation of the
place, that they thought the enemy could not be too many for
them; for the city had been filled with those that had fled to it
for safety, on account of its strength; on which account they had
been able to resist those whom
  Agrippa sent to besiege it for seven months together.
  
  3. But Vespasian removed from Emmaus, where he had last
  pitched his camp before the city Tiberias, (now Emmaus, if it
be interpreted, may be rendered "a warm bath," for therein is a
spring of warm water, useful for healing,) and came to Gamala;
yet was its situation such that he was not able to encompass it
all round with soldiers to watch it; but where the places were
practicable, he set men to watch it, and seized upon the mountain
which was over it. And as the
  legions, according to their usual custom, were fortifying their
camp upon that mountain, he began to cast up banks at the bottom,
at the part towards the east, where the highest tower of the
whole city was, and where the fifteenth legion pitched their
camp; while the fifth legion did duty over against the midst of
the city, and whilst the tenth legion filled up the ditches and
the valleys. Now at this time it was that as king Agrippa was
come nigh the walls, and was endeavoring to
  speak to those that were on the walls about a surrender, he was
hit with a stone on his right elbow by one of the slingers; he
was then immediately surrounded with his own men. But the Romans
were excited to set about the siege, by their indignation on the
king's account, and by their fear on their own account, as
concluding that those men would omit no
  kinds of barbarity against foreigners and enemies, who where so
enraged against one of their own nation, and one that advised
them to nothing but what was for their own
  advantage.
  
  4. Now when the banks were finished, which was done on the
sudden, both by the multitude of hands, and by their being
accustomed to such work, they brought the machines; but
  Chares and Joseph, who were the most potent men in the
  city, set their armed men in order, though already in a fright,
because they did not suppose that the city could hold out long,
since they had not a sufficient quantity either of water, or of
other necessaries. However, these their leaders
  encouraged them, and brought them out upon the wall, and for a
while indeed they drove away those that were bringing the
machines; but when those machines threw darts and
  stones at them, they retired into the city; then did the Romans
bring battering rams to three several places, and made the wall
shake [and fall]. They then poured in over the parts of the wall
that were thrown down, with a mighty sound of trumpets and noise
of armor, and with a shout of the
  soldiers, and brake in by force upon those that were in the
city; but these men fell upon the Romans for some time, at their
first entrance, and prevented their going any further, and with
great courage beat them back; and the Romans
  were so overpowered by the greater multitude of the people, who
beat them on every side, that they were obliged to run into the
upper parts of the city. Whereupon the people
  turned about, and fell upon their enemies, who had attacked
them, and thrust them down to the lower parts, and as they were
distressed by the narrowness and difficulty of the place, slew
them; and as these Romans could neither beat those
  back that were above them, nor escape the force of their own
men that were forcing their way forward, they were
  compelled to fly into their enemies' houses, which were low;
but these houses being thus full, of soldiers, whose weight they
could not bear, fell down suddenly; and when one house fell, it
shook down a great many of those that were under it, as did those
do to such as were under them. By this means a vast number of the
Romans perished; for they were so
  terribly distressed, that although they saw the houses
  subsiding, they were compelled to leap upon the tops of
  them; so that a great many were ground to powder by these
ruins, and a great many of those that got from under them lost
some of their limbs, but still a greater number were suffocated
by the dust that arose from those ruins. The
  people of Gamala supposed this to be an assistance afforded
them by God, and without regarding what damage they
  suffered themselves, they pressed forward, and thrust the enemy
upon the tops of their houses; and when they
  stumbled in the sharp and narrow streets, and were
  perpetually falling down, they threw their stones or darts at
them, and slew them. Now the very ruins afforded them
  stones enow; and for iron weapons, the dead men of the
  enemies' side afforded them what they wanted; for drawing the
swords of those that were dead, they made use of them to despatch
such as were only half dead; nay, there were a great number who,
upon their falling down from the tops of the houses, stabbed
themselves, and died after that manner; nor indeed was it easy
for those that were beaten back to fly away; for they were so
unacquainted with the ways, and the dust was so thick, that they
wandered about without knowing one another, and fell down dead
among the crowd.
  
  5. Those therefore that were able to find the ways out of the
city retired. But now Vespasian always staid among those that
were hard set; for he was deeply affected with seeing the ruins
of the city falling upon his army, and forgot to take care of his
own preservation. He went up gradually towards the highest parts
of the city before he was aware, and was left in the midst of
dangers, having only a very few with him; for even his son Titus
was not with him at that time, having been then sent into Syria
to Mucianus. However, he thought it not safe to fly, nor did he
esteem it a fit thing for him to do; but calling to mind the
actions he had done from his youth, and recollecting his courage,
as if he had been excited by a divine fury, he covered himself
and those that were with him with their shields, and formed a
testudo over both their bodies and their armor, and bore up
against the enemy's attacks, who came running down from the top
of the city; and without showing any dread at the multitude of
the men or of their darts, he endured all, until the enemy took
notice of that divine courage that was within him, and remitted
of their attacks; and when they pressed less zealously upon him,
he retired, though without showing his back to them till he was
gotten out of the walls of the city. Now a great number of the
Romans fell in this battle, among whom was Ebutius, the
  decurion, a man who appeared not only in this engagement,
wherein he fell, but every where, and in former engagements, to
be of the truest courage, and one that had done very great
mischief to the Jews. But there was a centurion whose name was
Gallus, who, during this disorder, being encompassed about, he
and ten other soldiers privately crept into the house of a
certain person, where he heard them talking at supper, what the
people intended to do against the Romans, or about themselves
(for both the man himself and those with him
  were Syrians). So he got up in the night time, and cut all
their throats, and escaped, together with his soldiers, to the
Romans.
  
  6. And now Vespasian comforted his army, which was much
  dejected by reflecting on their ill success, and because they
had never before fallen into such a calamity, and besides this,
because they were greatly ashamed that they had left their
general alone in great dangers. As to what concerned himself, he
avoided to say any thing, that he might by no means seem to
complain of it; but he said that "we ought to bear manfully what
usually falls out in war, and this, by considering what the
nature of war is, and how it can never be that we must conquer
without bloodshed on our own side; for there stands about us that
fortune which is of its own nature mutable; that while they had
killed so many ten thousands of the Jews, they had now paid their
small share of the reckoning to fate; and as it is the part of
weak people to be too much puffed up with good success, so is it
the part of cowards to be too much aftrighted at that which is
ill; for the change from the one to the other is sudden on both
sides; and he is the best warrior who is of a sober mind under
misfortunes, that he may
  continue in that temper, and cheerfully recover what had been
lost formerly; and as for what had now happened, it was neither
owing to their own effeminacy, nor to the valor of the Jews, but
the difficulty of the place was the occasion of their advantage,
and of our disappointment. Upon reflecting on which matter one
might blame your zeal as perfectly
  ungovernable; for when the enemy had retired to their
  highest fastnesses, you ought to have restrained yourselves,
and not, by presenting yourselves at the top of the city, to be
exposed to dangers; but upon your having obtained the lower parts
of the city, you ought to have provoked those that had retired
thither to a safe and settled battle; whereas, in rushing so
hastily upon victory, you took no care of your safety. But this
incautiousness in war, and this madness of zeal, is not a Roman
maxim. While we perform all that we attempt by skill and good
order, that procedure is the part of barbarians, and is what the
Jews chiefly support themselves by. We ought therefore to return
to our own virtue, and to be rather angry than any longer
dejected at this unlucky misfortune, and let every one seek for
his own consolation from his own hand; for by this means he will
avenge those that have been
  destroyed, and punish those that have killed them. For
  myself, I will endeavor, as I have now done, to go first before
you against your enemies in every engagement, and to be the last
that retires from it."
  
  7. So Vespasian encouraged his army by this speech; but for the
people of Gamala, it happened that they took courage for a little
while, upon such great and unaccountable success as they had had.
But when they considered with themselves that they had now no
hopes of any terms of accommodation, and reflecting upon it that
they could not get away, and that their provisions began already
to be short, they were exceedingly cast down, and their courage
failed them; yet did they not neglect what might be for their
preservation, so far as they were able, but the most courageous
among them guarded
  those parts of the wall that were beaten down, while the more
infirm did the same to the rest of the wall that still remained
round the city. And as the Romans raised their
  banks, and attempted to get into the city a second time, a
great many of them fled out of the city through impracticable
valleys, where no guards were placed, as also through
  subterraneous caverns; while those that were afraid of being
caught, and for that reason staid in the city, perished for want
of food; for what food they had was brought together from all
quarters, and reserved for the fighting men.
  
  8. And these were the hard circumstances that the people of
Gamala were in. But now Vespasian went about other work
  by the by, during this siege, and that was to subdue those that
had seized upon Mount Tabor, a place that lies in the middle
between the great plain and Scythopolis, whose top is
  elevated as high as thirty furlongs (2) and is hardly to be
ascended on its north side; its top is a plain of twenty-six
furlongs, and all encompassed with a wall. Now Josephus
  erected this so long a wall in forty days' time, and furnished
it with other materials, and with water from below, for the
inhabitants only made use of rain water. As therefore there was a
great multitude of people gotten together upon this mountain,
Vespasian sent Placidus with six hundred
  horsemen thither. Now, as it was impossible for him to
  ascend the mountain, he invited many of them to peace, by the
offer of his right hand for their security, and of his
intercession for them. Accordingly they came down, but with a
treacherous design, as well as he had the like treacherous design
upon them on the other side; for Placidus spoke
  mildly to them, as aiming to take them, when he got them into
the plain; they also came down, as complying with his proposals,
but it was in order to fall upon him when he was not aware of it:
however, Placidus's stratagem was too hard for theirs; for when
the Jews began to fight, he pretended to run away, and when they
were in pursuit of the Romans, he enticed them a great way along
the plain, and then made his horsemen turn back; whereupon he
beat them, and slew a
  great number of them, and cut off the retreat of the rest of
the multitude, and hindered their return. So they left Tabor, and
fled to Jerusalem, while the people of the country came to terms
with him, for their water failed them, and so they delivered up
the mountain and themselves to Placidus.
  
  9. But of the people of Gamala, those that were of the bolder
sort fled away and hid themselves, while the more infirm perished
by famine; but the men of war sustained the siege till the two
and twentieth day of the month Hyperberetmus, [Tisri,] when three
soldiers of the fifteenth legion, about the morning watch, got
under a high tower that was near them, and undermined it, without
making any noise; nor when they either came to it, which was in
the night time, nor when they were under it, did those that
guarded it perceive them. These soldiers then upon their coming
avoided making a noise, and when they had rolled away five of its
strongest stones, they went away hastily; whereupon the tower
fell down on a
  sudden, with a very great noise, and its guard fell headlong
with it; so that those that kept guard at other places were under
such disturbance, that they ran away; the Romans also slew many
of those that ventured to oppose them, among
  whom was Joseph, who was slain by a dart, as he was running
away over that part of the wall that was broken down: but as
those that were in the city were greatly aftrighted at the noise,
they ran hither and thither, and a great consternation fell upon
them, as though all the enemy had fallen in at once upon them.
Then it was that Chares, who was ill, and under the physician's
hands, gave up the ghost, the fear he was in greatly contributing
to make his distemper fatal to him. But the Romans so well
remembered their former ill success, that they did not enter the
city till the three and twentieth day of the forementioned month.
  
  10. At which time Titus, who was now returned, out of the
indignation he had at the destruction the Romans had
  undergone while he was absent, took two hundred chosen
  horsemen and some footmen with him, and entered without
  noise into the city. Now as the watch perceived that he was
coming, they made a noise, and betook themselves to their arms;
and as that his entrance was presently known to those that were
in the city, some of them caught hold of their children and their
wives, and drew them after them, and fled away to the citadel,
with lamentations and cries, while others of them went to meet
Titus, and were killed perpetually; but so many of them as were
hindered from running up to the
  citadel, not knowing what in the world to do, fell among the
Roman guards, while the groans of those that were killed were
prodigiously great every where, and blood ran down
  over all the lower parts of the city, from the upper. But then
Vespasian himself came to his assistance against those that had
fled to the citadel, and brought his whole army with him; now
this upper part of the city was every way rocky, and difficult of
ascent, and elevated to a vast altitude, and very full of people
on all sides, and encompassed with precipices, whereby the Jews
cut off those that came up to them, and did much mischief to
others by their darts, and the large stones which they rolled
down upon them, while they were
  themselves so high that the enemy's darts could hardly reach
them. However, there arose such a Divine storm against them as
was instrumental to their destruction; this carried the Roman
darts upon them, and made those which they threw
  return back, and drove them obliquely away from them; nor could
the Jews indeed stand upon their precipices, by reason of the
violence of the wind, having nothing that was stable to stand
upon, nor could they see those that were ascending up to them; so
the Romans got up and surrounded them, and
  some they slew before they could defend themselves, and
  others as they were delivering up themselves; and the
  remembrance of those that were slain at their former
  entrance into the city increased their rage against them now; a
great number also of those that were surrounded on every side,
and despaired of escaping, threw their children and their wives,
and themselves also, down the precipices, into the valley
beneath, which, near the citadel, had been dug hollow to a vast
depth; but so it happened, that the anger of the Romans appeared
not to be so extravagant as was the
  madness of those that were now taken, while the Romans
  slew but four thousand, whereas the number of those that had
thrown themselves down was found to be five thousand: nor did any
one escape except two women, who were the
  daughters of Philip, and Philip himself was the son of a
certain eminent man called Jacimus, who had been general of king
Agrippa's army; and these did therefore escape, because they lay
concealed from the rage of the Romans when the
  city was taken; for otherwise they spared not so much as the
infants, of which many were flung down by them from the
  citadel. And thus was Gamala taken on the three and
  twentieth day of the month Hyperberetens, [Tisri,] whereas the
city had first revolted on the four and twentieth day of the
month Gorpieus [Elul].
      CHAPTER 2.
         
         
        
  The Surrender Of Gischala; While John Flies Away From It To     
 Jerusalem.
        
  1. Now no place of Galilee remained to be taken but the
  small city of Gischala, whose multitude yet were desirous of
peace; for they were generally husbandmen, and always
  applied themselves to cultivate the fruits of the earth.
However, there were a great number that belonged to a band of
robbers, that were already corrupted, and had crept in among
them, and some of the governing part of the citizens were sick of
the same distemper. It was John, the son of a certain man whose
name was Levi, that drew them into this rebellion, and encouraged
them in it. He was a cunning
  knave, and of a temper that could put on various shapes; very
rash in expecting great things, and very sagacious in bringing
about what he hoped for. It was known to every body that he was
fond of war, in order to thrust himself into authority; and the
seditious part of the people of Gischala were under his
management, by whose means the populace, who seemed
  ready to send ambassadors in order to a surrender, waited for
the coming of the Romans in battle-array. Vespasian sent against
them Titus, with a thousand horsemen, but withdrew the tenth
legion to Scythopolis, while he returned to Cesarea with the two
other legions, that he might allow them to
  refresh themselves after their long and hard campaign,
  thinking withal that the plenty which was in those cities would
improve their bodies and their spirits, against the difficulties
they were to go through afterwards; for he saw there would be
occasion for great pains about Jerusalem, which was not yet
taken, because it was the royal city, and the principal city of
the whole nation, and because those that had run away from the
war in other places got all together thither. It was also
naturally strong, and the walls that were built round it made him
not a little concerned about it. Moreover, he esteemed the men
that were in it to be so
  courageous and bold, that even without the consideration of the
walls, it would be hard to subdue them; for which reason he took
care of and exercised his soldiers beforehand for the work, as
they do wrestlers before they begin their
  undertaking.
  
  2. Now Titus, as he rode ut to Gischala, found it would be easy
for him to take the city upon the first onset; but knew withal,
that if he took it by force, the multitude would be destroyed by
the soldiers without mercy. (Now he was already satiated with the
shedding of blood, and pitied the major part, who would then
perish, without distinction, together with the guilty.) So he was
rather desirous the city might be surrendered up to him on terms.
Accordingly, when he saw the wall full of those men that were of
the corrupted party, he said to them, That he could not but
wonder what it was they depended on, when they alone staid to
fight the
  Romans, after every other city was taken by them, especially
when they have seen cities much better fortified than theirs is
overthrown by a single attack upon them; while as many as have
intrusted themselves to the security of the Romans' right hands,
which he now offers to them, without regarding their former
insolence, do enjoy their own possessions in safety; for that
while they had hopes of recovering their liberty, they might be
pardoned; but that their continuance still in their opposition,
when they saw that to be impossible, was inexcusable; for that if
they will not comply with such humane offers, and right hands for
security, they should have experience of such a war as would
spare nobody, and should soon be made sensible that their wall
would be but a trifle, when battered by the Roman machines; in
depending on
  which they demonstrate themselves to be the only Galileans that
were no better than arrogant slaves and captives.
  
  3. Now none of the populace durst not only make a reply, but
durst not so much as get upon the wall, for it was all taken up
by the robbers, who were also the guard at the gates, in order to
prevent any of the rest from going out, in order to propose terms
of submission, and from receiving any of the horsemen into the
city. But John returned Titus this answer: That for himself he
was content to hearken to his proposals, and that he would either
persuade or force those that refused them. Yet he said that Titus
ought to have such regard to the Jewish law, as to grant them
leave to celebrate that day, which was the seventh day of the
week, on which it was
  unlawful not only to remove their arms, but even to treat of
peace also; and that even the Romans were not ignorant how the
period of the seventh day was among them a cessation from all
labors; and that he who should compel them to
  transgress the law about that day would be equally guilty with
those that were compelled to transgress it: and that this delay
could be of no disadvantage to him; for why should any body think
of doing any thing in the night, unless it was to fly away? which
he might prevent by placing his camp round
  about them; and that they should think it a great point
  gained, if they might not be obliged to transgress the laws of
their country; and that it would be a right thing for him, who
designed to grant them peace, without their expectation of such a
favor, to preserve the laws of those they saved
  inviolable. Thus did this man put a trick upon Titus, not so
much out of regard to the seventh day as to his own
  preservation, for he was afraid lest he should be quite
  deserted if the city should be taken, and had his hopes of life
in that night, and in his flight therein. Now this was the work
of God, who therefore preserved this John, that he might bring on
the destruction of Jerusalem; as also it was his work that Titus
was prevailed with by this pretense for a delay, and that he
pitched his camp further off the city at Cydessa. This Cydessa
was a strong Mediterranean village of the Tyrians, which always
hated and made war against the Jews; it had also a great number
of inhabitants, and was well fortified, which made it a proper
place for such as were enemies to the Jewish nation.
  
  4. Now, in the night time, when John saw that there was no
Roman guard about the city, he seized the opportunity
  directly, and, taking with him not only the armed men that
where about him, but a considerable number of those that had
little to do, together with their families, he fled to Jerusalem.
And indeed, though the man was making haste to get away, and was
tormented with fears of being a captive, or of losing his life,
yet did he prevail with himself to take out of the city along
with him a multitude of women and
  children, as far as twenty furlongs; but there he left them as
he proceeded further on his journey, where those that were left
behind made sad lamentations; for the farther every one of them
was come from his own people, the nearer they
  thought themselves to be to their enemies. They also
  affrighted themselves with this thought, that those who would
carry them into captivity were just at hand, and still turned
themselves back at the mere noise they made themselves in this
their hasty flight, as if those from whom they fled were just
upon them. Many also of them missed their ways, and the
earnestness of such as aimed to outgo the rest threw down many of
them. And indeed there was a miserable
  destruction made of the women and children; while some of them
took courage to call their husbands and kinsmen back, and to
beseech them, with the bitterest lamentations, to stay for them;
but John's exhortation, who cried out to them to save themselves,
and fly away, prevailed. He said also, that if the Romans should
seize upon those whom they left behind, they would be revenged on
them for it. So this multitude that run thus away was dispersed
abroad, according as each of them was able to run, one faster or
slower than another. 
  5. Now on the next day Titus came to the wall, to make the
agreement; whereupon the people opened their gates to him, and
came out to him, with their children and wives, and
  made acclamations of joy to him, as to one that had been their
benefactor, and had delivered the city out of custody; they also
informed him of John's flight, and besought him to spare them,
and to come in, and bring the rest of those that were for
innovations to punishment. But Titus, not so much regarding the
supplications of the people, sent part of his horsemen to pursue
after John, but they could not overtake him, for he was gotten to
Jerusalem before; they also slew six thousand of the women and
children who went out with him, but returned back, and brought
with them almost three
  thousand. However, Titus was greatly displeased that he had not
been able to bring this John, who had deluded him, to punishment;
yet he had captives enough, as well as the
  corrupted part of the city, to satisfy his anger, when it
missed of John. So he entered the city in the midst of
acclamations of joy; and when he had given orders to the soldiers
to pull down a small part of the wall, as of a city taken in war,
he repressed those that had disturbed the city rather by
  threatenings than by executions; for he thought that many would
accuse innocent persons, out of their own private
  animosities and quarrels, if he should attempt to distinguish
those that were worthy of punishment from the rest; and that it
was better to let a guilty person alone in his fears, that to
destroy with him any one that did not deserve it; for that
probably such a one might be taught prudence, by the fear of the
punishment he had deserved, and have a shame upon him for his
former offenses, when he had been forgiven; but that the
punishment of such as have been once put to death could never be
retrieved. However, he placed a garrison in the city for its
security, by which means he should restrain those that were for
innovations, and should leave those that were
  peaceably disposed in greater security. And thus was all
Galilee taken, but this not till after it had cost the Romans
much pains before it could be taken by them.
  
      CHAPTER 3.
         
         
        
  Concerning John Of Gischala. Concerning The Zealots And The
High Priest Ananus; As Also How The Jews Raise Seditions One
Against     Another [In Jerusalem].
        
  1. Now upon John's entry into Jerusalem, the whole body of the
people were in an uproar, and ten thousand of them
  crowded about every one of the fugitives that were come to
them, and inquired of them what miseries had happened
  abroad, when their breath was so short, and hot, and quick,
that of itself it declared the great distress they were in; yet
did they talk big under their misfortunes, and pretended to say
that they had not fled away from the Romans, but came thither in
order to fight them with less hazard; for that it would be an
unreasonable and a fruitless thing for them to expose themselves
to desperate hazards about Gischala, and such weak cities,
whereas they ought to lay up their weapons and their zeal, and
reserve it for their metropolis. But when they related to them
the taking of Gischala, and their decent departure, as they
pretended, from that place, many of the people understood it to
be no better than a flight; and
  especially when the people were told of those that were made
captives, they were in great confusion, and guessed those things
to be plain indications that they should be taken also. But for
John, he was very little concerned for those whom he had left
behind him, but went about among all the people, and persuaded
them to go to war, by the hopes he gave
  them. He affirmed that the affairs of the Romans were in a weak
condition, and extolled his own power. He also jested upon the
ignorance of the unskillful, as if those Romans, although they
should take to themselves wings, could never fly over the wall of
Jerusalem, who found such great
  difficulties in taking the villages of Galilee, and had broken
their engines of war against their walls.
  
  2. These harangues of John's corrupted a great part of the
young men, and puffed them up for the war; but as to the more
prudent part, and those in years, there was not a man of them but
foresaw what was coming, and made lamentation on that account, as
if the city was already undone; and in this confusion were the
people. But then it must be observed, that the multitude that
came out of the country were at discord before the Jerusalem
sedition began; for Titus went from Gischala to Cesates, and
Vespasian from Cesarea to Jamnia and Azotus, and took them both;
and when he had put
  garrisons into them, he came back with a great number of the
people, who were come over to him, upon his giving them his right
hand for their preservation. There were besides
  disorders and civil wars in every city; and all those that were
at quiet from the Romans turned their hands one against
  another. There was also a bitter contest between those that
were fond of war, and those that were desirous for peace. At the
first this quarrelsome temper caught hold of private families,
who could not agree among themselves; after which those people
that were the dearest to one another brake
  through all restraints with regard to each other, and every one
associated with those of his own opinion, and began
  already to stand in opposition one to another; so that
  seditions arose every where, while those that were for
  innovations, and were desirous of war, by their youth and
boldness, were too hard for the aged and prudent men. And, in the
first place, all the people of every place betook themselves to
rapine; after which they got together in bodies, in order to rob
the people of the country, insomuch that for barbarity and
iniquity those of the same nation did no way differ from the
Romans; nay, it seemed to be a much lighter thing to be ruined by
the Romans than by themselves.
  
  3. Now the Roman garrisons, which guarded the cities, partly
out of their uneasiness to take such trouble upon them, and
partly out of the hatred they bare to the Jewish nation, did
little or nothing towards relieving the miserable, till the
captains of these troops of robbers, being satiated with rapines
in the country, got all together from all parts, and became a
band of wickedness, and all together crept into Jerusalem, which
was now become a city without a governor, and, as the ancient
custom was, received without distinction all that belonged to
their nation; and these they then
  received, because all men supposed that those who came so fast
into the city came out of kindness, and for their
  assistance, although these very men, besides the seditions they
raised, were otherwise the direct cause of the city's destruction
also; for as they were an unprofitable and a useless multitude,
they spent those provisions beforehand which might otherwise have
been sufficient for the fighting men. Moreover, besides the
bringing on of the war, they were the occasions of sedition and
famine therein.
  
  4. There were besides these other robbers that came out of the
country, and came into the city, and joining to them those that
were worse than themselves, omitted no kind of
  barbarity; for they did not measure their courage by their
rapines and plunderings only, but preceded as far as
  murdering men; and this not in the night time or privately, or
with regard to ordinary men, but did it openly in the day time,
and began with the most eminent persons in the city; for the
first man they meddled with was Antipas, one of the royal
lineage, and the most potent man in the whole city, insomuch that
the public treasures were committed to his care; him they took
and confined; as they did in the next place to Levias, a person
of great note, with Sophas, the son of Raguel, both which were of
royal lineage also. And besides these, they did the same to the
principal men of the country. This caused a terrible
consternation among the people, and everyone contented himself
with taking care of his own
  safety, as they would do if the city had been taken in war. 
  5. But these were not satisfied with the bonds into which they
had put the men forementioned; nor did they think it safe for
them to keep them thus in custody long, since they were men very
powerful, and had numerous families of their own that were able
to avenge them. Nay, they thought the very people would perhaps
be so moved at these unjust proceedings, as to rise in a body
against them; it was therefore resolved to have them slain
accordingly, they sent one John, who was the most bloody-minded
of them all, to do that execution: this man was also called "the
son of Dorcas," (3) in the language of our country. Ten more men
went along with him into the
  prison, with their swords drawn, and so they cut the throats of
those that were in custody there. The grand lying pretence these
men made for so flagrant an enormity was this, that these men had
had conferences with the Romans for a
  surrender of Jerusalem to them; and so they said they had slain
only such as were traitors to their common liberty. Upon the
whole, they grew the more insolent upon this bold prank of
theirs, as though they had been the benefactors and saviors of
the city.
  
  6. Now the people were come to that degree of meanness
  and fear, and these robbers to that degree of madness, that
these last took upon them to appoint high priests. (4) So when
they had disannulled the succession, according to those families
out of which the high priests used to be made, they ordained
certain unknown and ignoble persons for that office, that they
might have their assistance in their wicked
  undertakings; for such as obtained this highest of all honors,
without any desert, were forced to comply with those that
bestowed it on them. They also set the principal men at
  variance one with another, by several sorts of contrivances and
tricks, and gained the opportunity of doing what they pleased, by
the mutual quarrels of those who might have
  obstructed their measures; till at length, when they were
satiated with the unjust actions they had done towards men, they
transferred their contumelious behavior to God himself, and came
into the sanctuary with polluted feet.
  
  7. And now the multitude were going to rise against them
already; for Ananus, the ancientest of the high priests,
persuaded them to it. He was a very prudent man, and had perhaps
saved the city if he could but have escaped the hands of those
that plotted against him. These men made the
  temple of God a strong hold for them, and a place whither they
might resort, in order to avoid the troubles they feared from the
people; the sanctuary was now become a refuge,
  and a shop of tyranny. They also mixed jesting among the
miseries they introduced, which was more intolerable than what
they did; for in order to try what surprise the people would be
under, and how far their own power extended, they undertook to
dispose of the high priesthood by casting lots for it, whereas,
as we have said already, it was to descend by succession in a
family. The pretense they made for this
  strange attempt was an ancient practice, while they said that
of old it was determined by lot; but in truth, it was no better
than a dissolution of an undeniable law, and a cunning
  contrivance to seize upon the government, derived from those
that presumed to appoint governors as they themselves
  pleased.
  
  8. Hereupon they sent for one of the pontifical tribes, which
is called Eniachim, (5) and cast lots which of it should be the
high priest. By fortune the lot so fell as to demonstrate their
iniquity after the plainest manner, for it fell upon one whose
name was Phannias, the son of Samuel, of the village Aphtha. He
was a man not only unworthy of the high priesthood, but that did
not well know what the high priesthood was, such a mere rustic
was he ! yet did they hail this man, without his own consent, out
of the country, as if they were acting a play upon the stage, and
adorned him with a counterfeit thee; they also put upon him the
sacred garments, and upon every occasion instructed him what he
was to do. This horrid piece of wickedness was sport and pastime
with them, but
  occasioned the other priests, who at a distance saw their law
made a jest of, to shed tears, and sorely lament the
  dissolution of such a sacred dignity.
  
  9. And now the people could no longer bear the insolence of
this procedure, but did all together run zealously, in order to
overthrow that tyranny; and indeed they were Gorion the son of
Josephus, and Symeon the son of Gamaliel, (6) who
  encouraged them, by going up and down when they were
  assembled together in crowds, and as they saw them alone, to
bear no longer, but to inflict punishment upon these pests and
plagues of their freedom, and to purge the temple of these bloody
polluters of it. The best esteemed also of the high priests,
Jesus the son of Gamalas, and Ananus the son of Ananus when they
were at their assemblies, bitterly
  reproached the people for their sloth, and excited them
  against the zealots; for that was the name they went by, as if
they were zealous in good undertakings, and were not rather
zealous in the worst actions, and extravagant in them beyond the
example of others.
  
  10. And now, when the multitude were gotten together to an
assembly, and every one was in indignation at these men's seizing
upon the sanctuary, at their rapine and murders, but had not yet
begun their attacks upon them, (the reason of which was this,
that they imagined it to be a difficult thing to suppress these
zealots, as indeed the case was,) Ananus stood in the midst of
them, and casting his eyes frequently at the temple, and having a
flood of tears in his eyes, he said, "Certainly it had been good
for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many
abominations, or these
  sacred places, that ought not to be trodden upon at random,
filled with the feet of these blood-shedding villains; yet do I,
who am clothed with the vestments of the high priesthood, and am
called by that most venerable name [of high priest], still live,
and am but too fond of living, and cannot endure to undergo a
death which would be the glory of my old age; and if I were the
only person concerned, and as it were in a desert, I would give
up my life, and that alone for God's sake; for to what purpose is
it to live among a people
  insensible of their calamities, and where there is no notion
remaining of any remedy for the miseries that are upon
  them? for when you are seized upon, you bear it! and when you
are beaten, you are silent! and when the people are
  murdered, nobody dare so much as send out a groan openly! O
bitter tyranny that we are under! But why do I complain of the
tyrants? Was it not you, and your sufferance of them, that have
nourished them? Was it not you that overlooked those that first
of all got together, for they were then but a few, and by your
silence made them grow to be many; and by
  conniving at them when they took arms, in effect armed them
against yourselves? You ought to have then prevented their first
attempts, when they fell a reproaching your relations; but by
neglecting that care in time, you have encouraged these wretches
to plunder men. When houses were pillaged, nobody said a word,
which was the occasion why they carried off the owners of those
houses; and when they were drawn through the midst of the city,
nobody came to their assistance. They then proceeded to put those
whom you have betrayed into
  their hands into bonds. I do not say how many and of what
characters those men were whom they thus served; but
  certainly they were such as were accused by none, and
  condemned by none; and since nobody succored them when
  they were put into bonds, the consequence was, that you saw the
same persons slain. We have seen this also; so that still the
best of the herd of brute animals, as it were, have been still
led to be sacrificed, when yet nobody said one word, or moved his
right hand for their preservation. Will you bear, therefore, will
you bear to see your sanctuary trampled on? and will you lay
steps for these profane wretches, upon which they may mount to
higher degrees of insolence? Will not you pluck them down from
their exaltation? for even by this time they had proceeded to
higher enormities, if they had been able to overthrow any thing
greater than the sanctuary. They have seized upon the strongest
place of the whole city; you may call it the temple, if you
please, though it be like a citadel or fortress. Now, while you
have tyranny in so great a degree walled in, and see your enemies
over your heads, to what purpose is it to take counsel? and what
have you to support your minds withal? Perhaps you wait for the
Romans, that they may protect our holy places: are our matters
then brought to that pass? and are we come to that degree of
  misery, that our enemies themselves are expected to pity us? O
wretched creatures! will not you rise up and turn upon those that
strike you? which you may observe in wild beasts themselves, that
they will avenge themselves on those that strike them. Will you
not call to mind, every one of you, the calamities you yourselves
have suffered? nor lay before your eyes what afflictions you
yourselves have undergone? and will not such things sharpen your
souls to revenge? Is therefore that most honorable and most
natural of our passions utterly lost, I mean the desire of
liberty? Truly we are in love with slavery, and in love with
those that lord it over us, as if we had received that principle
of subjection from our ancestors; yet did they undergo many and
great wars for the sake of liberty, nor were they so far overcome
by the power of the Egyptians, or the Medes, but that still they
did what they thought fit, notwithstanding their commands to the
contrary. And what occasion is there now for a war with the
Romans? (I meddle not with determining whether it be an
  advantageous and profitable war or not.) What pretense is there
for it? Is it not that we may enjoy our liberty? Besides, shall
we not bear the lords of the habitable earth to be lords over us,
and yet bear tyrants of our own country? Although I must say that
submission to foreigners may be borne, because fortune hath
already doomed us to it, while submission to wicked people of our
own nation is too unmanly, and brought upon us by our own
consent. However, since I have had
  occasion to mention the Romans, I will not conceal a thing
that, as I am speaking, comes into my mind, and affects me
considerably; it is this, that though we should be taken by them,
(God forbid the event should be so!) yet can we
  undergo nothing that will be harder to be borne than what these
men have already brought upon us. How then can we
  avoid shedding of tears, when we see the Roman donations in our
temple, while we withal see those of our own nation taking our
spoils, and plundering our glorious metropolis, and slaughtering
our men, from which enormities those Romans themselves would have
abstained? to see those Romans never going beyond the bounds
allotted to profane persons, nor venturing to break in upon any
of our sacred customs; nay, having a horror on their minds when
they view at a distance those sacred walls; while some that have
been born in this very country, and brought up in our customs,
and called Jews, do walk about in the midst of the holy places,
at the very time when their hands are still warm with the
slaughter of their own countrymen. Besides, can any one be afraid
of a war abroad, and that with such as will have comparatively
much greater moderation than our own people have? For
  truly, if we may suit our words to the things they represent,
it is probable one may hereafter find the Romans to be the
  supporters of our laws, and those within ourselves the
  subverters of them. And now I am persuaded that every one of
you here comes satisfied before I speak that these
  overthrowers of our liberties deserve to be destroyed, and that
nobody can so much as devise a punishment that they have not
deserved by what they have done, and that you are all provoked
against them by those their wicked actions, whence you have
suffered so greatly. But perhaps many of you are aftrighted at
the multitude of those zealots, and at their audaciousness, as
well as at the advantage they have over us in their being higher
in place than we are; for these circumstances, as they have been
occasioned by your
  negligence, so will they become still greater by being still
longer neglected; for their multitude is every day augmented, by
every ill man's running away to those that are like to
themselves, and their audaciousness is therefore inflamed,
because they meet with no obstruction to their designs. And for
their higher place, they will make use of it for engines also, if
we give them time to do so; but be assured of this, that if we go
up to fight them, they will be made tamer by their own
consciences, and what advantages they have in the height of their
situation they will lose by the opposition of their reason;
perhaps also God himself, who hath been
  affronted by them, will make what they throw at us return
against themselves, and these impious wretches will be killed by
their own darts: let us but make our appearance before them, and
they will come to nothing. However, it is a right thing, if there
should be any danger in the attempt, to die before these holy
gates, and to spend our very lives, if not for the sake of our
children and wives, yet for God's sake, and for the sake of his
sanctuary. I will assist you both with my counsel and with my
hand; nor shall any sagacity of ours be wanting for your support;
nor shall you see that I will be sparing of my body neither."
  
  11. By these motives Ananus encouraged the multitude to go
against the zealots, although he knew how difficult it would be
to disperse them, because of their multitude, and their youth,
and the courage of their souls; but chiefly because of their
consciousness of what they had done, since they would not yield,
as not so much as hoping for pardon at the last for those their
enormities. However, Ananus resolved to undergo whatever
sufferings might come upon him, rather than
  overlook things, now they were in such great confusion. So the
multitude cried out to him, to lead them on against those whom he
had described in his exhortation to them, and every one of them
was most readily disposed to run any hazard
  whatsoever on that account.
  
  12. Now while Ananus was choosing out his men, and putting
those that were proper for his purpose in array for fighting, the
zealots got information of his undertaking, (for there were some
who went to them, and told them all that the
  people were doing,) and were irritated at it, and leaping out
of the temple in crowds, and by parties, spared none whom they
met with. Upon this Ananus got the populace together on the
sudden, who were more numerous indeed than the
  zealots, but inferior to them in arms, because they had not
been regularly put into array for fighting; but the alacrity that
every body showed supplied all their defects on both sides, the
citizens taking up so great a passion as was stronger than arms,
and deriving a degree of courage from the temple more forcible
than any multitude whatsoever; and indeed these citizens thought
it was not possible for them to dwell in the city, unless they
could cut off the robbers that were in it. The zealots also
thought that unless they prevailed, there would be no punishment
so bad but it would be inflicted on them. So their conflicts were
conducted by their passions; and at the first they only cast
stones at each other in the city, and before the temple, and
threw their javelins at a distance; but when either of them were
too hard for the other, they made use of their swords; and great
slaughter was made on both sides, and a great number were
wounded. As for the dead
  bodies of the people, their relations carried them out to their
own houses; but when any of the zealots were wounded, he went up
into the temple, and defiled that sacred floor with his blood,
insomuch that one may say it was their blood alone that polluted
our sanctuary. Now in these conflicts the
  robbers always sallied out of the temple, and were too hard for
their enemies; but the populace grew very angry, and became more
and more numerous, and reproached those that gave back, and those
behind would not afford room to those that were going off, but
forced them on again, till at length they made their whole body
to turn against their adversaries, and the robbers could no
longer oppose them, but were
  forced gradually to retire into the temple; when Ananus and his
party fell into it at the same time together with them. (7) This
horribly affrighted the robbers, because it deprived them of the
first court; so they fled into the inner court
  immediately, and shut the gates. Now Ananus did not think fit
to make any attack against the holy gates, although the other
threw their stones and darts at them from above. He also deemed
it unlawful to introduce the multitude into that court before
they were purified; he therefore chose out of them all by lot six
thousand armed men, and placed them as guards in the cloisters;
so there was a succession of such guards one after another, and
every one was forced to attend in his course; although many of
the chief of the city were dismissed by those that then took on
them the government, upon their hiring some of the poorer sort,
and sending them to keep the guard in their stead.
  
  13. Now it was John who, as we told you, ran away from
  Gischala, and was the occasion of all these being destroyed. He
was a man of great craft, and bore about him in his soul a strong
passion after tyranny, and at a distance was the adviser in these
actions; and indeed at this time he pretended to be of the
people's opinion, and went all about with Ananus
  when he consulted the great men every day, and in the night
time also when he went round the watch; but he divulged
  their secrets to the zealots, and every thing that the people
deliberated about was by his means known to their enemies, even
before it had been well agreed upon by themselves. And by way of
contrivance how he might not be brought into
  suspicion, he cultivated the greatest friendship possible with
Ananus, and with the chief of the people; yet did this
  overdoing of his turn against him, for he flattered them so
extravagantly, that he was but the more suspected; and his
constant attendance every where, even when he was not
  invited to be present, made him strongly suspected of
  betraying their secrets to the enemy; for they plainly
  perceived that they understood all the resolutions taken
against them at their consultations. Nor was there any one whom
they had so much reason to suspect of that discovery as this
John; yet was it not easy to get quit of him, so potent was he
grown by his wicked practices. He was also supported by many of
those eminent men, who were to be consulted
  upon all considerable affairs; it was therefore thought
  reasonable to oblige him to give them assurance of his
good-will upon oath; accordingly John took such an oath readily,
that he would be on the people's side, and would not betray any
of their counsels or practices to their enemies, and would assist
them in overthrowing those that attacked them, and that both by
his hand and his advice. So Ananus and his party believed his
oath, and did now receive him to their
  consultations without further suspicion; nay, so far did they
believe him, that they sent him as their ambassador into the
temple to the zealots, with proposals of accommodation; for they
were very desirous to avoid the pollution of the temple as much
as they possibly could, and that no one of their nation should be
slain therein.
  
  14. But now this John, as if his oath had been made to the
zealots, and for confirmation of his good-will to them, and not
against them, went into the temple, and stood in the midst of
them, and spake as follows: That he had run many hazards o, their
accounts, and in order to let them know of every thing that was
secretly contrived against them by
  Ananus and his party; but that both he and they should be cast
into the most imminent danger, unless some providential
assistance were afforded them; for that Ananus made no
  longer delay, but had prevailed with the people to send
  ambassadors to Vespasian, to invite him to come presently and
take the city; and that he had appointed a fast for the next day
against them, that they might obtain admission into the temple on
a religious account, or gain it by force, and fight with them
there; that he did not see how long they could either endure a
siege, or how they could fight against so many enemies. He added
further, that it was by the
  providence of God he was himself sent as an ambassador to them
for an accommodation; for that Artanus did therefore offer them
such proposals, that he might come upon them
  when they were unarmed; that they ought to choose one of these
two methods, either to intercede with those that
  guarded them, to save their lives, or to provide some foreign
assistance for themselves; that if they fostered themselves with
the hopes of pardon, in case they were subdued, they had
forgotten what desperate things they had done, or could suppose,
that as soon as the actors repented, those that had suffered by
them must be presently reconciled to them; while those that have
done injuries, though they pretend to repent of them, are
frequently hated by the others for that sort of repentance; and
that the sufferers, when they get the power into their hands, are
usually still more severe upon the actors; that the friends and
kindred of those that had been destroyed would always be laying
plots against them; and that a large body of people were very
angry on account of their gross breaches of their laws, and
[illegal] judicatures, insomuch that although some part might
commiserate them, those would be quite overborne by the majority.
  
      CHAPTER 4.
         
         
        
  The Idumeans Being Sent For By The Zealots, Came Immediately To
Jerusalem; And When They Were Excluded Out Of The City, They Lay
All Night There. Jesus One Of The High Priests Makes A Speech To
Them; And Simon The Idumean Makes A Reply To It.
        
  1. Now, by this crafty speech, John made the zealots afraid;
yet durst he not directly name what foreign assistance he meant,
but in a covert way only intimated at the Idumeans. But now, that
he might particularly irritate the leaders of the zealots, he
calumniated Ananus, that he was about a piece of barbarity, and
did in a special manner threaten them. These leaders were
Eleazar, the son of Simon, who seemed the
  most plausible man of them all, both in considering what was
fit to be done, and in the execution of what he had
  determined upon, and Zacharias, the son of Phalek; both of whom
derived their families from the priests. Now when
  these two men had heard, not only the common threatenings which
belonged to them all, but those peculiarly leveled against
themselves; and besides, how Artanus and his party, in order to
secure their own dominion, had invited the
  Romans to come to them, for that also was part of John's lie;
they hesitated a great while what they should do, considering the
shortness of the time by which they were straitened; because the
people were prepared to attack them very soon, and because the
suddenness of the plot laid against them had almost cut off all
their hopes of getting any foreign
  assistance; for they might be under the height of their
  afflictions before any of their confederates could be informed
of it. However, it was resolved to call in the Idumeans; so they
wrote a short letter to this effect: That Ananus had imposed on
the people, and was betraying their metropolis to the Romans;
that they themselves had revolted from the rest, and were in
custody in the temple, on account of the
  preservation of their liberty; that there was but a small time
left wherein they might hope for their deliverance; and that
unless they would come immediately to their assistance, they
should themselves be soon in the power of Artanus, and the city
would be in the power of the Romans. They also charged the
messengers to tell many more circumstances to the rulers of the
Idumeans. Now there were two active men proposed
  for the carrying this message, and such as were able to speak,
and to persuade them that things were in this posture, and, what
was a qualification still more necessary than the former, they
were very swift of foot; for they knew well enough that these
would immediately comply with their desires, as being ever a
tumultuous and disorderly nation, always on the watch upon every
motion, delighting in mutations; and upon your flattering them
ever so little, and petitioning them, they soon take their arms,
and put themselves into motion, and make haste to a battle, as if
it were to a feast. There was indeed occasion for quick despatch
in the carrying of this message, in which point the messengers
were no way defective. Both their names were Ananias; and they
soon came to the rulers of the Idumeans.
  
  2. Now these rulers were greatly surprised at the contents of
the letter, and at what those that came with it further told
them; whereupon they ran about the nation like madmen,
  and made proclamation that the people should come to war; so a
multitude was suddenly got together, sooner indeed than the time
appointed in the proclamation, and every body
  caught up their arms, in order to maintain the liberty of their
metropolis; and twenty thousand of them were put into
  battle-array, and came to Jerusalem, under four commanders,
John, and Jacob the son of Sosas; and besides these were Simon,
the son of Cathlas, and Phineas, the son of Clusothus. 
  3. Now this exit of the messengers was not known either to
Ananus or to the guards, but the approach of the Idumeans was
known to him; for as he knew of it before they came, he ordered
the gates to be shut against them, and that the walls should be
guarded. Yet did not he by any means think of
  fighting against them, but, before they came to blows, to try
what persuasions would do. Accordingly, Jesus, the eldest of the
high priests next to Artanus, stood upon the tower that was over
against them, and said thus: "Many troubles indeed, and those of
various kinds, have fallen upon this city, yet in none of them
have I so much wondered at her fortune as
  now, when you are come to assist wicked men, and this after a
manner very extraordinary; for I see that you are come to support
the vilest of men against us, and this with so great alacrity, as
you could hardly put on the like, in case our metropolis had
called you to her assistance against
  barbarians. And if I had perceived that your army was
  composed of men like unto those who invited them, I had
  not deemed your attempt so absurd; for nothing does so
  much cement the minds of men together as the alliance there is
between their manners. But now for these men who have invited
you, if you were to examine them one by one, every one of them
would be found to have deserved ten thousand deaths; for the very
rascality and offscouring of the whole country, who have spent in
debauchery their own substance, and, by way of trial beforehand,
have madly plundered the neighboring villages and cities, in the
upshot of all, have privately run together into this holy city.
They are robbers, who by their prodigious wickedness have
profaned this most sacred floor, and who are to be now seen
drinking themselves drunk in the sanctuary, and expending the
spoils of those whom they have slaughtered upon their unsatiable
bellies. As for the multitude that is with you, one may see them
so
  decently adorned in their armor, as it would become them to be
had their metropolis called them to her assistance against
foreigners. What can a man call this procedure of yours but the
sport of fortune, when he sees a whole nation coming to protect a
sink of wicked wretches? I have for a good while been in doubt
what it could possibly be that should move you to do this so
suddenly; because certainly you would not take on your armor on
the behalf of robbers, and against a people of kin to you,
without some very great cause for your so doing. But we have an
item that the Romans are pretended, and that we are supposed to
be going to betray this city to them; for some of your men have
lately made a clamor about those matters, and have said they are
come to set their
  metropolis free. Now we cannot but admire at these wretches in
their devising such a lie as this against us; for they knew there
was no other way to irritate against us men that were naturally
desirous of liberty, and on that account the best disposed to
fight against foreign enemies, but by framing a tale as if we
were going to betray that most desirable thing, liberty. But you
ought to consider what sort of people they are that raise this
calumny, and against what sort of people that calumny is raised,
and to gather the truth of things, not by fictitious speeches,
but out of the actions of both parties; for what occasion is
there for us to sell ourselves to the Romans, while it was in our
power not to have revolted from them at the first, or when we had
once revolted, to have returned under their dominion again, and
this while the
  neighboring countries were not yet laid waste? whereas it is
not an easy thing to be reconciled to the Romans, if we were
desirous of it, now they have subdued Galilee, and are
  thereby become proud and insolent; and to endeavor to
  please them at the time when they are so near us, would
  bring such a reproach upon us as were worse than death. As for
myself, indeed, I should have preferred peace with them before
death; but now we have once made war upon them,
  and fought with them, I prefer death, with reputation, before
living in captivity under them. But further, whether do they
pretend that we, who are the rulers of the people, have sent thus
privately to the Romans, or hath it been done by the common
suffrages of the people? If it be ourselves only that have done
it, let them name those friends of ours that have been sent, as
our servants, to manage this treachery. Hath any one been caught
as he went out on this errand, or seized upon as he came back?
Are they in possession of our letters? How could we be concealed
from such a vast number of our fellow citizens, among whom we are
conversant every hour, while what is done privately in the
country is, it seems, known by the zealots, who are but few in
number, and under
  confinement also, and are not able to come out of the temple
into the city. Is this the first time that they are become
sensible how they ought to be punished for their insolent
actions? For while these men were free from the fear they are now
under, there was no suspicion raised that any of us were
traitors. But if they lay this charge against the people, this
must have been done at a public consultation, and not one of the
people must have dissented from the rest of the assembly; in
which case the public fame of this matter would have come to you
sooner than any particular indication. But how could that be?
Must there not then have been
  ambassadors sent to confirm the agreements? And let them tell
us who this ambassador was that was ordained for that purpose.
But this is no other than a pretense of such men as are loath to
die, and are laboring to escape those
  punishments that hang over them; for if fate had determined
that this city was to be betrayed into its enemies' hands, no
other than these men that accuse us falsely could have the
impudence to do it, there being no wickedness wanting to complete
their impudent practices but this only, that they become
traitors. And now you Idumeans are come hither
  already with your arms, it is your duty, in the first place, to
be assisting to your metropolis, and to join with us in cutting
off those tyrants that have infringed the rules of our regular
tribunals, that have trampled upon our laws, and made their
swords the arbitrators of right and wrong; for they have seized
upon men of great eminence, and under no accusation, as they
stood in the midst of the market-place, and tortured them with
putting them into bonds, and, without bearing to hear what they
had to say, or what supplications they made, they destroyed them.
You may, if you please, come into the city, though not in the way
of war, and take a view of the marks still remaining of what I
now say, and may see the houses that have been depopulated by
their rapacious hands, with those wives and families that are in
black, mourning for their slaughtered relations; as also you may
hear their groans and lamentations all the city over; for there
is nobody but hath tasted of the incursions of these profane
wretches, who have proceeded to that degree of madness, as not
only to have transferred their impudent robberies out of the
country, and the remote cities, into this city, the very face and
head of the whole nation, but out of the city into the temple
also; for that is now made their receptacle and refuge, and the
  fountain-head whence their preparations are made against us.
And this place, which is adored by the habitable world, and
honored by such as only know it by report, as far as the ends of
the earth, is trampled upon by these wild beasts born among
ourselves. They now triumph in the desperate
  condition they are already in, when they hear that one people
is going to fight against another people, and one city against
another city, and that your nation hath gotten an army
  together against its own bowels. Instead of which procedure, it
were highly fit and reasonable, as I said before, for you to join
with us in cutting off these wretches, and in particular to be
revenged on them for putting this very cheat upon you; I mean,
for having the impudence to invite you to assist them, of whom
they ought to have stood in fear, as ready to punish them. But if
you have some regard to these men's invitation of you, yet may
you lay aside your arms, and come into the city under the notion
of our kindred, and take upon you a middle name between that of
auxiliaries and of enemies, and so become judges in this case.
However, consider what these men will gain by being called into
judgment before you, for such undeniable and such flagrant
crimes, who would not
  vouchsafe to hear such as had no accusations laid against them
to speak a word for themselves. However, let them gain this
advantage by your coming. But still, if you will neither take our
part in that indignation we have at these men, nor judge between
us, the third thing I have to propose is this, that you let us
both alone, and neither insult upon our
  calamities, nor abide with these plotters against their
  metropolis; for though you should have ever so great a
  suspicion that some of us have discoursed with the Romans, it
is in your power to watch the passages into the city; and in case
any thing that we have been accused of is brought to light, then
to come and defend your metropolis, and to inflict punishment on
those that are found guilty; for the enemy cannot prevent you who
are so near to the city. But if, after all, none of these
proposals seem acceptable and moderate, do not you wonder that
the gates are shut against you, while you bear your arms about
you."
  
  4. Thus spake Jesus; yet did not the multitude of the
  Idumeans give any attention to what he said, but were in a
rage, because they did not meet with a ready entrance into the
city. The generals also had indignation at the offer of laying
down their arms, and looked upon it as equal to a captivity, to
throw them away at any man's injunction
  whomsoever. But Simon, the son of Cathlas, one of their
  commanders, with much ado quieted the tumult of his own
  men, and stood so that the high priests might hear him, and
said as follows: "I can no longer wonder that the patrons of
liberty are under custody in the temple, since there are those
that shut the gates of our common city (8) to their own
  nation, and at the same time are prepared to admit the
  Romans into it; nay, perhaps are disposed to crown the gates
with garlands at their coming, while they speak to the
  Idumeans from their own towers, and enjoin them to throw down
their arms which they have taken up for the
  preservation of its liberty. And while they will not intrust
the guard of our metropolis to their kindred, profess to make
them judges of the differences that are among them; nay, while
they accuse some men of having slain others without a legal
trial, they do themselves condemn a whole nation after an
ignominious manner, and have now walled up that city
  from their own nation, which used to be open to even all
foreigners that came to worship there. We have indeed come in
great haste to you, and to a war against our own
  countrymen; and the reason why we have made such haste is this,
that we may preserve that freedom which you are so unhappy as to
betray. You have probably been guilty of the like crimes against
those whom you keep in custody, and
  have, I suppose, collected together the like plausible
  pretenses against them also that you make use of against us;
after which you have gotten the mastery of those within the
temple, and keep them in custody, while they are only taking care
of the public affairs. You have also shut the gates of the city
in general against nations that are the most nearly related to
you; and while you give such injurious commands to others, you
complain that you have been tyrannized over by them, and fix the
name of unjust governors upon such as are tyrannized over by
yourselves. Who can bear this your abuse of words, while they
have a regard to the contrariety of your actions, unless you mean
this, that those Idumeans do now exclude you out of your
metropolis, whom you exclude from the sacred offices of your own
country? One may
  indeed justly complain of those that are besieged in the
temple, that when they had courage enough to punish those tyrants
whom you call eminent men, and free from any
  accusations, because of their being your companions in
  wickedness, they did not begin with you, and thereby cut off
beforehand the most dangerous parts of this treason. But if these
men have been more merciful than the public necessity required,
we that are Idumeans will preserve this house of God, and will
fight for our common country, and will oppose by war as well
those that attack them from abroad, as those that betray them
from within. Here will we abide before the walls in our armor,
until either the Romans grow weary in waiting for you, or you
become friends to liberty, and repent of what you have done
against it."
  
  5. And now did the Idumeans make an acclamation to what
  Simon had said; but Jesus went away sorrowful, as seeing that
the Idumeans were against all moderate counsels, and that the
city was besieged on both sides. Nor indeed were the minds of the
Idumeans at rest; for they were in a rage at the injury that had
been offered them by their exclusion out of the city; and when
they thought the zealots had been strong, but saw nothing of
theirs to support them, they were in doubt about the matter, and
many of them repented that they had come thither. But the shame
that would attend them in case they returned without doing any
thing at all, so far overcame that their repentance, that they
lay all night before the wall, though in a very bad encampment;
for there broke out a
  prodigious storm in the night, with the utmost violence, and
very strong winds, with the largest showers of rain, with
continued lightnings, terrible thunderings, and amazing
  concussions and bellowings of the earth, that was in an
  earthquake. These things were a manifest indication that some
destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was
put into this disorder; and any one would guess that these
wonders foreshowed some grand calamities that were coming.
  
  6. Now the opinion of the Idumeans and of the citizens was one
and the same. The Idumeans thought that God was angry at their
taking arms, and that they would not escape
  punishment for their making war upon their metropolis.
  Ananus and his party thought that they had conquered
  without fighting, and that God acted as a general for them; but
truly they proved both ill conjectures at what was to come, and
made those events to be ominous to their enemies, while they were
themselves to undergo the ill effects of them; for the Idumeans
fenced one another by uniting their bodies into one band, and
thereby kept themselves warm, and
  connecting their shields over their heads, were not so much
hurt by the rain. But the zealots were more deeply concerned for
the danger these men were in than they were for
  themselves, and got together, and looked about them to see
whether they could devise any means of assisting them. The hotter
sort of them thought it best to force their guards with their
arms, and after that to fall into the midst of the city, and
publicly open the gates to those that came to their
  assistance; as supposing the guards would be in disorder, and
give way at such an unexpected attempt of theirs, especially as
the greater part of them were unarmed and unskilled in the
affairs of war; and that besides the multitude of the citizens
would not be easily gathered together, but confined to their
houses by the storm: and that if there were any hazard in their
undertaking, it became them to suffer any thing whatsoever
themselves, rather than to overlook so great a multitude as were
miserably perishing on their account. But the more prudent part
of them disapproved of this forcible method, because they saw not
only the guards about them
  very numerous, but the walls of the city itself carefully
watched, by reason of the Idumeans. They also supposed that
Ananus would be every where, and visit the guards every
  hour; which indeed was done upon other nights, but was
  omitted that night, not by reason of any slothfulness of
Ananus, but by the overbearing appointment of fate, that so both
he might himself perish, and the multitude of the guards might
perish with him; for truly, as the night was far gone, and the
storm very terrible, Ananus gave the guards in the cloisters
leave to go to sleep; while it came into the heads of the zealots
to make use of the saws belonging to the temple, and to cut the
bars of the gates to pieces. The noise of the wind, and that not
inferior sound of the thunder, did here also conspire with their
designs, that the noise of the saws was not heard by the others.
  
  7. So they secretly went out of the temple to the wall of the
city, and made use of their saws, and opened that gate which was
over against the Idumeans. Now at first there came a fear upon
the Idumeans themselves, which disturbed them, as imagining that
Ananus and his party were coming to attack them, so that every
one of them had his right hand upon his sword, in order to defend
himself; but they soon came to know who they were that came to
them, and were entered
  the city. And had the Idumeans then fallen upon the city,
nothing could have hindered them from destroying the
  people every man of them, such was the rage they were in at
that time; but as they first of all made haste to get the zealots
out of custody, which those that brought them in earnestly
desired them to do, and not to overlook those for whose
  sakes they were come, in the midst of their distresses, nor to
bring them into a still greater danger; for that when they had
once seized upon the guards, it would be easy for them to fall
upon the city; but that if the city were once alarmed, they would
not then be able to overcome those guards, because as soon as
they should perceive they were there, they would put themselves
in order to fight them, and would hinder their coming into the
temple.
      CHAPTER V.
         
         
        
  The Cruelty Of The Idumeans When They Were Gotten Into The
Temple During The Storm; And Of The Zealots. Concerning The
Slaughter Of Ananus, And Jesus, And Zacharias; And How The
Idumeans Retired        Home.
        
  1. This advice pleased the Idumeans, and they ascended
  through the city to the temple. The zealots were also in great
expectation of their coming, and earnestly waited for them. When
therefore these were entering, they also came boldly out of the
inner temple, and mixing themselves among the Idumeans, they
attacked the guards; and some of those that were upon the watch,
but were fallen asleep, they killed as they were asleep; but as
those that were now awakened made a cry, the whole multitude
arose, and in the amazement they were in caught hold of their
arms immediately, and betook themselves to their own defense; and
so long as they thought they were only the zealots who attacked
them, they went on boldly, as hoping to overpower them by their
numbers; but when they saw others pressing in upon them also,
they
  perceived the Idumeans were got in; and the greatest part of
them laid aside their arms, together with their courage, and
betook themselves to lamentations. But some few of the
  younger sort covered themselves with their armor, and
  valiantly received the Idumeans, and for a while protected the
multitude of old men. Others, indeed, gave a signal to those that
were in the city of the calamities they were in; but when these
were also made sensible that the Idumeans were come in, none of
them durst come to their assistance, only they returned the
terrible echo of wailing, and lamented their misfortunes. A great
howling of the women was excited also, and every one of the
guards were in danger of being killed. The zealots also joined in
the shouts raised by the Idumeans; and the storm itself rendered
the cry more terrible; nor did the Idumeans spare any body; for
as they are naturally a most barbarous and bloody nation, and had
been distressed by the tempest, they made use of their weapons
against those that had shut the gates against them, and acted in
the same
  manner as to those that supplicated for their lives, and to
those that fought them, insomuch that they ran through those with
their swords who desired them to remember the relation there was
between them, and begged of them to have regard to their common
temple. Now there was at present neither any place for flight,
nor any hope of preservation; but as they were driven one upon
another in heaps, so were they slain. Thus the greater part were
driven together by force, as there was now no place of
retirement, and the murderers were
  upon them; and, having no other way, threw themselves down
headlong into the city; whereby, in my opinion, they
  underwent a more miserable destruction than that which they
avoided, because that was a voluntary one. And now the
  outer temple was all of it overflowed with blood; and that day,
as it came on, they saw eight thousand five hundred dead bodies
there.
  
  2. But the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by these
slaughters; but they now betook themselves to the city, and
plundered every house, and slew every one they met; and for the
other multitude, they esteemed it needless to go on with killing
them, but they sought for the high priests, and the generality
went with the greatest zeal against them; and as soon as they
caught them they slew them, and then standing upon their dead
bodies, in way of jest, upbraided Ananus with his kindness to the
people, and Jesus with his speech made to them from the wall.
Nay, they proceeded to that
  degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without
burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial
of men, that they took down those that were
  condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down
of the sun. I should not mistake if I said that the death of
Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the city, and that
from this very day may be dated the overthrow of her wall, and
the ruin of her affairs, whereon they saw their high priest, and
the procurer of their preservation, slain in the midst of their
city. He was on other accounts also a venerable, and a very just
man; and besides the grandeur of that nobility, and dignity, and
honor of which he was
  possessed, he had been a lover of a kind of parity, even with
regard to the meanest of the people; he was a prodigious lover of
liberty, and an admirer of a democracy in
  government; and did ever prefer the public welfare before his
own advantage, and preferred peace above all things; for he was
thoroughly sensible that the Romans were not to be
  conquered. He also foresaw that of necessity a war would
follow, and that unless the Jews made up matters with them very
dexterously, they would be destroyed; to say all in a word, if
Ananus had survived, they had certainly compounded matters; for
he was a shrewd man in speaking and persuading the people, and
had already gotten the mastery of those that opposed his designs,
or were for the war. And the Jews had then put abundance of
delays in the way of the Romans, if they had had such a general
as he was. Jesus was also joined with him; and although he was
inferior to him upon the
  comparison, he was superior to the rest; and I cannot but think
that it was because God had doomed this city to
  destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his
sanctuary by fire, that he cut off these their great defenders
and well-wishers, while those that a little before had worn the
sacred garments, and had presided over the public worship; and
had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt on the whole
habitable earth when they came into our city, were cast out
naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts. And I
cannot but imagine that virtue itself groaned at these men's
case, and lamented that she was here so terribly
  conquered by wickedness. And this at last was the end of Ananus
and Jesus.
  
  3. Now after these were slain, the zealots and the multitude of
the Idumeans fell upon the people as upon a flock of
  profane animals, and cut their throats; and for the ordinary
sort, they were destroyed in what place soever they caught them.
But for the noblemen and the youth, they first caught them and
bound them, and shut them up in prison, and put off their
slaughter, in hopes that some of them would turn over to their
party; but not one of them would comply with their desires, but
all of them preferred death before being enrolled among such
wicked wretches as acted against their own country. But this
refusal of theirs brought upon them terrible torments; for they
were so scourged and tortured, that their bodies were not able to
sustain their torments, till at length, and with difficulty, they
had the favor to be slain. Those whom they caught in the day time
were slain in the night, and then their bodies were carried out
and thrown away, that there might be room for other prisoners;
and the terror that was upon the people was so great, that no one
had courage enough either to weep openly for the dead man that
was related to him, or to bury him; but those that were shut up
in their own houses could only shed tears in secret, and durst
not even groan without great caution, lest any of their enemies
should hear them; for if they did, those that mourned for others
soon underwent the same death with
  those whom they mourned for. Only in the night time they would
take up a little dust, and throw it upon their bodies; and even
some that were the most ready to expose
  themselves to danger would do it in the day time: and there
were twelve thousand of the better sort who perished in this
manner.
  
  4. And now these zealots and Idumeans were quite weary of
barely killing men, so they had the impudence of setting up
fictitious tribunals and judicatures for that purpose; and as
they intended to have Zacharias (9) the son of Baruch, one of the
most eminent of the citizens, slain, so what
  provoked them against him was, that hatred of wickedness and
love of liberty which were so eminent in him: he was also a rich
man, so that by taking him off, they did not only hope to seize
his effects, but also to get rid of a mall that had great power
to destroy them. So they called together, by a public
proclamation, seventy of the principal men of the populace, for a
show, as if they were real judges, while they had no proper
authority. Before these was Zacharias accused of a design to
betray their polity to the Romans, and having
  traitorously sent to Vespasian for that purpose. Now there
appeared no proof or sign of what he was accused; but they
affirmed themselves that they were well persuaded that so it was,
and desired that such their affirmation might he taken for
sufficient evidence. Now when Zacharias clearly saw that there
was no way remaining for his escape from them, as
  having been treacherously called before them, and then put in
prison, but not with any intention of a legal trial, he took
great liberty of speech in that despair of his life he was under.
Accordingly he stood up, and laughed at their
  pretended accusation, and in a few words confuted the crimes
laid to his charge; after which he turned his speech to his
accusers, and went over distinctly all their transgressions of
the law, and made heavy lamentation upon the confusion
  they had brought public affairs to: in the mean time, the
zealots grew tumultuous, and had much ado to abstain from drawing
their swords, although they designed to preserve the appearance
and show of judicature to the end. They were
  also desirous, on other accounts, to try the judges, whether
they would be mindful of what was just at their own peril. Now
the seventy judges brought in their verdict that the person
accused was not guilty, as choosing rather to die themselves with
him, than to have his death laid at their doors; hereupon there
arose a great clamor of the zealots upon his acquittal, and they
all had indignation at the judges for not understanding that the
authority that was given them was but in jest. So two of the
boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of the temple,
and slew him; and as he fell down dead, they bantered him, and
said, "Thou hast also our verdict, and this will prove a more
sure acquittal to thee than the other." They also threw him down
from the
  temple immediately into the valley beneath it. Moreover, they
struck the judges with the backs of their swords, by way of
abuse, and thrust them out of the court of the temple, and spared
their lives with no other design than that, when they were
dispersed among the people in the city, they might
  become their messengers, to let them know they were no
  better than slaves.
  
  5. But by this time the Idumeans repented of their coming, and
were displeased at what had been done; and when they were
assembled together by one of the zealots, who had
  come privately to them, he declared to them what a number of
wicked pranks they had themselves done in conjunction with those
that invited them, and gave a particular account of what
mischiefs had been done against their metropolis. He said that
they had taken arms, as though the high priests were betraying
their metropolis to the Romans, but had
  found no indication of any such treachery; but that they had
succored those that had pretended to believe such a thing, while
they did themselves the works of war and tyranny, after an
insolent manner. It had been indeed their business to have
hindered them from such their proceedings at the first, but
seeing they had once been partners with them in shedding the
blood of their own countrymen, it was high time to put a stop to
such crimes, and not continue to afford any more assistance to
such as are subverting the laws of their
  forefathers; for that if any had taken it ill that the gates
had been shut against them, and they had not been permitted to
come into the city, yet that those who had excluded them have
been punished, and Ananus is dead, and that almost all those
people had been destroyed in one night's time. That one may
perceive many of themselves now repenting for what they had done,
and might see the horrid barbarity of those that had invited
them, and that they had no regard to such as had saved them; that
they were so impudent as to perpetrate the vilest things, under
the eyes of those that had supported them, and that their wicked
actions would be laid to the charge of the Idumeans, and would be
so laid to their charge till somebody obstructs their
proceedings, or separates
  himself from the same wicked action; that they therefore ought
to retire home, since the imputation of treason appears to be a
Calumny, and that there was no expectation of the coming of the
Romans at this time, and that the government of the city was
secured by such walls as cannot easily be thrown down; and, by
avoiding any further fellowship with these bad men, to make some
excuse for themselves, as to what they had been so far deluded,
as to have been partners with them hitherto.
  
      CHAPTER 6.
         
         
        
  How The Zealots When They Were Freed From The Idumeans, Slew A
Great Many More Of The Citizens; And How Vespasian Dissuaded The
Romans When They Were Very Earnest To March Against The Jews 
From Proceeding In The War At That Time.
        
  1. The Idumeans complied with these persuasions; and, in the
first place, they set those that were in the prisons at liberty,
being about two thousand of the populace, who thereupon
  fled away immediately to Simon, one whom we shall speak of
presently. After which these Idumeans retired from
  Jerusalem, and went home; which departure of theirs was a great
surprise to both parties; for the people, not knowing of their
repentance, pulled up their courage for a while, as eased of so
many of their enemies, while the zealots grew more insolent not
as deserted by their confederates, but as freed from such men as
might hinder their designs, and plat some stop to their
wickedness. Accordingly, they made no longer any delay, nor took
any deliberation in their enormous practices, but made use of the
shortest methods for all their executions and what they had once
resolved upon, they put in practice sooner than any one could
imagine. But their thirst was chiefly after the blood of valiant
men, and men of good families; the one sort of which they
destroyed out of envy, the other out of fear; for they thought
their whole security lay in leaving no potent men alive; on which
account they slew Gorion, a person eminent in dignity, and on
account of his family also; he was also for democracy, and of as
great
  boldness and freedom of spirit as were any of the Jews
  whosoever; the principal thing that ruined him, added to his
other advantages, was his free speaking. Nor did Niger of Peres
escape their hands; he had been a man of great valor in their war
with the Romans, but was now drawn through
  the middle of the city, and, as he went, he frequently cried
out, and showed the scars of his wounds; and when he was drawn
out of the gates, and despaired of his preservation, he besought
them to grant him a burial; but as they had
  threatened him beforehand not to grant him any spot of
  earth for a grave, which he chiefly desired of them, so did
they slay him [without permitting him to be buried]. Now when
they were slaying him, he made this imprecation upon them, that
they might undergo both famine and pestilence in this war, and
besides all that, they might come to the mutual slaughter of one
another; all which imprecations God
  confirmed against these impious men, and was what came
  most justly upon them, when not long afterward. they tasted of
their own madness in their mutual seditions one against another.
So when this Niger was killed, their fears of being overturned
were diminished; and indeed there was no part of the people but
they found out some pretense to destroy
  them; for some were therefore slain, because they had had
differences with some of them; and as to those that had not
opposed them in times of peace, they watched seasonable
  opportunities to gain some accusation against them; and if any
one did not come near them at all, he was under their suspicion
as a proud man; if any one came with boldness, he was esteemed a
contemner of them; and if any one came as aiming to oblige them,
he was supposed to have some
  treacherous plot against them; while the only punishment of
crimes, whether they were of the greatest or smallest sort, was
death. Nor could any one escape, unless he were very
inconsiderable, either on account of the meanness of his birth,
or on account of his fortune.
  
  2. And now all the rest of the commanders of the Romans
  deemed this sedition among their enemies to be of great
  advantage to them, and were very earnest to march to the city,
and they urged Vespasian, as their lord and general in all cases,
to make haste, and said to him, that "the providence of God is on
our side, by setting our enemies at variance against one another;
that still the change in such cases may be sudden, and the Jews
may quickly be at one again, either because they may be tired out
with their civil miseries, or repent them of such doings." But
Vespasian replied, that they were greatly mistaken in what they
thought fit to be done, as those that, upon the theater, love to
make a show of their hands, and of their weapons, but do it at
their own hazard, without considering, what was for their
advantage, and for their security; for that if they now go and
attack the city immediately, they shall but occasion their
enemies to unite together, and shall convert their force, now it
is in its height, against themselves. But if they stay a while,
they shall have fewer enemies, because they will be consumed in
this
  sedition: that God acts as a general of the Romans better than
he can do, and is giving the Jews up to them without any pains of
their own, and granting their army a victory without any danger;
that therefore it is their best way, while their enemies are
destroying each other with their own hands, and falling into the
greatest of misfortunes, which is that of sedition, to sit still
as spectators of the dangers they run into, rather than to fight
hand to hand with men that love
  murdering, and are mad one against another. But if any one
imagines that the glory of victory, when it is gotten without
fighting, will be more insipid, let him know this much, that a
glorious success, quietly obtained, is more profitable than the
dangers of a battle; for we ought to esteem these that do what is
agreeable to temperance and prudence no less
  glorious than those that have gained great reputation by their
actions in war: that he shall lead on his army with greater force
when their enemies are diminished, and his own army refreshed
after the continual labors they had undergone. However, that this
is not a proper time to propose to
  ourselves the glory of victory; for that the Jews are not now
employed in making of armor or building of walls, nor indeed in
getting together auxiliaries, while the advantage will be on
their side who give them such opportunity of delay; but that the
Jews are vexed to pieces every day by their civil wars and
dissensions, and are under greater miseries than, if they were
once taken, could be inflicted on them by us. Whether
  therefore any one hath regard to what is for our safety, he
ought to suffer these Jews to destroy one another; or whether he
hath regard to the greater glory of the action, we ought by no
means to meddle with those men, now they are afflicted with a
distemper at home; for should we now conquer them, it would be
said the conquest was not owing to our bravery, but to their
sedition." (10)
  
  3. And now the commanders joined in their approbation of what
Vespasian had said, and it was soon discovered how
  wise an opinion he had given. And indeed many there were of the
Jews that deserted every day, and fled away from the zealots,
although their flight was very difficult, since they had guarded
every passage out of the city, and slew every one that was caught
at them, as taking it for granted they were going over to the
Romans; yet did he who gave them money get clear off, while he
only that gave them none was voted a traitor. So the upshot was
this, that the rich purchased their flight by money, while none
but the poor were slain. Along all the roads also vast numbers of
dead bodies lay in heaps, and even many of those that were so
zealous in deserting at length chose rather to perish within the
city; for the hopes of burial made death in their own city appear
of the two less terrible to them. But these zealots came at last
to that degree of barbarity, as not to bestow a burial either on
those slain in the city, or on those that lay along the roads;
but as if they had made an agreement to cancel both the laws of
their
  country and the laws of nature, and, at the same time that they
defiled men with their wicked actions, they would
  pollute the Divinity itself also, they left the dead bodies to
putrefy under the sun; and the same punishment was allotted to
such as buried any as to those that deserted, which was no other
than death; while he that granted the favor of a grave to another
would presently stand in need of a grave himself. To say all in a
word, no other gentle passion was so entirely lost among them as
mercy; for what were the greatest objects of pity did most of all
irritate these wretches, and they transferred their rage from the
living to those that had been slain, and from the dead to the
living. Nay, the terror was so very great, that he who survived
called them that were first dead happy, as being at rest already;
as did those that were under torture in the prisons, declare,
that, upon this
  comparison, those that lay unburied were the happiest. These
men, therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men, and
  laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the
  prophets, they ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet
did these prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards
of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these
  zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very
prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a
certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be
taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition
should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the
temple of God. Now while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve
these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their
accomplishment.
  
      CHAPTER 7.
         
         
        
  How John Tyrannized Over The Rest; And What Mischiefs The
Zealots Did At Masada. How Also Vespasian Took Gadara; And What
Actions     Were Performed By Placidus.
        
  1. By this time John was beginning to tyrannize, and thought it
beneath him to accept of barely the same honors that
  others had; and joining to himself by degrees a party of the
wickedest of them all, he broke off from the rest of the faction.
This was brought about by his still disagreeing with the opinions
of others, and giving out injunctions of his own, in a very
imperious manner; so that it was evident he was setting up a
monarchical power. Now some submitted to him out of their fear of
him, and others out of their good-will to him; for he was a
shrewd man to entice men to him, both by deluding them and
putting cheats upon them. Nay, many
  there were that thought they should be safer themselves, if the
causes of their past insolent actions should now be
  reduced to one head, and not to a great many. His activity was
so great, and that both in action and in counsel, that he had not
a few guards about him; yet was there a great party of his
antagonists that left him; among whom envy at him weighed a great
deal, while they thought it a very heavy thing to be in
subjection to one that was formerly their equal. But the main
reason that moved men against him was the dread of monarchy, for
they could not hope easily to put an end to his power, if he had
once obtained it; and yet they knew that he would have this
pretense always against them, that they had opposed him when he
was first advanced; while every
  one chose rather to suffer any thing whatsoever in war, than
that, when they had been in a voluntary slavery for some time,
they should afterward perish. So the sedition was
  divided into two parts, and John reigned in opposition to his
adversaries over one of them: but for their leaders, they watched
one another, nor did they at all, or at least very little, meddle
with arms in their quarrels; but they fought earnestly against
the people, and contended one with another which of them should
bring home the greatest prey. But
  because the city had to struggle with three of the greatest
misfortunes, war, and tyranny, and sedition, it appeared, upon
the comparison, that the war was the least troublesome to the
populace of them all. Accordingly, they ran away from their own
houses to foreigners, and obtained that preservation from the
Romans which they despaired to obtain among their own people.
  
  2. And now a fourth misfortune arose, in order to bring our
nation to destruction. There was a fortress of very great
strength not far from Jerusalem, which had been built by our
ancient kings, both as a repository for their effects in the
hazards of war, and for the preservation of their bodies at the
same time. It was called Masada. Those that were called
  Sicarii had taken possession of it formerly, but at this time
they overran the neighboring countries, aiming only to
  procure to themselves necessaries; for the fear they were then
in prevented their further ravages. But when once they were
informed that the Roman army lay still, and that the Jews were
divided between sedition and tyranny, they boldly
  undertook greater matters; and at the feast of unleavened
bread, which the Jews celebrate in memory of their
  deliverance from the Egyptian bondage, when they were sent back
into the country of their forefathers, they came down by night,
without being discovered by those that could have prevented them,
and overran a certain small city called
  Engaddi:--in which expedition they prevented those citizens
that could have stopped them, before they could arm
  themselves, and fight them. They also dispersed them, and cast
them out of the city. As for such as could not run away, being
women and children, they slew of them above seven
  hundred. Afterward, when they had carried every thing out of
their houses, and had seized upon all the fruits that were in a
flourishing condition, they brought them into Masada. And indeed
these men laid all the villages that were about the fortress
waste, and made the whole country desolate; while there came to
them every day, from all parts, not a few men as corrupt as
themselves. At that time all the other regions of Judea that had
hitherto been at rest were in motion, by
  means of the robbers. Now as it is in a human body, if the
principal part be inflamed, all the members are subject to the
same distemper; so, by means of the sedition and disorder that
was in the metropolis,. had the wicked men that were in the
country opportunity to ravage the same. Accordingly, when every
one of them had plundered their own villages, they then retired
into the desert; yet were these men that now got together, and
joined in the conspiracy by parties, too small for an army, and
too many for a gang of thieves: and thus did they fall upon the
holy places (11) and the cities; yet did it now so happen that
they were sometimes very ill
  treated by those upon whom they fell with such violence, and
were taken by them as men are taken in war: but still they
prevented any further punishment as do robbers, who, as
  soon as their ravages [are discovered], run their way. Nor was
there now any part of Judea that was not in a miserable
  condition, as well as its most eminent city also.
  
  3. These things were told Vespasian by deserters; for
  although the seditious watched all the passages out of the
city, and destroyed all, whosoever they were, that came
  thither, yet were there some that had concealed themselves, and
when they had fled to the Romans, persuaded their
  general to come to their city's assistance, and save the
remainder of the people; informing him withal, that it was upon
account of the people's good-will to the Romans that many of them
were already slain, and the survivors in danger of the same
treatment. Vespasian did indeed already pity the calamities these
men were in, and arose, in appearance, as though he was going to
besiege Jerusalem, but in reality to deliver them from a [worse]
siege they were already under. However, he was obliged first to
overthrow what remained elsewhere, and to leave nothing out of
Jerusalem behind him that might interrupt him in that siege.
Accordingly, he
  marched against Gadara, the metropolis of Perea, which was a
place of strength, and entered that city on the fourth day of the
month Dystrus [Adar]; for the men of power had sent an embassage
to him, without the knowledge of the seditious, to treat about a
surrender; which they did out of the desire they had of peace,
and for saving their effects, because many of the citizens of
Gadara were rich men. This embassy the
  opposite party knew nothing of, but discovered it as
  Vespasian was approaching near the city. However, they
  despaired of keeping possession of the city, as being inferior
in number to their enemies who were within the city, and seeing
the Romans very near to the city; so they resolved to fly, but
thought it dishonorable to do it without shedding some blood, and
revenging themselves on the authors of this surrender; so they
seized upon Dolesus, (a person not only the first in rank and
family in that city, but one that seemed the occasion of sending
such an embassy,) and slew him, and treated his dead body after a
barbarous manner, so very
  violent was their anger at him, and then ran out of the city.
And as now the Roman army was just upon them, the people of
Gadara admitted Vespasian with joyful acclamations, and received
from him the security of his right hand, as also a garrison of
horsemen and footmen, to guard them against the excursions of the
runagates; for as to their wall, they had pulled it down before
the Romans desired them so to do,
  that they might thereby give them assurance that they were
lovers of peace, and that, if they had a mind, they could not now
make war against them.
  
  4. And now Vespasian sent Placidus against those that had fled
from Gadara, with five hundred horsemen, and three
  thousand footmen, while he returned himself to Cesarea, with
the rest of the army. But as soon as these fugitives saw the
horsemen that pursued them just upon their backs, and
  before they came to a close fight, they ran together to a
certain village, which was called Bethennabris, where finding a
great multitude of young men, and arming them, partly by their
own consent, partly by force, they rashly and suddenly assaulted
Placidus and the troops that were with him. These horsemen at the
first onset gave way a little, as contriving to entice them
further off the wall; and when they had drawn them into a place
fit for their purpose, they made their horse encompass them
round, and threw their darts at them. So the horsemen cut off the
flight of the fugitives, while the foot terribly destroyed those
that fought against them; for those Jews did no more than show
their courage, and then were
  destroyed; for as they fell upon the Romans when they were
joined close together, and, as it were, walled about with their
entire armor, they were not able to find any place where the
darts could enter, nor were they any way able to break their
ranks, while they were themselves run through by the Roman darts,
and, like the wildest of wild beasts, rushed upon the point of
others' swords; so some of them were destroyed, as cut with their
enemies' swords upon their faces, and others were dispersed by
the horsemen.
  
  5. Now Placidus's concern was to exclude them in their flight
from getting into the village; and causing his horse to march
continually on that side of them, he then turned short upon them,
and at the same time his men made use of their darts, and easily
took their aim at those that were the nearest to them, as they
made those that were further off turn back by the terror they
were in, till at last the most courageous of them brake through
those horsemen and fled to the wall of the village. And now those
that guarded the wall were in great doubt what to do; for they
could not bear the thoughts of excluding those that came from
Gadara, because of their own people that were among them; and
yet, if they should admit them, they expected to perish with
them, which came to pass accordingly; for as they were crowding
together at the wall, the Roman horsemen were just ready to fall
in with them. However, the guards prevented them, and shut the
  gates, when Placidus made an assault upon them, and fighting
courageously till it was dark, he got possession of the wall, and
of the people that were in the city, when the useless multitude
were destroyed; but those that were more potent ran away, and the
soldiers plundered the houses, and set the village on fire. As
for those that ran out of the village, they stirred up such as
were in the country, and exaggerating their own calamities, and
telling them that the whole army of the Romans were upon them,
they put them into great fear on
  every side; so they got in great numbers together, and fled to
Jericho, for they knew no other place that could afford them any
hope of escaping, it being a city that had a strong wall, and a
great multitude of inhabitants. But Placidus, relying much upon
his horsemen, and his former good success,
  followed them, and slew all that he overtook, as far as
  Jordan; and when he had driven the whole multitude to the
river-side, where they were stopped by the current, (for it had
been augmented lately by rains, and was not fordable,) he put his
soldiers in array over against them; so the necessity the others
were in provoked them to hazard a battle, because there was no
place whither they could flee. They then
  extended themselves a very great way along the banks of the
river, and sustained the darts that were thrown at them, as well
as the attacks of the horsemen, who beat many of them, and pushed
them into the current. At which fight, hand to hand, fifteen
thousand of them were slain, while the number of those that were
unwillingly forced to leap into Jordan was prodigious. There were
besides two thousand and two
  hundred taken prisoners. A mighty prey was taken also,
  consisting of asses, and sheep, and camels, and oxen.
  
  6. Now this destruction that fell upon the Jews, as it was not
inferior to any of the rest in itself, so did it still appear
greater than it really was; and this, because not only the whole
country through which they fled was filled with
  slaughter, and Jordan could not be passed over, by reason of
the dead bodies that were in it, but because the lake
  Asphaltiris was also full of dead bodies, that were carried
down into it by the river. And now Placidus, after this good
success that he had, fell violently upon the neighboring smaller
cities and villages; when he took Abila, and Julias, and
Bezemoth, and all those that lay as far as the lake
  Asphaltitis, and put such of the deserters into each of them as
he thought proper. He then put his soldiers on board the ships,
and slew such as had fled to the lake, insomuch that all Perea
had either surrendered themselves, or were taken by the Romans,
as far as Macherus.
  
      CHAPTER 8.
         
         
        
  How Vespasian .Upon Hearing Of Some Commotions In Gall, (12)
Made Haste To Finish The Jewish War. A Description Of. Jericho,
And Of The Great Plain; With An Account Besides Of The Lake
Asphaltitis.         
  1. In the mean time, an account came that there were
  commotions in Gall, and that Vindex, together with the men of
power in that country, had revolted from Nero; which
  affair is more accurately described elsewhere. This report,
thus related to Vespasian, excited him to go on briskly with the
war; for he foresaw already the civil wars which were coming upon
them, nay, that the very government was in
  danger; and he thought, if he could first reduce the eastern
parts of the empire to peace, he should make the fears for Italy
the lighter; while therefore the winter was his
  hinderance [from going into the field], he put garrisons into
the villages and smaller cities for their security; he put
decurions also into the villages, and centurions into the cities:
he besides this rebuilt many of the cities that had been laid
waste; but at the beginning of the spring he took the greatest
part of his army, and led it from Cesarea to Antipatris, where he
spent two days in settling the affairs of that city, and then, on
the third day, he marched on, laying waste and burning all the
neighboring villages. And when he had laid waste all the places
about the toparchy of Thamnas, he passed on to
  Lydda and Jamnia; and when both these cities had come over to
him, he placed a great many of those that had come over to him
[from other places] as inhabitants therein, and then came to
Emmaus, where he seized upon the passage which
  led thence to their metropolis, and fortified his camp, and
leaving the fifth legion therein, he came to the toparchy of
Bethletephon. He then destroyed that place, and the
  neighboring places, by fire, and fortified, at proper places,
the strong holds all about Idumea; and when he had seized upon
two villages, which were in the very midst of Idumea, Betaris and
Caphartobas, he slew above ten thousand of the people, and
carried into captivity above a thousand, and drove away the rest
of the multitude, and placed no small part of his own forces in
them, who overran and laid waste the whole
  mountainous country; while he, with the rest of his forces,
returned to Emmaus, whence he came down through the
  country of Samaria, and hard by the city, by others called
Neapoils, (or Sichem,) but by the people of that country
Mabortha, to Corea, where he pitched his camp, on the
  second day of the month Desius [Sivan]; and on the day
  following he came to Jericho; on which day Trajan, one of his
commanders, joined him with the forces he brought out of Perea,
all the places beyond Jordan being subdued already. 
  2. Hereupon a great multitude prevented their approach, and
came out of Jericho, and fled to those mountainous parts that lay
over against Jerusalem, while that part which was left behind was
in a great measure destroyed; they also found the city desolate.
It is situated in a plain; but a naked and barren mountain, of a
very great length, hangs over it, which extends itself to the
land about Scythopolis northward, but as far as the country of
Sodom, and the utmost limits of the lake
  Asphaltiris, southward. This mountain is all of it very uneven
and uninhabited, by reason of its barrenness: there is an
opposite mountain that is situated over against it, on the other
side of Jordan; this last begins at Julias, and the northern
quarters, and extends itself southward as far as Somorrhon, (13)
which is the bounds of Petra, in Arabia. In this ridge of
mountains there is one called the Iron
  Mountain, that runs in length as far as Moab. Now the region
that lies in the middle between these ridges of mountains is
called the Great Plain; it reaches from the village Ginnabris, as
far as the lake Asphaltitis; its length is two hundred and thirty
furlongs, and its breadth a hundred and twenty, and it is divided
in the midst by Jordan. It hath two lakes in it, that of
Asphaltitis, and that of Tiberias, whose natures are
  opposite to each other; for the former is salt and unfruitful,
but that of Tiberias is sweet and fruitful. This plain is much
burnt up in summer time, and, by reason of the extraordinary
heat, contains a very unwholesome air; it is all destitute of
water excepting the river Jordan, which water of Jordan is the
occasion why those plantations of palm trees that are near its
banks are more flourishing, and much more fruitful, as are those
that are remote from it not so flourishing, or fruitful. 
  3. Notwithstanding which, there is a fountain by Jericho, that
runs plentifully, and is very fit for watering the ground; it
arises near the old city, which Joshua, the son of Naue, the
general of the Hebrews, took the first of all the cities of the
land of Canaan, by right of war. The report is, that this
fountain, at the beginning, caused not only the blasting of the
earth and the trees, but of the children born of women, and that
it was entirely of a sickly and corruptive nature to all things
whatsoever; but that it was made gentle, and very wholesome and
fruitful, by the prophet Elisha. This prophet was familiar with
Elijah, and was his successor, who, when he once was the guest of
the people at Jericho, and the men of the place had treated him
very kindly, he both made them amends as well as the country, by
a lasting favor; for he went out of the city to this fountain,
and threw into the current an earthen vessel full of salt; after
which he stretched out his righteous hand unto heaven, and,
pouring out a mild drink-offering, he made this supplication,
That the current might be mollified, and that the veins of fresh
water might be opened; that God also would bring into the place a
more
  temperate and fertile air for the current, and would bestow
upon the people of that country plenty of the fruits of the
earth, and a succession of children; and that this prolific water
might never fail them, while they continued to he
  righteous. To these prayers Elisha (14) joined proper
  operations of his hands, after a skillful manner, and changed
the fountain; and that water, which had been the occasion of
barrenness and famine before, from that time did supply a
numerous posterity, and afforded great abundance to the
  country. Accordingly, the power of it is so great in watering
the ground, that if it do but once touch a country, it affords a
sweeter nourishment than other waters do, when they lie so long
upon them, till they are satiated with them. For which reason,
the advantage gained from other waters, when they flow in great
plenty, is but small, while that of this water is great when it
flows even in little quantities. Accordingly, it waters a larger
space of ground than any other waters do, and passes along a
plain of seventy furlongs long, and twenty broad; wherein it
affords nourishment to those most excellent gardens that are
thick set with trees. There are in it many sorts of palm trees
that are watered by it, different from each other in taste and
name; the better sort of them, when they are pressed, yield an
excellent kind of honey, not much
  inferior in sweetness to other honey. This country withal
produces honey from bees; it also bears that balsam which is the
most precious of all the fruits in that place, cypress trees
also, and those that bear myrobalanum; so that he who
  should pronounce this place to be divine would not be
  mistaken, wherein is such plenty of trees produced as are very
rare, and of the must excellent sort. And indeed, if we speak of
those other fruits, it will not be easy to light on any climate
in the habitable earth that can well be compared to it, what is
here sown comes up in such clusters; the cause of which seems to
me to be the warmth of the air, and the fertility of the waters;
the warmth calling forth the sprouts, and making them spread, and
the moisture making every one of them take root firmly, and
supplying that virtue which it stands in need of in summer time.
Now this country is then so sadly burnt up, that nobody cares to
come at it; and if the water be drawn up before sun-rising, and
after that exposed to the air, it becomes exceeding cold, and
becomes of a
  nature quite contrary to the ambient air; as in winter again it
becomes warm; and if you go into it, it appears very gentle. The
ambient air is here also of so good a temperature, that the
people of the country are clothed in linen-only, even when snow
covers the rest of Judea. This place is one
  hundred and fifty furlongs from Jerusalem, and sixty from
Jordan. The country, as far as Jerusalem, is desert and stony;
but that as far as Jordan and the lake Asphaltitis lies lower
indeed, though it be equally desert and barren. But so much shall
suffice to have said about Jericho, and of the great happiness of
its situation.
  
  4. The nature of the lake Asphaltitis is also worth describing.
It is, as I have said already, bitter and unfruitful. It is so
light [or thick] that it bears up the heaviest things that are
thrown into it; nor is it easy for any one to make things sink
therein to the bottom, if he had a mind so to do. Accordingly,
when Vespasian went to see it, he commanded that some who
  could not swim should have their hands tied behind them, and be
thrown into the deep, when it so happened that they all swam as
if a wind had forced them upwards. Moreover, the change of the
color of this lake is wonderful, for it changes its appearance
thrice every day; and as the rays of the sun fall differently
upon it, the light is variously reflected. However, it casts up
black clods of bitumen in many parts of it; these swim at the top
of the water, and resemble both in shape and bigness headless
bulls; and when the laborers that belong to the lake come to it,
and catch hold of it as it hangs together, they draw it into
their ships; but when the ship is full, it is not easy to cut off
the rest, for it is so tenacious as to make the ship hang upon
its clods till they set it loose with the menstrual blood of
women, and with urine, to which
  alone it yields. This bitumen is not only useful for the
caulking of ships, but for the cure of men's bodies;
  accordingly, it is mixed in a great many medicines. The length
of this lake is five hundred and eighty furlongs, where it is
extended as far as Zoar in Arabia; and its breadth is a
  hundred and fifty. The country of Sodom borders upon it. It was
of old a most happy land, both for the fruits it bore and the
riches of its cities, although it be now all burnt up. It is
related how, for the impiety of its inhabitants, it was burnt by
lightning; in consequence of which there are still the
  remainders of that Divine fire, and the traces [or shadows] of
the five cities are still to be seen, as well as the ashes
growing in their fruits; which fruits have a color as if they
were fit to be eaten, but if you pluck them with your hands, they
dissolve into smoke and ashes. And thus what is related of this
land of Sodom hath these marks of credibility which our very
sight affords us.
  
      CHAPTER 9.
         
         
        
  That Vespasian, After He Had Taken Gadara Made Preparation For
The Siege Of Jerusalem; But That, Upon His Hearing Of The Death
Of Nero, He Changed His Intentions. As Also Concerning Simon Of
Geras.         
  1. And now Vespasian had fortified all the places round
  about Jerusalem, and erected citadels at Jericho and Adida, and
placed garrisons in them both, partly out of his own Romans, and
partly out of the body of his auxiliaries. He also sent Lucius
Annius to Gerasa, and delivered to him a body of horsemen, and a
considerable number of footmen. So when
  he had taken the city, which he did at the first onset, he slew
a thousand of those young men who had not prevented him
  by flying away; but he took their families captive, and
  permitted his soldiers to plunder them of their effects; after
which he set fire to their houses, and went away to the
  adjoining villages, while the men of power fled away, and the
weaker part were destroyed, and what was remaining was all burnt
down. And now the war having gone through all the
  mountainous country, and all the plain country also, those that
were at Jerusalem were deprived of the liberty of going out of
the city; for as to such as had a mind to desert, they were
watched by the zealots; and as to such as were not yet on the
side of the Romans, their army kept them in, by
  encompassing the city round about on all sides.
  
  2. Now as Vespasian was returned to Cesarea, and was
  getting ready with all his army to march directly to Jerusalem,
he was informed that Nero was dead, after he had reigned thirteen
years and eight days. Bnt as to any narration after what manner
he abused his power in the government, and
  committed the management of affairs to those vile wretches,
Nymphidius and Tigellinus, his unworthy freed-men; and how he had
a plot laid against him by them, and was deserted by all his
guards, and ran away with four of his most trusty freed-men, and
slew himself in the suburbs of Rome; and
  how those that occasioned his death were in no long time
brought themselves to punishment; how also the war in Gall ended;
and how Galba was made emperor (16) and returned
  out of Spain to Rome; and how he was accused by the
  soldiers as a pusillanimous person, and slain by treachery in
the middle of the market-place at Rome, and Otho was made
emperor; with his expedition against the commanders of
  Vitellius, and his destruction thereupon; and besides what
troubles there were under Vitellius, and the fight that was about
the capitol; as also how Antonius Primus and Mucianus slew
Vitellius, and his German legions, and thereby put an end to that
civil war; I have omitted to give an exact account of them,
because they are well known by all, and they are described by a
great number of Greek and Roman
  authors; yet for the sake of the connexion of matters, and that
my history may not be incoherent, I have just touched upon every
thing briefly. Wherefore Vespasian put off at first his
expedition against Jerusalem, and stood waiting whither the
empire would be transferred after the death of Nero. Moreover,
when he heard that Galba was made emperor, he
  attempted nothing till he also should send him some
  directions about the war: however, he sent his son Titus to
him, to salute him, and to receive his commands about the Jews.
Upon the very same errand did king Agrippa sail along with Titus
to Galba; but as they were sailing in their long ships by the
coasts of Achaia, for it was winter time, they heard that Galba
was slain, before they could get to him, after he had reigned
seven months and as many days. After whom Otho took the
government, and undertook the
  management of public affairs. So Agrippa resolved to go on to
Rome without any terror; on account of the change in the
government; but Titus, by a Divine impulse, sailed back from
Greece to Syria, and came in great haste to Cesarea, to his
father. And now they were both in suspense about the public
affairs, the Roman empire being then in a fluctuating
  condition, and did not go on with their expedition against the
Jews, but thought that to make any attack upon foreigners was now
unseasonable, on account of the solicitude they were in for their
own country.
  
  3. And now there arose another war at Jerusalem. There was a
son of Giora, one Simon, by birth of Gerasa, a young man, not so
cunning indeed as John [of Gisehala], who had already seized upon
the city, but superior in strength of body and courage; on which
account, when he had been driven away
  from that Acrabattene toparchy, which he once had, by
  Ananus the high priest, he came to those robbers who had seized
upon Masada. At the first they suspected him, and only permitted
him to come with the women he brought with him into the lower
part of the fortress, while they dwelt in the upper part of it
themselves. However, his manner so well agreed with theirs, and
he seemed so trusty a man, that he went out with them, and
ravaged and destroyed the country with them about Masada; yet
when he persuaded them to
  undertake greater things, he could not prevail with them so to
do; for as they were accustomed to dwell in that citadel, they
were afraid of going far from that which was their
  hiding-place; but he affecting to tyrannize, and being fond of
greatness, when he had heard of the death of Ananus, he left
them, and went into the mountainous part of the country. So he
proclaimed liberty to those in slavery, and a reward to those
already free, and got together a set of wicked men from all
quarters.
  
  4. And as he had now a strong body of men about him, he
  overran the villages that lay in the mountainous country, and
when there were still more and more that came to him, he ventured
to go down into the lower parts of the country, and since he was
now become formidable to the cities, many of the men of power
were corrupted by him; so that his army was no longer composed of
slaves and robbers, but a great many of the populace were
obedient to him as to their king. He then overran the Acrabattene
toparchy, and the places that reached as far as the Great Idumea;
for he built a wall at a certain village called Nain, and made
use of that as a fortress for his own party's security; and at
the valley called Paran, he enlarged many of the caves, and many
others he found ready for his purpose; these he made use of as
  repositories for his treasures, and receptacles for his prey,
and therein he laid up the fruits that he had got by rapine; and
many of his partizans had their dwelling in them; and he made no
secret of it that he was exercising his men
  beforehand, and making preparations for the assault of
  Jerusalem.
  
  5. Whereupon the zealots, out of the dread they were in of his
attacking them, and being willing to prevent one that was growing
up to oppose them, went out against him with their weapons. Simon
met them, and joining battle with them, slew a considerable
number of them, and drove the rest before him into the city, but
durst not trust so much upon his forces as to make an assault
upon the walls; but he resolved first to subdue Idumea, and as he
had now twenty thousand armed
  men, he marched to the borders of their country. Hereupon the
rulers of the Idumeans got together on the sudden the most
warlike part of their people, about twenty-five thousand in
number, and permitted the rest to be a guard to their own
country, by reason of the incursions that were made by the
Sicarii that were at Masada. Thus they received Simon at their
borders, where they fought him, and continued the
  battle all that day; and the dispute lay whether they had
conquered him, or been conquered by him. So he went back to Nain,
as did the Idumeans return home. Nor was it long ere Simon came
violently again upon their country; when he pitched his camp at a
certain village called Thecoe, and sent Eleazar, one of his
companions, to those that kept garrison at Herodium, and in order
to persuade them to surrender that fortress to him. The garrison
received this man readily, while they knew nothing of what he
came about; but as soon as he talked of the surrender of the
place, they fell upon him with their drawn swords, till he found
that he had no place for flight, when he threw himself down from
the wall into the valley beneath; so he died immediately: but the
Idumeans, who were already much afraid of Simon's power, thought
fit to take a view of the enemy's army before they hazarded a
battle with them.
  
  6. Now there was one of their commanders named Jacob,
  who offered to serve them readily upon that occasion, but had
it in his mind to betray them. He went therefore from the village
Alurus, wherein the army of the Idumeans were gotten together,
and came to Simon, and at the very first he agreed to betray his
country to him, and took assurances upon oath from him that he
should always have him in
  esteem, and then promised him that he would assist him in
subduing all Idumea under him; upon which account he was feasted
after an obliging manner by Simon, and elevated by his mighty
promises; and when he was returned to his own men, he at first
belied the army of Simon, and said it was manifold more in number
than what it was; after which, he dexterously persuaded the
commanders, and by degrees the whole multitude, to receive Simon,
and to surrender the
  whole government up to him without fighting. And as he was
doing this, he invited Simon by his messengers, and promised him
to disperse the Idumeans, which he performed also; for as soon as
their army was nigh them, he first of all got upon his horse, and
fled, together with those whom he had
  corrupted; hereupon a terror fell upon the whole multitude; and
before it came to a close fight, they broke their ranks, and
every one retired to his own home.
  
  7. Thus did Simon unexpectedly march into Idumea, without
bloodshed, and made a sudden attack upon the city Hebron, and
took it; wherein he got possession of a great deal of prey, and
plundered it of a vast quantity of fruit. Now the people of the
country say that it is an ancienter city, not only than any in
that country, but than Memphis in Egypt, and
  accordingly its age is reckoned at two thousand and three
hundred years. They also relate that it had been the
  habitation of Abram, the progenitor of the Jews, after he had
removed out of Mesopotamia; and they say that his posterity
descended from thence into Egypt, whose monuments are to this
very time showed in that small city; the fabric of which
monuments are of the most excellent marble, and wrought
  after the most elegant manner. There is also there showed, at
the distance of six furlongs from the city, a very large
turpentine tree (17) and the report goes, that this tree has
continued ever since the creation of the world. Thence did Simon
make his progress over all Idumen, and did not only ravage the
cities and villages, but lay waste the whole country; for,
besides those that were completely armed, he had forty thousand
men that followed him, insomuch that he had not provisions enough
to suffice such a multitude. Now, besides this want of provisions
that he was in, he was of a barbarous disposition, and bore great
anger at this nation, by which means it came to pass that Idumea
was greatly depopulated; and as one may see all the woods behind
despoiled of their leaves by locusts, after they have been there,
so was there nothing left behind Simon's army but a desert. Some
places they burnt down, some they utterly demolished, and
  whatsoever grew in the country, they either trod it down or fed
upon it, and by their marches they made the ground that was
cultivated harder and more untractable than that which was
barren. In short, there was no sign remaining of those places
that had been laid waste, that ever they had had a being.
  
  8. This success of Simon excited the zealots afresh; and though
they were afraid to fight him openly in a fair battle, yet did
they lay ambushes in the passes, and seized upon his wife, with a
considerable number of her attendants;
  whereupon they came back to the city rejoicing, as if they had
taken Simon himself captive, and were in present
  expectation that he would lay down his arms, and make
  supplication to them for his wife; but instead of indulging any
merciful affection, he grew very angry at them for seizing his
beloved wife; so he came to the wall of Jerusalem, and, like wild
beasts when they are wounded, and cannot overtake
  those that wounded them, he vented his spleen upon all
  persons that he met with. Accordingly, he caught all those that
were come out of the city gates, either to gather herbs or
sticks, who were unarmed and in years; he then tormented them and
destroyed them, out of the immense rage he was
  in, and was almost ready to taste the very flesh of their dead
bodies. He also cut off the hands of a great many, and sent them
into the city to astonish his enemies, and in order to make the
people fall into a sedition, and desert those that had been the
authors of his wife's seizure. He also enjoined them to tell the
people that Simon swore by the God of the universe, who sees all
things, that unless they will restore him his wife, he will break
down their wall, and inflict the like punishment upon all the
citizens, without sparing any age, and without making any
distinction between the guilty and the innocent. These
threatenings so greatly affrighted, not the people only, but the
zealots themselves also, that they sent his wife back to him;
when he became a little milder, and left off his perpetual
blood-shedding.
  
  9. But now sedition and civil war prevailed, not only over
Judea, but in Italy also; for now Galba was slain in the midst of
the Roman market-place; then was Otho made emperor,
  and fought against Vitellius, who set up for emperor also; for
the legions in Germany had chosen him. But when he gave
  battle to Valens and Cecinna, who were Vitellius's generals, at
Betriacum, in Gaul, Otho gained the advantage on the first day,
but on the second day Vitellius's soldiers had the victory; and
after much slaughter Otho slew himself, when he had
  heard of this defeat at Brixia, and after he had managed the
public affairs three months and two days. (18) Otho's army also
came over to Vitellius's generals, and he came himself down to
Rome with his army. But in the mean time
  Vespasian removed from Cesarea, on the fifth day of the
  month Deasius, [Sivan,] and marched against those places of
Judea which were not yet overthrown. So he went up to the
mountainous country, and took those two toparchies that
  were called the Gophnitick and Acrabattene toparchies. After
which he took Bethel and Ephraim, two small cities; and
  when he had put garrisons into them, he rode as far as
  Jerusalem, in which march he took many prisoners, and many
captives; but Cerealis, one of his commanders, took a body of
horsemen and footmen, and laid waste that part of Idumea which
was called the Upper Idumea, and attacked Caphethra, which
pretended to be a small city, and took it at the first onset, and
burnt it down. He also attacked Caphatabira, and laid siege to
it, for it had a very strong wall; and when he expected to spend
a long time in that siege, those that were within opened their
gates on the sudden, and came to beg pardon, and surrendered
themselves up to him. When
  Cerealis had conquered them, he went to Hebron, another
  very ancient city. I have told you already that this city is
situated in a mountainous country not far off Jerusalem; and when
he had broken into the city by force, what multitude and young
men were left therein he slew, and burnt down the city; so that
as now all the places were taken, excepting Herodlum, and Masada,
and Macherus, which were in the
  possession of the robbers, so Jerusalem was what the Romans at
present aimed at.
  
  10. And now, as soon as Simon had set his wife free, and
recovered her from the zealots, he returned back to the
  remainders of Idumea, and driving the nation all before him
from all quarters, he compelled a great number of them to retire
to Jerusalem; he followed them himself also to the city, and
encompassed the wall all round again; and when he
  lighted upon any laborers that were coming thither out of the
country, he slew them. Now this Simon, who was without the wall,
was a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves, as
were the zealots who were within it more
  heavy upon them than both of the other; and during this time
did the mischievous contrivances and courage [of John]
  corrupt the body of the Galileans; for these Galileans had
advanced this John, and made him very potent, who made
  them suitable requital from the authority he had obtained by
their means; for he permitted them to do all things that any of
them desired to do, while their inclination to plunder was
insatiable, as was their zeal in searching the houses of the
rich; and for the murdering of the men, and abusing of the women,
it was sport to them. They also devoured what spoils they had
taken, together with their blood, and indulged
  themselves in feminine wantonness, without any disturbance,
till they were satiated therewith; while they decked their hair,
and put on women's garments, and were besmeared over with
ointments; and that they might appear very comely, they had
paints under their eyes, and imitated not only the ornaments, but
also the lusts of women, and were guilty of such
  intolerable uncleanness, that they invented unlawful pleasures
of that sort. And thus did they roll themselves up and down the
city, as in a brothel-house, and defiled it entirely with their
impure actions; nay, while their faces looked like the faces of
women, they killed with their right hands; and when their gait
was effeminate, they presently attacked men, and became warriors,
and drew their swords from under their
  finely dyed cloaks, and ran every body through whom they
alighted upon. However, Simon waited for such as ran away from
John, and was the more bloody of the two; and he who had escaped
the tyrant within the wall was destroyed by the other that lay
before the gates, so that all attempts of flying and deserting to
the Romans were cut off, as to those that had a mind so to do.
  
  11. Yet did the army that was under John raise a sedition
against him, and all the Idumeans separated themselves from the
tyrant, and attempted to destroy him, and this out of their envy
at his power, and hatred of his cruelty; so they got together,
and slew many of the zealots, and drove the rest before them into
that royal palace that was built by Grapte, who was a relation of
Izates, the king of Adiabene; the
  Idumeans fell in with them, and drove the zealots out thence
into the temple, and betook themselves to plunder John's effects;
for both he himself was in that palace, and therein had he laid
up the spoils he had acquired by his tyranny. In the mean time,
the multitude of those zealots that were
  dispersed over the city ran together to the temple unto those
that fled thither, and John prepared to bring them down
  against the people and the Idumeans, who were not so much
afraid of being attacked by them (because they were
  themselves better soldiers than they) as at their madness, lest
they should privately sally out of the temple and get among them,
and not only destroy them, but set the city on fire also. So they
assembled themselves together, and the high priests with them,
and took counsel after what manner they should avoid their
assault. Now it was God who turned their
  opinions to the worst advice, and thence they devised such a
remedy to get themselves free as was worse than the disease
itself. Accordingly, in order to overthrow John, they
  determined to admit Simon, and earnestly to desire the
  introduction of a second tyrant into the city; which resolution
they brought to perfection, and sent Matthias, the high priest,
to beseech this Simon to come ill to them, of whom they had so
often been afraid. Those also that had fled from the
  zealots in Jerusalem joined in this request to him, out of the
desire they had of preserving their houses and their effects.
Accordingly he, in an arrogant manner, granted them his
  lordly protection, and came into the city, in order to deliver
it from the zealots. The people also made joyful acclamations to
him, as their savior and their preserver; but when he was come
in, with his army, he took care to secure his own
  authority, and looked upon those that had invited him in to be
no less his enemies than those against whom the invitation was
intended.
  
  12. And thus did Simon get possession of Jerusalem, in the
third year of the war, in the month Xanthicus [Nisan];
  whereupon John, with his multitude of zealots, as being both
prohibited from coming out of the temple, and having lost their
power in the city, (for Simon and his party had
  plundered them of what they had,) were in despair of
  deliverance. Simon also made an assault upon the temple, with
the assistance of the people, while the others stood upon the
cloisters and the battlements, and defended themselves from their
assaults. However, a considerable number of
  Simon's party fell, and many were carried off wounded; for the
zealots threw their darts easily from a superior place, and
seldom failed of hitting their enemies; but having the
  advantage of situation, and having withal erected four very
large towers aforehand, that their darts might come from higher
places, one at the north-east corner of the court, one above the
Xystus, the third at another corner over against the lower city,
and the last was erected above the top of the Pastophoria, where
one of the priests stood of course, and gave a signal beforehand,
with a trumpet (19) at the
  beginning of every seventh day, in the evening twilight, as
also at the evening when that day was finished, as giving notice
to the people when they were to leave off work, and when they
were to go to work again. These men also set their engines to
cast darts and stones withal, upon those towers, with their
archers and slingers. And now Simon made his
  assault upon the temple more faintly, by reason that the
greatest part of his men grew weary of that work; yet did he not
leave off his opposition, because his army was superior to the
others, although the darts which were thrown by the
  engines were carried a great way, and slew many of those that
fought for him.
  
      CHAPTER 10.
         
         
        
  How The Soldiers, Both In Judea And Egypt, Proclaimed Vespasian
Emperor;And How Vespasian Released Josephus From His Bonds.       

        1. Now about this very time it was that heavy calamities
came about Rome on all sides; for Vitellius was come from
  Germany with his soldiery, and drew along with him a great
multitude of other men besides. And when the spaces allotted for
soldiers could not contain them, he made all Rome itself his
camp, and filled all the houses with his armed men; which men,
when they saw the riches of Rome with those eyes
  which had never seen such riches before, and found
  themselves shone round about on all sides with silver and gold,
they had much ado to contain their covetous desires, and were
ready to betake themselves to plunder, and to the slaughter of
such as should stand in their way. And this was the state of
affairs in Italy at that time.
  
  2. But when Vespasian had overthrown all the places that were
near to Jerusalem, he returned to Cesarea, and heard of the
troubles that were at Rome, and that Vitellius was
  emperor. This produced indignation in him, although he well
knew how to be governed as well as to govern, and could not, with
any satisfaction, own him for his lord who acted so madly, and
seized upon the government as if it were
  absolutely destitute of a governor. And as this sorrow of his
was violent, he was not able to support the torments he was
under, nor to apply himself further in other wars, when his
native country was laid waste; but then, as much as his
  passion excited him to avenge his country, so much was he
restrained by the consideration of his distance therefrom;
because fortune might prevent him, and do a world of
  mischief before he could himself sail over the sea to Italy,
especially as it was still the winter season; so he restrained
his anger, how vehement soever it was at this time.
  
  3. But now his commanders and soldiers met in several
  companies, and consulted openly about changing the public
affairs; and, out of their indignation, cried out, how "at Rome
there are soldiers that live delicately, and when they have not
ventured so much as to hear the fame of war, they ordain whom
they please for our governors, and in hopes of gain make them
emperors; while you, who have gone through so many labors, and
are grown into years under your helmets, give leave to others to
use such a power, when yet you have among yourselves one more
worthy to rule than any whom
  they have set up. Now what juster opportunity shall they ever
have of requiting their generals, if they do not make use of this
that is now before them? while there is so much juster reasons
for Vespasian's being emperor than for Vitellius; as they are
themselves more deserving than those that made the other
emperors; for that they have undergone as great wars as have the
troops that come from Germany; nor are they
  inferior in war to those that have brought that tyrant to Rome,
nor have they undergone smaller labors than they; for that
neither will the Roman senate, nor people, bear such a lascivious
emperor as Vitellius, if he be compared with their chaste
Vespasian; nor will they endure a most barbarous
  tyrant, instead of a good governor, nor choose one that hath no
child (20) to preside over them, instead of him that is a father;
because the advancement of men's own children to dignities is
certainly the greatest security kings can have for themselves.
Whether, therefore, we estimate the capacity of governing from
the skill of a person in years, we ought to have Vespasian, or
whether from the strength of a young man, we ought to have Titus;
for by this means we shall have the advantage of both their ages,
for that they will afford strength to those that shall be made
emperors, they having already three legions, besides other
auxiliaries from the neighboring kings, and will have further all
the armies in the east to support them, as also those in Europe,
so they as they are out of the distance and dread of Vitellius,
besides such auxiliaries as they may have in Italy itself; that
is, Vespasian's brother, (21) and his other son [Domitian]; the
one of whom will bring in a great many of those young men that
are of dignity, while the other is intrusted with the government
of the city, which office of his will be no small means of
  Vespasian's obtaining the government. Upon the whole, the case
may be such, that if we ourselves make further delays, the senate
may choose an emperor, whom the soldiers, who are the saviors of
the empire, will have in contempt."
  
  4. These were the discourses the soldiers had in their several
companies; after which they got together in a great body, and,
encouraging one another, they declared Vespasian
  emperor, (22) and exhorted him to save the government,
  which was now in danger. Now Vespasian's concern had been for a
considerable time about the public, yet did he not intend to set
up for governor himself, though his actions showed him to deserve
it, while he preferred that safety which is in a private life
before the dangers in a state of such dignity; but when he
refused the empire, the commanders
  insisted the more earnestly upon his acceptance; and the
soldiers came about him, with their drawn swords in their hands,
and threatened to kill him, unless he would now live according to
his dignity. And when he had shown his
  reluctance a great while, and had endeavored to thrust away
this dominion from him, he at length, being not able to
  persuade them, yielded to their solicitations that would salute
him emperor.
  
  5. So upon the exhortations of Mucianus, and the other
  commanders, that he would accept of the empire, and upon that
of the rest of the army, who cried out that they were willing to
be led against all his opposers, he was in the first place intent
upon gaining the dominion over Alexandria, as knowing that Egypt
was of the greatest consequence, in order to obtain the entire
government, because of its supplying of corn [to Rome]; which
corn, if he could be master of, he hoped to dethrone Vitellius,
supposing he should aim to keep the empire by force (for he would
not be able to support himself, if the multitude at Rome should
once be in want of food); and because he was desirous to join the
two legions that were at Alexandria to the other legions that
were with him. He also considered with himself, that he should
then have that country for a defense to himself against the
  uncertainty of fortune; for Egypt (23) is hard to be entered by
land, and hath no good havens by sea. It hath on the west the dry
deserts of Libya; and on the south Siene, that divides it from
Ethiopia, as well as the cataracts of the Nile, that cannot be
sailed over; and on the east the Red Sea extended as far as
Coptus; and it is fortified on the north by the land that reaches
to Syria, together with that called the Egyptian Sea, having no
havens in it for ships. And thus is Egypt walled about on every
side. Its length between Pelusium and Siene is two thousand
furlongs, and the passage by sea from Plinthine to Pelusium is
three thousand six hundred furlongs. Its river Nile is navigable
as far as the city called Elephantine, the forenamed cataracts
hindering ships from going any
  farther, The haven also of Alexandria is not entered by the
mariners without difficulty, even in times of peace; for the
passage inward is narrow, and full of rocks that lie under the
water, which oblige the mariners to turn from a straight
direction: its left side is blocked up by works made by men's
hands on both sides; on its right side lies the island called
Pharus, which is situated just before the entrance, and
  supports a very great tower, that affords the sight of a fire
to such as sail within three hundred furlongs of it, that ships
may cast anchor a great way off in the night time, by reason of
the difficulty of sailing nearer. About this island are built
very great piers, the handiwork of men, against which, when the
sea dashes itself, and its waves are broken against those
boundaries, the navigation becomes very troublesome, and the
entrance through so narrow a passage is rendered
  dangerous; yet is the haven itself, when you are got into it, a
very safe one, and of thirty furlongs in largeness; into which is
brought what the country wants in order to its happiness, as also
what abundance the country affords more than it
  wants itself is hence distributed into all the habitable earth. 
  6. Justly, therefore, did Vespasian desire to obtain that
government, in order to corroborate his attempts upon the whole
empire; so he immediately sent to Tiberius Alexander, who was
then governor of Egypt and of Alexandria, and
  informed him what the army had put upon him, and how he, being
forced to accept of the burden of the government, was desirous to
have him for his confederate and supporter. Now as soon as ever
Alexander had read this letter, he readily obliged the legions
and the multitude to take the oath of fidelity to Vespasian, both
which willingly complied with him, as already acquainted with the
courage of the man, from that his conduct in their neighborhood.
Accordingly Vespasian, looking upon himself as already intrusted
with the
  government, got all things ready for his journey [to Rome]. Now
fame carried this news abroad more suddenly than one could have
thought, that he was emperor over the east, upon which every city
kept festivals, and celebrated sacrifices and oblations for such
good news; the legions also that were in Mysia and Pannonia, who
had been in commotion a little
  before, on account of this insolent attempt of Vitellius, were
very glad to take the oath of fidelity to Vespasian, upon his
coming to the empire. Vespasian then removed from Cesarea to
Berytus, where many embassages came to him from Syria, and many
from other provinces, bringing with them from
  every city crowns, and the congratulations of the people.
Mucianus came also, who was the president of the province, and
told him with what alacrity the people [received the news of his
advancement], and how the people of every city had taken the oath
of fidelity to him.
  
  7. So Vespasian's good fortune succeeded to his wishes every
where, and the public affairs were, for the greatest part,
already in his hands; upon which he considered that he had not
arrived at the government without Divine Providence, but that a
righteous kind of fate had brought the empire under his power;
for as he called to mind the other signals, which had been a
great many every where, that foretold he should obtain the
government, so did he remember what Josephus
  had said to him when he ventured to foretell his coming to the
empire while Nero was alive; so he was much concerned that this
man was still in bonds with him. He then called for Mucianus,
together with his other commanders and friends, and, in the first
place, he informed them what a valiant man Josephus had been, and
what great hardships he had made
  him undergo in the siege of Jotapata. After that he related
those predictions of his (24) which he had then suspected as
fictions, suggested out of the fear he was in, but which had by
time been demonstrated to be Divine. "It is a shameful thing
(said he) that this man, who hath foretold my coming to the
empire beforehand, and been the minister of a Divine
  message to me, should still be retained in the condition of a
captive or prisoner." So he called for Josephus, and
  commanded that he should be set at liberty; whereupon the
commanders promised themselves glorious things, froth this
requital Vespasian made to a stranger. Titus was then present
with his father, and said, "O father, it is but just that the
scandal [of a prisoner] should be taken off Josephus, together
with his iron chain. For if we do not barely loose his bonds, but
cut them to pieces, he will be like a man that had never been
bound at all." For that is the usual method as to such as have
been bound without a cause. This advice was agreed to by
Vespasian also; so there came a man in, and cut the chain to
pieces; while Josephus received this testimony of his integrity
for a reward, and was moreover esteemed a person of credit as to
futurities also.
  
      CHAPTER 11.
         
         
        
  That Upon The Conquest And Slaughter Of Vitellius Vespasian
Hastened His Journey To Rome; But Titus His Son Returned To
Jerusalem.         
  1. And now, when Vespasian had given answers to the
  embassages, and had disposed of the places of power justly,
(25) and according to every one's deserts, he came to
  Antioch, and consulting which way he had best take, he
  preferred to go for Rome, rather than to march to
  Alexandria, because he saw that Alexandria was sure to him
already, but that the affairs at Rome were put into disorder by
Vitellius; so he sent Mucianus to Italy, and committed a
considerable army both of horsemen and footmen to him; yet was
Mucianus afraid of going by sea, because it was the
  middle of winter, and so he led his army on foot through
Cappadocia and Phrygia.
  
  2. In the mean time, Antonius Primus took the third of the
legions that were in Mysia, for he was president of that
province, and made haste, in order to fight Vitellius;
  whereupon Vitellius sent away Cecinna, with a great army,
having a mighty confidence in him, because of his having beaten
Otho. This Cecinna marched out of Rome in great
  haste, and found Antonius about Cremona in Gall, which city is
in the borders of Italy; but when he saw there that the enemy
were numerous and in good order, he durst not fight them; and as
he thought a retreat dangerous, so he began to think of betraying
his army to Antonius. Accordingly, he assembled the centurions
and tribunes that were under his command, and persuaded them to
go over to Antonius, and
  this by diminishing the reputation of Vitellius, and by
  exaggerating the power of Vespasian. He also told them that
with the one there was no more than the bare name of
  dominion, but with the other was the power of it; and that it
was better for them to prevent necessity, and gain favor, and,
while they were likely to be overcome in battle, to avoid the
danger beforehand, and go over to Antonius willingly; that
Vespasian was able of himself to subdue what had not yet
submitted without their assistance, while Vitellius could not
preserve what he had already with it.
  
  3. Cecinna said this, and much more to the same purpose, and
persuaded them to comply with him; and both he and his army
deserted; but still the very same night the soldiers repented of
what they had done, and a fear seized on them, lest perhaps
Vitellius who sent them should get the better; and drawing their
swords, they assaulted Cecinna, in order to kill him; and the
thing had been done by them, if the
  tribunes had not fallen upon their knees, and besought them not
to do it; so the soldiers did not kill him, but put him in bonds,
as a traitor, and were about to send him to Vitellius. When
[Antonius] Primus heard of this, he raised up his men
immediately, and made them put on their armor, and led
  them against those that had revolted; hereupon they put
  themselves in order of battle, and made a resistance for a
while, but were soon beaten, and fled to Cremona; then did Primus
take his horsemen, and cut off their entrance into the city, and
encompassed and destroyed a great multitude of them before the
city, and fell into the city together with the rest, and gave
leave to his soldiers to plunder it. And here it was that many
strangers, who were merchants, as well as
  many of the people of that country, perished, and among
  them Vitellius's whole army, being thirty thousand and two
hundred, while Antonius lost no more of those that came
  with him from Mysia than four thousand and five hundred: he
then loosed Cecinna, and sent him to Vespasian to tell him the
good news. So he came, and was received by him,
  and covered the scandal of his treachery by the unexpected
honors he received from Vespasian.
  
  4. And now, upon the news that Antonius was approaching,
Sabinus took courage at Rome, and assembled those cohorts of
soldiers that kept watch by night, and in the night time seized
upon the capitol; and, as the day came on, many men of character
came over to him, with Domitian, his brother's son, whose
encouragement was of very great weight for the compassing the
government. Now Vitellius was not much
  concerned at this Primus, but was very angry with those that
had revolted with Sabinus; and thirsting, out of his own natural
barbarity, after noble blood, he sent out that part of the army
which came along with him to fight against the
  capitol; and many bold actions were done on this side, and on
the side of those that held the temple. But at last, the soldiers
that came from Germany, being too numerous for
  the others, got the hill into their possession, where Domitian,
with many other of the principal Romans, providentially
  escaped, while the rest of the multitude were entirely cut to
pieces, and Sabinus himself was brought to Vitellius, and then
slain; the soldiers also plundered the temple of its ornaments,
and set it on fire. But now within a day's time came
  Antonius, with his army, and were met by Vitellius and his
army; and having had a battle in three several places, the last
were all destroyed. Then did Vitellius come out of the palace, in
his cups, and satiated with an extravagant and luxurious meal, as
in the last extremity, and being drawn along through the
multitude, and abused with all sorts of torments, had his head
cut off in the midst of Rome, having retained the
  government eight months and five days (26) and had he lived
much longer, I cannot but think the empire would not have been
sufficient for his lust. Of the others that were slain, were
numbered above fifty thousand. This battle was fought on the
third day of the month Apelleus [Casleu]; on the next day
Mucianus came into the city with his army, and ordered Antonius
and his men to leave off killing; for they were still searching
the houses, and killed many of Vitellius's soldiers, and many of
the populace, as supposing them to be of his party, preventing by
their rage any accurate distinction between them and others. He
then produced Domitian, and
  recommended him to the multitude, until his father should come
himself; so the people being now freed from their fears, made
acclamations of joy for Vespasian, as for their emperor, and kept
festival days for his confirmation, and for the destruction of
Vitellius.
  
  5. And now, as Vespasian was come to Alexandria, this good news
came from Rome, and at the same time came embassies from all his
own habitable earth, to congratulate him upon his advancement;
and though this Alexandria was the greatest of all cities next to
Rome, it proved too narrow to contain the multitude that then
came to it. So upon this confirmation of Vespasian's entire
government, which was now settled, and upon the unexpected
deliverance of the public affairs of the Romans from ruin,
Vespasian turned his thoughts to what
  remained unsubdued in Judea. However, he himself made
  haste to go to Rome, as the winter was now almost over, and
soon set the affairs of Alexandria in order, but sent his son
Titus, with a select part of his army, to destroy Jerusalem. So
Titus marched on foot as far as Nicopolis, which is distant
twenty furlongs from Alexandria; there he put his army on board
some long ships, and sailed upon the river along the Mendesian
Nomus, as far as the city Tumuis; there he got out of the ships,
and walked on foot, and lodged all night at a small city called
Tanis. His second station was
  Heracleopolis, and his third Pelusium; he then refreshed his
army at that place for two days, and on the third passed over the
mouths of the Nile at Pelusium; he then proceeded one station
over the desert, and pitched his camp at the temple of the Casian
Jupiter, (27) and on the next day at Ostracine. This station had
no water, but the people of the country make use of water brought
from other places. After this he rested at Rhinocolura, and from
thence he went to Raphia, which was his fourth station. This city
is the beginning of Syria. For his fifth station he pitched his
camp at Gaza; after which he came to Ascalon, and thence to
Jamnia, and after that to Joppa, and from Joppa to Cesarea,
having taken a resolution to gather all his other forces together
at that place. 

WAR BOOK 4 FOOTNOTES

(1) Here we have the exact situation of of Jeroboam's "at the
exit of Little Jordan into Great Jordan, near the place called
Daphne, but of old Dan. See the note in Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 8.
sect. 4. But Reland suspects flint here we should read Dan
instead of there being no where else mention of a place called
Daphne.

(2) These numbers in Josephus of thirty furlongs' ascent to the
top of Mount Tabor, whether we estimate it by winding and
gradual, or by the perpendicular altitude, and of twenty-six
furlongs' circumference upon the top, as also fifteen furlongs
for this ascent in Polybius, with Geminus's perpendicular
altitude of almost fourteen furlongs, here noted by Dr. Hudson,
do none of' them agree with the authentic testimony of Mr.
Maundrell, an eye-witness, p. 112, who says he was not an hour in
getting up to the top of this Mount Tabor, and that the area of
the top is an oval of about two furlongs in length, and one in
breadth. So I rather suppose Josephus wrote three furlongs for
the ascent or altitude, instead of thirty; and six furlongs for
the circumference at the top, instead of twenty-six,--since a
mountain of only three furlongs perpendicular altitude may easily
require near an hour's ascent, and the circumference of an oval
of the foregoing quantity is near six furlongs. Nor certainly
could such a vast circumference as twenty-six furlongs, or three
miles and a quarter, at that height be encompassed with a wall,
including a trench and other fortifications, (perhaps those still
remaining, ibid.) in the small interval of forty days, as
Josephus here says they were by himself.

(3) This name Dorcas in Greek, was Tabitha in Hebrew or Syriac,
as Acts 9:36. Accordingly, some of the manuscripts set it down
here Tabetha or Tabeta. Nor can the context in Josephus be made
out by supposing the reading to have been this: "The son of
Tabitha; which, in the language of our country, denotes Dorcas"
[or a doe].

(4) Here we may discover the utter disgrace and ruin of the high
priesthood among the Jews, when undeserving, ignoble, and vile
persons were advanced to that holy office by the seditious; which
sort of high priests, as Josephus well remarks here, were
thereupon obliged to comply with and assist those that advanced
them in their impious practices. The names of these high priests,
or rather ridiculous and profane persons, were Jesus the son of
Damneus, Jesus the son of Gamaliel, Matthias the son of
Theophilus, and that prodigious ignoramus Phannias, the son of
Samuel; all whom we shall meet with in Josephus's future history
of this war; nor do we meet with any other so much as pretended
high priest after Phannias, till Jerusalem was taken and
destroyed.

(5) This tribe or course of the high priests, or priests, here
called Eniachim, seems to the learned Mr. Lowth, one well versed
in Josephus, to be that 1 Chronicles 24:12, "the course of
Jakim," where some copies have" the course of Eliakim;" and I
think this to be by no means an improbable conjecture.

(6) This Symeon, the son of Gamaliel, is mentioned as the
president of the Jewish sanhedrim, and one that perished in the
destruction of Jerusalem, by the Jewish Rabbins, as Reland
observes on this place. He also tells us that those Rabbins
mention one Jesus the son of Gamala, as once a high priest, but
this long before the destruction of Jerusalem; so that if he were
the same person with this Jesus the son of Gamala, Josephus, he
must have lived to be very old, or they have been very bad
chronologers.

(7) It is worth noting here, that this Ananus, the best of the
Jews at this time, and the high priest, who was so very uneasy at
the profanation of the Jewish courts of the temple by the
zealots, did not however scruple the profanation of the "court of
the Gentiles;" as in our Savior's days it was very much profaned
by the Jews; and made a market-place, nay, a "den of thieves,"
without scruple, Matthew 21:12, 13; Mark 11:15-17. Accordingly
Josephus himself, when he speaks of the two inner courts, calls
them both hagia or holy places; but, so far as I remember, never
gives that character of the court of the Gentiles. See B. V. ch.
9. sect. 2.

(8) This appellation of Jerusalem given it here by Simon, the
general of the Idumeans, "the common city" of the Idumeans, who
were proselytes of justice, as well as of the original native
Jews, greatly confirms that maxim of the Rabbins, here set down
by Reland, that "Jerusalem was not assigned, or appropriated, to
the tribe of Benjamin or Judah, but every tribe had equal right
to it [at their coming to worship there at the several
festivals]." See a little before, ch. 3. sect. 3, or "worldly
worship," as the author to the Hebrews calls the sanctuary, "a
worldly sanctuary."

(9) Some commentators are ready to suppose that this" Zacharias,
the son of Baruch," here most unjustly slain by the Jews in the
temple, was the very same person with "Zacharias, the son of
Barachias," whom our Savior says the Jews "slew between the
temple and the altar," Matthew 23:35. This is a somewhat strange
exposition; since Zechariah the prophet was really "the son of
Barachiah," and "grandson of Iddo, Zechariah 1:1; and how he
died, we have no other account than that before us in St.
Matthew: while this "Zacharias" was "the son of Baruch." Since
the slaughter was past when our Savior spake these words, the
Jews had then already slain him; whereas this slaughter of
"Zacharias, the son of Baruch," in Josephus, was then about
thirty-four years future. And since the slaughter was "between
the temple and the altar," in the court of the priests, one of
the most sacred and remote parts of the whole temple; while this
was, in Josephus's own words, in the middle of the temple, and
much the most probably in the court of Israel only (for we have
had no intimation that the zealots had at this time profaned the
court of the priests. See B. V. ch. 1. sect. 2). Nor do I believe
that our Josephus, who always insists on the peculiar sacredness
of the inmost court, and of the holy house that was in it, would
have omitted so material an aggravation of this barbarous murder,
as perpetrated in. a place so very holy, had that been the true
place of it. See Antiq. B. XI. ch. 7. sect. 1, and the note here
on B. V. ch. 1. sect. 2.

(10) This prediction, that the city (Jerusalem) should then "be
taken, and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition
should invade Jews, and their own hands should pollute that
temple;" or, as it is B. VI. ch. 2. sect. 1, "when any one should
begin to slay his countrymen in the city;" is wanting in our
present copies of the Old Testament. See Essay on the Old Test.
p. 104--112. But this prediction, as Josephus well remarks here,
though, with the other predictions of the prophets, it was now
laughed at by the seditious, was by their very means soon exactly
fulfilled. However, I cannot but here take notice of Grotius's
positive assertion upon Matthew 26:9, here quoted by Dr. Hudson,
that "it ought to be taken for granted, as a certain truth, that
many predictions of the Jewish prophets were preserved, not in
writing, but by memory." Whereas, it seems to me so far from
certain, that I think it has no evidence nor probability at all.

(11) By these hiera, or "holy places," as distinct from cities,
must be meant "proseuchae," or "houses of prayer," out of cities;
of which we find mention made in the New Testament and other
authors. See Luke 6:12; Acts 16:13, 16; Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 10.
sect. 23; his Life, sect. 51. "In qua te quero proseucha?"
Juvenal Sat. III. yet. 296. They were situated sometimes by the
sides of rivers, Acts 16:13, or by the sea-side, Antiq. B. XIV.
ch. 10. sect. 23. So did the seventy-two interpreters go to pray
every morning by the sea-side before they went to their work, B.
XII. ch. 2. sect. 12.

(12) Gr. Galatia, and so everywhere.

(13) Whether this Somorrhon, or Somorrha, ought not to be here
written Gomorrha, as some MSS. in a manner have it, (for the
place meant by Josephus seems to be near Segor, or Zoar, at the
very south of the Dead Sea, hard by which stood Sodom and
Gomorrha,) cannot now be certainly determined, but seems by no
means improbable.

(14) This excellent prayer of Elisha is wanting in our copies, 2
Kings 2:21, 22, though it be referred to also in the Apostolical
Constitutions, B. VII. ch. 37., and the success of it is
mentioned in them all.

(15) See the note on B. V. ch. 13. sect. 6.

(16) Of these Roman affairs and tumults under Galba, Otho, and
Vitellius, here only touched upon by Josephus, see Tacitus,
Suelonius, and Dio, more largely. However, we may observe with
Ottius, that Josephus writes the name of the second of them not
Otto, with many others, but Otho, with the coins. See also the
note on ch. 11. sect. 4.

(17) Some of the ancients call this famous tree, or grove, an oak
others, a turpentine tree, or grove. It has been very famous in
all the past ages, and is so, I suppose, at this day; and that
particularly for an eminent mart or meeting of merchants there
every year, as the travelers inform us.

(18) Puetonius differs hardly three days from Josephus, and says
Otho perished on the ninety-fifth day of his reign. In Anthon.
See the note on ch. 11. sect. 4.

(19) This beginning and ending the observation of the Jewish
seventh day, or sabbath, with a priest's blowing of a trumpet, is
remarkable, and no where else mentioned, that I know of. Nor is
Reland's conjecture here improbable, that this was the very place
that has puzzled our commentators so long, called "Musach
Sabbati," the "Covert of the Sabbath," if that be the true
reading, 2 Kings 16:18, because here the proper priest stood dry,
under a "covering," to proclaim the beginning and ending of every
Jewish sabbath.

(20) The Roman authors that now remain say Vitellius had
children, whereas Josephus introduces here the Roman soldiers in
Judea saying he had none. Which of these assertions was the truth
I know not. Spanheim thinks he hath given a peculiar reason for
calling Vitellius "childless," though he really had children,
Diss. de Num. p. 649, 650; to which it appears very difficult to
give our assent.

(21) This brother of Vespasian was Flavius Sabinus, as Suetonius
informs us, in Vitell. sect. 15, and in Vespas. sect. 2. He is
also named by Josephus presently ch. 11. sect; 4.

(22) It is plain by the nature of the thing, as well as by
Josephus and Eutropius, that Vespasian was first of all saluted
emperor in Judea, and not till some time afterward in Egypt.
Whence Tacitus's and Suetonius's present copies must be correct
text, when they both say that he was first proclaimed in Egypt,
and that on the calends of July, while they still say it was the
fifth of the Nones or Ides of the same July before he was
proclaimed in Judea. I suppose the month they there intended was
June, and not July, as the copies now have it; nor does Tacitus's
coherence imply less. See Essay on the Revelation, p. 136.

(23) Here we have an authentic description of the bounds and
circumstances of Egypt, in the days of Vespasian and Titus.

(24) As Daniel was preferred by Darius and Cyrus, on account of
his having foretold the destruction of the Babylonian monarchy by
their means, and the consequent exaltation of the Medes and
Persians, Daniel 5:6 or rather, as Jeremiah, when he was a
prisoner, was set at liberty, and honorably treated by
Nebuzaradan, at the command of Nebuchadnezzar, on account of his
having foretold the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians,
Jeremiah 40:1-7; so was our Josephus set at liberty, and
honorably treated, on account of his having foretold the
advancement of Vespasian and Titus to the Roman empire. All these
are most eminent instances of the interposition of Divine
Providence. and of the certainty of Divine predictions in the
great revolutions of the four monarchies. Several such-like
examples there are, both in the sacred and other histories, as in
the case of Joseph in Egypt. and of Jaddua the high priest, in
the days of Alexander the Great, etc.

(25) This is well observed by Josephus, that Vespasian, in order
to secure his success, and establish his government at first,
distributed his offices and places upon the foot of justice, and
bestowed them on such as best deserved them, and were best fit
for them. Which wise conduct in a mere heathen ought to put those
rulers and ministers of state to shame, who, professing
Christianity, act otherwise, and thereby expose themselves and
their kingdoms to vice and destruction.

(26) The numbers in Josephus, ch. 9. sect. 2, 9, for Galba seven
months seven days, for Otho three months two days, and here for
Vitellius eight months five days, do not agree with any Roman
historians, who also disagree among themselves. And, indeed,
Sealiger justly complains, as Dr. Hudson observes on ch. 9. sect.
2, that this period is very confused and uncertain in the ancient
authors. They were probably some of them contemporary together
for some time; one of the best evidences we have, I mean
Ptolemy's Canon, omits them all, as if they did not all together
reign one whole year, nor had a single Thoth, or new-year's day,
(which then fell upon August 6,) in their entire reigns. Dio
also, who says that Vitellius reigned a year within ten days,
does yet estimate all their reigns together at no more than one
year, one month, and two days.

(27) There are coins of this Casian Jupiter still extant.

BOOK V.
  
  
  
  Containing The Interval Of Near Six Months.
  
  
  From The Coming Of Titus To Besiege Jerusalem, To The
  Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were Reduced.
  
  
  CHAPTER 1.
  
  
  Concerning The Seditions At Jerusalem And What Terrible
  Miseries Afflicted The City By Their Means.
  
  1. When therefore Titus had marched over that desert
  which lies between Egypt and Syria, in the manner
  forementioned, he came to Cesarea, having resolved to set his
forces in order at that place, before he began the war. Nay,
indeed, while he was assisting his father at
  Alexandria, in settling that government which had been
  newly conferred upon them by God, it so happened that the
sedition at Jerusalem was revived, and parted into three
factions, and that one faction fought against the other; which
partition in such evil cases may be said to be a good thing, and
the effect of Divine justice. Now as to the attack the zealots
made upon the people, and which I esteem the beginning of the
city's destruction, it hath been already explained after an
accurate manner; as also whence it
  arose, and to how great a mischief it was increased. But for
the present sedition, one should not mistake if he called it a
sedition begotten by another sedition, and to be like a wild
beast grown mad, which, for want of food from abroad, fell now
upon eating its own flesh.
  
  2. For Eleazar, the son of Simon, who made the first
  separation of the zealots from the people, and made them retire
into the temple, appeared very angry at John's
  insolent attempts, which he made everyday upon the
  people; for this man never left off murdering; but the truth
was, that he could not bear to submit to a tyrant who set up
after him. So he being desirous of gaining the entire power and
dominion to himself, revolted from John, and took to his
assistance Judas the son of Chelcias, and Simon the
  son of Ezron, who were among the men of greatest power.
  There was also with him Hezekiah, the son of Chobar, a
  person of eminence. Each of these were followed by a
  great many of the zealots; these seized upon the inner
  court of the temple (1) and laid their arms upon the holy
gates, and over the holy fronts of that court. And because they
had plenty of provisions, they were of good courage, for there
was a great abundance of what was consecrated
  to sacred uses, and they scrupled not the making use of
  them; yet were they afraid, on account of their small
  number; and when they had laid up their arms there, they did
not stir from the place they were in. Now as to John, what
advantage he had above Eleazar in the multitude of
  his followers, the like disadvantage he had in the situation he
was in, since he had his enemies over his head; and as he could
not make any assault upon them without some
  terror, so was his anger too great to let them be at rest; nay,
although he suffered more mischief from Eleazar and his party
than he could inflict upon them, yet would he not leave off
assaulting them, insomuch that there were
  continual sallies made one against another, as well as darts
thrown at one another, and the temple was defiled every
  where with murders.
  
  3. But now the tyrant Simon, the son of Gioras, whom the people
had invited in, out of the hopes they had of his
  assistance in the great distresses they were in, having in his
power the upper city, and a great part of the lower, did now make
more vehement assaults upon John and his
  party, because they were fought against from above also; yet
was he beneath their situation when he attacked them, as they
were beneath the attacks of the others above them. Whereby it
came to pass that John did both receive and
  inflict great damage, and that easily, as he was fought
  against on both sides; and the same advantage that
  Eleazar and his party had over him, since he was beneath them,
the same advantage had he, by his higher situation, over Simon.
On which account he easily repelled the
  attacks that were made from beneath, by the weapons
  thrown from their hands only; but was obliged to repel
  those that threw their darts from the temple above him, by his
engines of war; for he had such engines as threw darts, and
javelins, and stones, and that in no small number, by which he
did not only defend himself from such as fought against him, but
slew moreover many of the priests, as they were about their
sacred ministrations. For notwithstanding these men were mad with
all sorts of impiety, yet did they still admit those that desired
to offer their sacrifices, although they took care to search the
people of their own country beforehand, and both suspected and
watched
  them; while they were not so much afraid of strangers, who,
although they had gotten leave of them, how cruel soever they
were, to come into that court, were yet often destroyed by this
sedition; for those darts that were thrown by the engines came
with that force, that they went over all the buildings, and
reached as far as the altar, and the temple itself, and fell upon
the priests, and those (2) that were about the sacred offices;
insomuch that many persons who came thither with great zeal from
the ends of the earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated
place, which was
  esteemed holy by all mankind, fell down before their own
sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which was
venerable among all men, both Greeks and Barbarians,
  with their own blood; till the dead bodies of strangers were
mingled together with those of their own country, and those of
profane persons with those of the priests, and the blood of all
sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts
themselves. And now, "O must wretched city, what
  misery so great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when
they came to purify thee from thy intestine hatred! 'For thou
couldst be no longer a place fit for God, nor
  couldst thou long continue in being, after thou hadst been a
sepulcher for the bodies of thy own people, and hadst
  made the holy house itself a burying-place in this civil war of
thine. Yet mayst thou again grow better, if perchance thou wilt
hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the author of thy
destruction." But I must restrain myself from these passions by
the rules of history, since this is not a proper time for
domestical lamentations, but for historical narrations; I
therefore return to the operations that follow in this sedition.
(3)
  
  4. And now there were three treacherous factions in the
  city, the one parted from the other. Eleazar and his party,
that kept the sacred first-fruits, came against John in their
cups. Those that were with John plundered the populace,
  and went out with zeal against Simon. This Simon had his supply
of provisions from the city, in opposition to the seditious.
When, therefore, John was assaulted on both
  sides, he made his men turn about, throwing his darts upon
those citizens that came up against him, from the cloisters he
had in his possession, while he opposed those that
  attacked him from the temple by his engines of war. And if at
any time he was freed from those that were above him, which
happened frequently, from their being drunk and
  tired, he sallied out with a great number upon Simon and his
party; and this he did always in such parts of the city as he
could come at, till he set on fire those houses that were full of
corn, and of all other provisions. (4) The same thing was done by
Simon, when, upon the other's retreat, he
  attacked the city also; as if they had, on purpose, done it to
serve the Romans, by destroying what the city had laid up against
the siege, and by thus cutting off the nerves of their own power.
Accordingly, it so came to pass, that all the places that were
about the temple were burnt down, and
  were become an intermediate desert space, ready for
  fighting on both sides of it; and that almost all that corn was
burnt, which would have been sufficient for a siege of many
years. So they were taken by the means of the famine,
  which it was impossible they should have been, unless they had
thus prepared the way for it by this procedure.
  
  5. And now, as the city was engaged in a war on all sides, from
these treacherous crowds of wicked men, the people
  of the city, between them, were like a great body torn in
pieces. The aged men and the women were in such
  distress by their internal calamities, that they wished for the
Romans, and earnestly hoped for an external war, in order to
their delivery from their domestical miseries. The citizens
themselves were under a terrible consternation and fear; nor had
they any opportunity of taking counsel, and of
  changing their conduct; nor were there any hopes of
  coming to an agreement with their enemies; nor could such as
had a mind flee away; for guards were set at all places, and the
heads of the robbers, although they were seditious one against
another in other respects, yet did they agree in killing those
that were for peace with the Romans, or were suspected of an
inclination to desert them, as their common enemies. They agreed
in nothing but this, to kill those that were innocent. The noise
also of those that were fighting was incessant, both by day and
by night; but the
  lamentations of those that mourned exceeded the other; nor was
there ever any occasion for them to leave off their
  lamentations, because their calamities came perpetually
  one upon another, although the deep consternation they
  were in prevented their outward wailing; but being
  constrained by their fear to conceal their inward passions,
they were inwardly tormented, without daring to open their lips
in groans. :Nor was any regard paid to those that were still
alive, by their relations; nor was there any care taken of burial
for those that were dead; the occasion of both which was this,
that every one despaired of himself; for those that were not
among the seditious had no great desires of any thing, as
expecting for certain that they should very soon be destroyed;
but for the seditious themselves, they fought against each other,
while they trod upon the dead bodies as they lay heaped one upon
another, and taking up a mad rage from those dead bodies that
were under their feet,
  became the fiercer thereupon. They, moreover, were still
inventing somewhat or other that was pernicious against
  themselves; and when they had resolved upon any thing,
  they executed it without mercy, and omitted no method of
torment or of barbarity. Nay, John abused the sacred
  materials, (5) and employed them in the construction of his
engines of war; for the people and the priests had formerly
determined to support the temple, and raise the holy house twenty
cubits higher; for king Agrippa had at a very great expense, and
with very great pains, brought thither such materials as were
proper for that purpose, being pieces of timber very well worth
seeing, both for their straightness and their largeness; but the
war coming on, and interrupting the work, John had them cut, and
prepared for the building him towers, he finding them long enough
to oppose from
  them those his adversaries that thought him from the
  temple that was above him. He also had them brought and
  erected behind the inner court over against the west end of the
cloisters, where alone he could erect them ; whereas the other
sides of that court had so many steps as would not let them come
nigh enough the cloisters.
  
  6. Thus did John hope to be too hard for his enemies by
  these engines constructed by his impiety; but God himself
demonstrated that his pains would prove of no use to him, by
bringing the Romans upon him, before he had reared
  any of his towers; for Titus, when he had gotten together part
of his forces about him, and had ordered the rest to meet him at
Jerusalem, marched out of Cesarea. He had
  with him those three legions that had accompanied his
  father when he laid Judea waste, together with that twelfth
legion which had been formerly beaten with Cestius; which legion,
as it was otherwise remarkable for its valor, so did it march on
now with greater alacrity to avenge themselves
  on the Jews, as remembering what they had formerly
  suffered from them. Of these legions he ordered the fifth to
meet him, by going through Emmaus, and the tenth to go
  up by Jericho; he also moved himself, together with the
  rest; besides whom, marched those auxiliaries that came
  from the kings, being now more in number than before,
  together with a considerable number that came to his
  assistance from Syria. Those also that had been selected out of
these four legions, and sent with Mucianus to Italy, had their
places filled up out of these soldiers that came out of Egypt
with Titus; who were two thousand men, chosen
  out of the armies at Alexandria. There followed him also three
thousand drawn from those that guarded the river
  Euphrates; as also there came Tiberius Alexander, who
  was a friend of his, most valuable, both for his good-will to
him, and for his prudence. He had formerly been governor of
Alexandria, but was now thought worthy to be general of the army
[under Titus]. The reason of this was, that he had been the first
who encouraged Vespasian very lately to
  accept this his new dominion, and joined himself to him with
great fidelity, when things were uncertain, and fortune had not
yet declared for him. He also followed Titus as a
  counselor, very useful to him in this war, both by his age and
skill in such affairs.
  
  CHAPTER 2.
  
  
  
  How Titus Marched To Jerusalem, And How He Was In
  Danger As He Was Taking A View O The City Of The
  Place Also Where He Pitched His Camp
  
  1. Now, as Titus was upon his march into the enemy's
  country, the auxiliaries that were sent by the kings marched
first, having all the other auxiliaries with them; after whom
followed those that were to prepare the roads and measure out the
camp; then came the commander's baggage, and
  after that the other soldiers, who were completely armed to
support them; then came Titus himself, having with him
  another select body; and then came the pikemen; after
  whom came the horse belonging to that legion. All these
  came before the engines; and after these engines came the
tribunes and the leaders of the cohorts, with their select
bodies; after these came the ensigns, with the eagle; and before
those ensigns came the trumpeters belonging to
  them; next these came the main body of the army in their ranks,
every rank being six deep; the servants belonging to every legion
came after these; and before these last their baggage; the
mercenaries came last, and those that
  guarded them brought up the rear. Now Titus, according to the
Roman usage, went in the front of the army after a
  decent manner, and marched through Samaria to Gophna,
  a city that had been formerly taken by his father, and was then
garrisoned by Roman soldiers; and when he had
  lodged there one night, he marched on in the morning; and when
he had gone as far as a day's march, he pitched his camp at that
valley which the Jews, in their own tongue, call "the Valley of
Thorns," near a certain village called Gabaothsath, which
signifies "the Hill of Saul," being distant from Jerusalem about
thirty furlongs. (6) There it was that he chose out six hundred
select horsemen, and went to
  take a view of the city, to observe what strength it was of,
and how courageous the Jews were; whether, when they
  saw him, and before they came to a direct battle, they
  would be affrighted and submit; for he had been informed what
was really true, that the people who were fallen under the power
of the seditious and the robbers were greatly
  desirous of peace; but being too weak to rise up against the
rest, they lay still.
  
  2. Now, so long as he rode along the straight road which led to
the wall of the city, nobody appeared out of the
  gates; but when he went out of that road, and declined
  towards the tower Psephinus, and led the band of
  horsemen obliquely, an immense number of the Jews
  leaped out suddenly at the towers called the "Women's
  Towers," through that gate which was over against the
  monuments of queen Helena, and intercepted his horse;
  and standing directly opposite to those that still ran along
the road, hindered them from joining those that had
  declined out of it. They intercepted Titus also, with a few
other. Now it was here impossible for him to go forward, because
all the places had trenches dug in them from the wall, to
preserve the gardens round about, and were full of gardens
obliquely situated, and of many hedges; and to
  return back to his own men, he saw it was also impossible, by
reason of the multitude of the enemies that lay between them;
many of whom did not so much as know that the king was in any
danger, but supposed him still among them. So he perceived that
his preservation must be wholly owing to his own courage, and
turned his horse about, and cried out aloud to those that were
about him to follow him, and ran with violence into the midst of
his enemies, in order to force his way through them to his own
men. And hence we may
  principally learn, that both the success of wars, and the
dangers that kings (7) are in, are under the providence of God;
for while such a number of darts were thrown at Titus, when he
had neither his head-piece on, nor his breastplate, (for, as I
told you, he went out not to fight, but to view the city,) none
of them touched his body, but went aside
  without hurting him; as if all of them missed him on
  purpose, and only made a noise as they passed by him. So he
diverted those perpetually with his sword that came on his side,
and overturned many of those that directly met him, and made his
horse ride over those that were
  overthrown. The enemy indeed made a shout at the
  boldness of Caesar, and exhorted one another to rush upon him.
Yet did these against whom he marched fly away, and go off from
him in great numbers; while those that were in the same danger
with him kept up close to him, though
  they were wounded both on their backs and on their sides; for
they had each of them but this one hope of escaping, if they
could assist Titus in opening himself a way, that he might not be
encompassed round by his enemies before he
  got away from them. Now there were two of those that
  were with him, but at some distance; the one of which the enemy
compassed round, and slew him with their darts,
  and his horse also; but the other they slew as he leaped down
from his horse, and carried off his horse with them. But Titus
escaped with the rest, and came safe to the
  camp. So this success of the Jews' first attack raised their
minds, and gave them an ill-grounded hope; and this short
inclination of fortune, on their side, made them very
  courageous for the future.
  
  3. But now, as soon as that legion that had been at
  Emmaus was joined to Caesar at night, he removed
  thence, when it was day, and came to a place called
  Seopus; from whence the city began already to be seen,
  and a plain view might be taken of the great temple.
  Accordingly, this place, on the north quarter of the city, and
joining thereto, was a plain, and very properly named
  Scopus, [the prospect,] and was no more than seven
  furlongs distant from it. And here it was that Titus ordered a
camp to be fortified for two legions that were to be together;
but ordered another camp to be fortified, at three furlongs
farther distance behind them, for the fifth legion; for he
thought that, by marching in the night, they might be tired, and
might deserve to be covered from the enemy, and with less fear
might fortify themselves; and as these were now beginning to
build, the tenth legion, who came through
  Jericho, was already come to the place, where a certain
  party of armed men had formerly lain, to guard that pass into
the city, and had been taken before by Vespasian.
  These legions had orders to encamp at the distance of six
furlongs from Jerusalem, at the mount called the Mount of Olives
(8) which lies over against the city on the east side, and is
parted from it by a deep valley, interposed between them, which
is named Cedron.
  
  4. Now when hitherto the several parties in the city had been
dashing one against another perpetually, this foreign war, now
suddenly come upon them after a violent manner, put the first
stop to their contentions one against another; and as the
seditious now saw with astonishment the
  Romans pitching three several camps, they began to think of an
awkward sort of concord, and said one to another,
  "What do we here, and what do we mean, when we suffer
  three fortified walls to be built to coop us in, that we shall
not be able to breathe freely? while the enemy is securely
building a kind of city in opposition to us, and while we sit
still within our own walls, and become spectators only of what
they are doing, with our hands idle, and our armor laid by, as if
they were about somewhat that was for our good and advantage. We
are, it seems, (so did they cry out,)
  only courageous against ourselves, while the Romans are
  likely to gain the city without bloodshed by our sedition."
Thus did they encourage one another when they were
  gotten together, and took their armor immediately, and ran out
upon the tenth legion, and fell upon the Romans with great
eagerness, and with a prodigious shout, as they were fortifying
their camp. These Romans were caught in
  different parties, and this in order to perform their several
works, and on that account had in great measure laid aside their
arms; for they thought the Jews would not have
  ventured to make a sally upon them; and had they been
  disposed so to do, they supposed their sedition would have
distracted them. So they were put into disorder
  unexpectedly; when some of hem left their works they were
about, and immediately marched off, while many ran to
  their arms, but were smitten and slain before they could turn
back upon the enemy. The Jews became still more
  and more in number, as encouraged by the good success
  of those that first made the attack; and while they had such
good fortune, they seemed both to themselves and to the
  enemy to be many more than they really were. The
  disorderly way of their fighting at first put the Romans also
to a stand, who had been constantly used to fight skillfully in
good order, and with keeping their ranks, and obeying the orders
that were given them; for which reason the
  Romans were caught unexpectedly, and were obliged to
  give way to the assaults that were made upon them. Now
  when these Romans were overtaken, and turned back upon
  the Jews, they put a stop to their career; yet when they did
not take care enough of themselves through the
  vehemency of their pursuit, they were wounded by them;
  but as still more and more Jews sallied out of the city, the
Romans were at length brought into confusion, and put to fight,
and ran away from their camp. Nay, things looked as though the
entire legion would have been in danger, unless Titus had been
informed of the case they were in, and had sent them succors
immediately. So he reproached them for their cowardice, and
brought those back that were running away, and fell himself upon
the Jews on their flank, with those select troops that were with
him, and slew a
  considerable number, and wounded more of them, and put
  them all to flight, and made them run away hastily down the
valley. Now as these Jews suffered greatly in the declivity of
the valley, so when they were gotten over it, they turned about,
and stood over against the Romans, having the
  valley between them, and there fought with them. Thus did they
continue the fight till noon; but when it was already a little
after noon, Titus set those that came to the assistance of the
Romans with him, and those that belonged to the
  cohorts, to prevent the Jews from making any more sallies, and
then sent the rest of the legion to the upper part of the
mountain, to fortify their camp.
  
  5. This march of the Romans seemed to the Jews to be a
  flight; and as the watchman who was placed upon the wall gave a
signal by shaking his garment, there came out a
  fresh multitude of Jews, and that with such mighty violence,
that one might compare it to the running of the most terrible
wild beasts. To say the truth, none of those that opposed them
could sustain the fury with which they made their
  attacks; but, as if they had been cast out of an engine, they
brake the enemies' ranks to pieces, who were put to flight, and
ran away to the mountain; none but Titus himself, and a few
others with him, being left in the midst of the acclivity. Now
these others, who were his friends, despised the
  danger they were in, and were ashamed to leave their
  general, earnestly exhorting him to give way to these Jews that
are fond of dying, and not to run into such dangers before those
that ought to stay before him; to consider what his fortune was,
and not, by supplying the place of a
  common soldier, to venture to turn back upon the enemy so
suddenly; and this because he was general in the war, and lord of
the habitable earth, on whose preservation the
  public affairs do all depend. These persuasions Titus
  seemed not so much as to hear, but opposed those that
  ran upon him, and smote them on the face; and when he
  had forced them to go back, he slew them: he also fell
  upon great numbers as they marched down the hill, and
  thrust them forward; while those men were so amazed at
  his courage and his strength, that they could not fly directly
to the city, but declined from him on both sides, and
  pressed after those that fled up the hill; yet did he still
fall upon their flank, and put a stop to their fury. In the mean
time, a disorder and a terror fell again upon those that were
fortifying their camp at the top of the hill, upon their seeing
those beneath them running away; insomuch that the whole legion
was dispersed, while they thought that the sallies of the Jews
upon them were plainly insupportable, and that
  Titus was himself put to flight; because they took it for
granted, that, if he had staid, the rest would never have fled
for it. Thus were they encompassed on every side by a kind of
panic fear, and some dispersed themselves one way,
  and some another, till certain of them saw their general in the
very midst of an action, and being under great concern for him,
they loudly proclaimed the danger he was in to the entire legion;
and now shame made them turn back, and
  they reproached one another that they did worse than run away,
by deserting Caesar. So they used their utmost force against the
Jews, and declining from the straight declivity, they drove them
on heaps into the bottom of the valley.
  Then did the Jews turn about and fight them; but as they were
themselves retiring, and now, because the Romans
  had the advantage of the ground, and were above the
  Jews, they drove them all into the valley. Titus also pressed
upon those that were near him, and sent the legion again to
fortify their camp; while he, and those that were with him
before, opposed the enemy, and kept them from doing
  further mischief; insomuch that, if I may be allowed neither to
add any thing out of flattery, nor to diminish any thing out of
envy, but to speak the plain truth, Caesar did twice
  deliver that entire legion when it was in jeopardy, and gave
them a quiet opportunity of fortifying their camp.
  
  CHAPTER 3.
  
  
  
  How The Sedition Was Again Revived Within Jerusalem
  And Yet The Jews Contrived Snares For The Romans. How
  Titus Also Threatened His Soldiers For Their Ungovernable
Rashness.
  
  1. As now the war abroad ceased for a while, the sedition
within was revived; and on the feast of unleavened bread, which
was now come, it being the fourteenth day of the
  month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] when it is believed the Jews were
first freed from the Egyptians, Eleazar and his party opened the
gates of this [inmost court of the] temple, and admitted such of
the people as were desirous to worship God into it. (9) But John
made use of this festival as a cloak for his treacherous designs,
and armed the most inconsiderable of his own party, the greater
part of whom were not purified, with weapons concealed under
their garments, and sent
  them with great zeal into the temple, in order to seize upon
it; which armed men, when they were gotten in, threw their
garments away, and presently appeared in their armor.
  Upon which there was a very great disorder and
  disturbance about the holy house; while the people, who
  had no concern in the sedition, supposed that this assault was
made against all without distinction, as the zealots thought it
was made against themselves only. So these left off guarding the
gates any longer, and leaped down from
  their battlements before they came to an engagement, and fled
away into the subterranean caverns of the temple;
  while the people that stood trembling at the altar, and about
the holy house, were rolled on heaps together, and
  trampled upon, and were beaten both with wooden and with iron
weapons without mercy. Such also as had differences with others
slew many persons that were quiet, out of their own private
enmity and hatred, as if they were opposite to the seditious; and
all those that had formerly offended any of these plotters were
now known, and were now led away
  to the slaughter; and when they had done abundance of
  horrid mischief to the guiltless, they granted a truce to the
guilty, and let those go off that came cut of the caverns. These
followers of John also did now seize upon this inner temple, and
upon all the warlike engines therein, and then ventured to oppose
Simon. And thus that sedition, which
  had been divided into three factions, was now reduced to two.
  
  2. But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city
than Scopus, placed as many of his choice horsemen and
  footmen as he thought sufficient opposite to the Jews, to
prevent their sallying out upon them, while he gave orders for
the whole army to level the distance, as far as the wall of the
city. So they threw down all the hedges and walls which the
inhabitants had made about their gardens and
  groves of trees, and cut down all the fruit trees that lay
between them and the wall of the city, and filled up all the
hollow places and the chasms, and demolished the rocky
  precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the
place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which
  adjoined to the pool called the Serpent's Pool.
  
  3. Now at this very time the Jews contrived the following
stratagem against the Romans. The bolder sort of the
  seditious went out at the towers, called the Women's
  Towers, as if they had been ejected out of the city by those
who were for peace, and rambled about as if they were
  afraid of being assaulted by the Romans, and were in fear of
one another; while those that stood upon the wall, and seemed to
be of the people's side, cried out aloud for
  peace, and entreated they might have security for their lives
given them, and called for the Romans, promising to open the
gates to them; and as they cried out after that manner, they
threw stones at their own people, as though they
  would drive them away from the gates. These also
  pretended that they were excluded by force, and that they
petitioned those that were within to let them in; and rushing
upon the Romans perpetually, with violence, they then
  came back, and seemed to be in great disorder. Now the
  Roman soldiers thought this cunning stratagem of theirs
  was to be believed real, and thinking they had the one
  party under their power, and could punish them as they
  pleased, and hoping that the other party would open their gates
to them, set to the execution of their designs
  accordingly. But for Titus himself, he had this surprising
conduct of the Jews in suspicion; for whereas he had
  invited them to come to terms of accommodation, by
  Josephus, but one day before, he could then receive no
  civil answer from them; so he ordered the soldiers to stay
where they were. However, some of them that were set in
  the front of the works prevented him, and catching up their
arms ran to the gates; whereupon those that seemed to
  have been ejected at the first retired; but as soon as the
soldiers were gotten between the towers on each side of
  the gate, the Jews ran out and encompassed them round,
  and fell upon them behind, while that multitude which stood
upon the wall threw a heap of stones and darts of all kinds at
them, insomuch that they slew a considerable number,
  and wounded many more; for it was not easy for the
  Romans to escape, by reason those behind them pressed
  them forward; besides which, the shame they were under
  for being mistaken, and the fear they were in of their
  commanders, engaged them to persevere in their mistake;
  wherefore they fought with their spears a great while, and
received many blows from the Jews, though indeed they
  gave them as many blows again, and at last repelled those that
had encompassed them about, while the Jews pursued
  them as they retired, and followed them, and threw darts at
them as far as the monuments of queen Helena.
  
  4. After this these Jews, without keeping any decorum,
  grew insolent upon their good fortune, and jested upon the
Romans for being deluded by the trick they bad put upon
  them, and making a noise with beating their shields, leaped for
gladness, and made joyful exclamations; while these
  soldiers were received with threatenings by their officers, and
with indignation by Caesar himself, [who spake to them thus]:
These Jews, who are only conducted by their
  madness, do every thing with care and circumspection; they
contrive stratagems, and lay ambushes, and fortune gives success
to their stratagems, because they are obedient,
  and preserve their goodwill and fidelity to one another; while
the Romans, to whom fortune uses to be ever
  subservient, by reason of their good order, and ready
  submission to their commanders, have now had ill success by
their contrary behavior, and by not being able to restrain their
hands from action, they have been caught; and that which is the
most to their reproach, they have gone on
  without their commanders, in the very presence of Caesar.
"Truly," says Titus, "the laws of war cannot but groan
  heavily, as will my father also himself, when he shall be
informed of this wound that hath been given us, since he who is
grown old in wars did never make so great a
  mistake. Our laws of war do also ever inflict capital
  punishment on those that in the least break into good order,
while at this time they have seen an entire army run into
disorder. However, those that have been so insolent shall be made
immediately sensible, that even they who conquer among the Romans
without orders for fighting are to be
  under disgrace." When Titus had enlarged upon this matter
before the commanders, it appeared evident that he would execute
the law against all those that were concerned; so these soldiers'
minds sunk down in despair, as expecting to be put to death, and
that justly and quickly. However, the other legions came round
about Titus, and entreated his
  favor to these their fellow soldiers, and made supplication to
him, that he would pardon the rashness of a few, on
  account of the better obedience of all the rest; and
  promised for them that they should make amends for their
present fault, by their more virtuous behavior for the time to
come.
  
  5. So Caesar complied with their desires, and with what
  prudence dictated to him also; for he esteemed it fit to punish
single persons by real executions, but that the
  punishment of great multitudes should proceed no further than
reproofs; so he was reconciled to the soldiers, but gave them a
special charge to act more wisely for the
  future; and he considered with himself how he might be
  even with the Jews for their stratagem. And now when the space
between the Romans and the wall had been leveled,
  which was done in four days, and as he was desirous to
  bring the baggage of the army, with the rest of the
  multitude that followed him, safely to the camp, he set the
strongest part of his army over against that wall which lay on
the north quarter of the city, and over against the
  western part of it, and made his army seven deep, with the
foot-men placed before them, and the horsemen behind
  them, each of the last in three ranks, whilst the archers stood
in the midst in seven ranks. And now as the Jews
  were prohibited, by so great a body of men, from making
  sallies upon the Romans, both the beasts that bare the
  burdens, and belonged to the three legions, and the rest of the
multitude, marched on without any fear. But as for Titus himself,
he was but about two furlongs distant from the
  wall, at that part of it where was the corner (10) and over
against that tower which was called Psephinus, at which
  tower the compass of the wall belonging to the north
  bended, and extended itself over against the west; but the
other part of the army fortified itself at the tower called
Hippicus, and was distant, in like manner, by two furlongs from
the city. However, the tenth legion continued in its own place,
upon the Mount of Olives.
  
  CHAPTER 4.
  
  
  
  The Description Of Jerusalem.
  
  1. The city of Jerusalem was fortified with three walls, on
such parts as were not encompassed with unpassable
  valleys; for in such places it had but one wall. The city was
built upon two hills, which are opposite to one another, and have
a valley to divide them asunder; at which valley the
corresponding rows of houses on both hills end. Of these hills,
that which contains the upper city is much higher, and in length
more direct. Accordingly, it was called the
  "Citadel," by king David; he was the father of that Solomon who
built this temple at the first; but it is by us called the "Upper
Market-place." But the other hill, which was called "Acra," and
sustains the lower city, is of the shape of a moon when she is
horned; over against this there was a
  third hill, but naturally lower than Acra, and parted formerly
from the other by a broad valley. However, in those times when
the Asamoneans reigned, they filled up that valley
  with earth, and had a mind to join the city to the temple. They
then took off part of the height of Acra, and reduced it to be of
less elevation than it was before, that the temple might be
superior to it. Now the Valley of the
  Cheesemongers, as it was called, and was that which we
  told you before distinguished the hill of the upper city from
that of the lower, extended as far as Siloam; for that is the
name of a fountain which hath sweet water in it, and this in
great plenty also. But on the outsides, these hills are
  surrounded by deep valleys, and by reason of the
  precipices to them belonging on both sides they are every where
unpassable.
  
  2. Now, of these three walls, the old one was hard to be taken,
both by reason of the valleys, and of that hill on which it was
built, and which was above them. But besides that great
advantage, as to the place where they were
  situated, it was also built very strong; because David and
Solomon, and the following kings, were very zealous about this
work. Now that wall began on the north, at the tower called
"Hippicus," and extended as far as the "Xistus," a place so
called, and then, joining to the council-house, ended at the west
cloister of the temple. But if we go the other way westward, it
began at the same place, and
  extended through a place called "Bethso," to the gate of the
Essens; and after that it went southward, having its bending
above the fountain Siloam, where it also bends again
  towards the east at Solomon's pool, and reaches as far as a
certain place which they called "Ophlas," where it was joined to
the eastern cloister of the temple. The second wall took its
beginning from that gate which they called
  "Gennath," which belonged to the first wall; it only
  encompassed the northern quarter of the city, and reached as
far as the tower Antonia. The beginning of the third wall was at
the tower Hippicus, whence it reached as far as the north quarter
of the city, and the tower Psephinus, and then was so far
extended till it came over against the
  monuments of Helena, which Helena was queen of
  Adiabene, the daughter of Izates; it then extended further to a
great length, and passed by the sepulchral caverns of the kings,
and bent again at the tower of the corner, at the monument which
is called the "Monument of the Fuller,"
  and joined to the old wall at the valley called the "Valley of
Cedron." It was Agrippa who encompassed the parts added
  to the old city with this wall, which had been all naked
before; for as the city grew more populous, it gradually crept
beyond its old limits, and those parts of it that stood northward
of the temple, and joined that hill to the city, made it
considerably larger, and occasioned that hill, which is in number
the fourth, and is called "Bezetha," to be
  inhabited also. It lies over against the tower Antonia, but is
divided from it by a deep valley, which was dug on purpose, and
that in order to hinder the foundations of the tower of Antonia
from joining to this hill, and thereby affording an opportunity
for getting to it with ease, and hindering the security that
arose from its superior elevation; for which reason also that
depth of the ditch made the elevation of the towers more
remarkable. This new-built part of the city was called "Bezetha,"
in our language, which, if interpreted in the Grecian language,
may be called "the New City."
  Since, therefore, its inhabitants stood in need of a covering,
the father of the present king, and of the same name with him,
Agrippa, began that wall we spoke of; but he left off building it
when he had only laid the foundations, out of the fear he was in
of Claudius Caesar, lest he should suspect that so strong a wall
was built in order to make some
  innovation in public affairs; for the city could no way have
been taken if that wall had been finished in the manner it was
begun; as its parts were connected together by stones twenty
cubits long, and ten cubits broad, which could never have been
either easily undermined by any iron tools, or shaken by any
engines. The wall was, however, ten cubits wide, and it would
probably have had a height greater than that, had not his zeal
who began it been hindered from
  exerting itself. After this, it was erected with great
diligence by the Jews, as high as twenty cubits, above which it
had battlements of two cubits, and turrets of three cubits
  altitude, insomuch that the entire altitude extended as far as
twenty-five cubits.
  
  3. Now the towers that were upon it were twenty cubits in
breadth, and twenty cubits in height; they were square and solid,
as was the wall itself, wherein the niceness of the joints, and
the beauty of the stones, were no way inferior to those of the
holy house itself. Above this solid altitude of the towers, which
was twenty cubits, there were rooms of great magnificence, and
over them upper rooms, and
  cisterns to receive rain-water. They were many in number, and
the steps by which you ascended up to them were
  every one broad: of these towers then the third wall had
ninety, and the spaces between them were each two
  hundred cubits; but in the middle wall were forty towers, and
the old wall was parted into sixty, while the whole
  compass of the city was thirty-three furlongs. Now the third
wall was all of it wonderful; yet was the tower Psephinus
elevated above it at the north-west corner, and there Titus
pitched his own tent; for being seventy cubits high it both
afforded a prospect of Arabia at sun-rising, as well as it did of
the utmost limits of the Hebrew possessions at the sea westward.
Moreover, it was an octagon, and over against it was the tower
Hipplicus, and hard by two others were
  erected by king Herod, in the old wall. These were for
  largeness, beauty, and strength beyond all that were in the
habitable earth; for besides the magnanimity of his nature, and
his magnificence towards the city on other occasions, he built
these after such an extraordinary manner, to gratify his own
private affections, and dedicated these towers to the memory of
those three persons who had been the
  dearest to him, and from whom he named them. They were
  his brother, his friend, and his wife. This wife he had slain,
out of his love [and jealousy], as we have already related; the
other two he lost in war, as they were courageously
  fighting. Hippicus, so named from his friend, was square; its
length and breadth were each twenty-five cubits, and its height
thirty, and it had no vacuity in it. Over this solid building,
which was composed of great stones united
  together, there was a reservoir twenty cubits deep, over which
there was a house of two stories, whose height was twenty-five
cubits, and divided into several parts; over which were
battlements of two cubits, and turrets all round of three cubits
high, insomuch that the entire height added together amounted to
fourscore cubits. The second tower, which he named from his
brother Phasaelus, had its
  breadth and its height equal, each of them forty cubits; over
which was its solid height of forty cubits; over which a cloister
went round about, whose height was ten cubits, and it was covered
from enemies by breast-works and bulwarks. There was also built
over that cloister another tower, parted into magnificent rooms,
and a place for bathing; so that this tower wanted nothing that
might make it appear to be a
  royal palace. It was also adorned with battlements and
  turrets, more than was the foregoing, and the entire altitude
was about ninety cubits; the appearance of it resembled the tower
of Pharus, which exhibited a fire to such as sailed to
Alexandria, but was much larger than it in compass. This was now
converted to a house, wherein Simon exercised
  his tyrannical authority. The third tower was Mariamne, for
that was his queen's name; it was solid as high as twenty cubits;
its breadth and its length were twenty cubits, and were equal to
each other; its upper buildings were more
  magnificent, and had greater variety, than the other towers
had; for the king thought it most proper for him to adorn that
which was denominated from his wife, better than
  those denominated from men, as those were built stronger than
this that bore his wife's name. The entire height of this tower
was fifty cubits.
  
  4. Now as these towers were so very tall, they appeared
  much taller by the place on which they stood; for that very old
wall wherein they were was built on a high hill, and was itself a
kind of elevation that was still thirty cubits taller; over which
were the towers situated, and thereby were
  made much higher to appearance. The largeness also of
  the stones was wonderful; for they were not made of
  common small stones, nor of such large ones only as men
  could carry, but they were of white marble, cut out of the
rock; each stone was twenty cubits in length, and ten in breadth,
and five in depth. They were so exactly united to one another,
that each tower looked like one entire rock of stone, so growing
naturally, and afterward cut by the hand of the artificers into
their present shape and corners; so little, or not at all, did
their joints or connexion appear. low as these towers were
themselves on the north side of the wall, the king had a palace
inwardly thereto adjoined, which exceeds all my ability to
describe it; for it was so very curious as to want no cost nor
skill in its construction, but was entirely walled about to the
height of thirty cubits, and was adorned with towers at equal
distances, and with large bed-chambers, that would contain beds
for a hundred
  guests a-piece, in which the variety of the stones is not to be
expressed; for a large quantity of those that were rare of that
kind was collected together. Their roofs were also
  wonderful, both for the length of the beams, and the
  splendor of their ornaments. The number of the rooms was also
very great, and the variety of the figures that were about them
was prodigious; their furniture was complete, and the greatest
part of the vessels that were put in them was of silver and gold.
There were besides many porticoes, one beyond another, round
about, and in each of those
  porticoes curious pillars; yet were all the courts that were
exposed to the air every where green. There were,
  moreover, several groves of trees, and long walks through them,
with deep canals, and cisterns, that in several parts were filled
with brazen statues, through which the water ran out. There were
withal many dove-courts (11) of tame
  pigeons about the canals. But indeed it is not possible to give
a complete description of these palaces; and the very remembrance
of them is a torment to one, as putting one in mind what vastly
rich buildings that fire which was kindled by the robbers hath
consumed; for these were not burnt by the Romans, but by these
internal plotters, as we have
  already related, in the beginning of their rebellion. That fire
began at the tower of Antonia, and went on to the palaces, and
consumed the upper parts of the three towers
  themselves.
  
  CHAPTER 5.
  
  
  
  A Description Of The Temple.
  
  1. Now this temple, as I have already said, was built upon a
strong hill. At first the plain at the top was hardly sufficient
for the holy house and the altar, for the ground about it was
very uneven, and like a precipice; but when king Solomon, who was
the person that built the temple, had built a wall to it on its
east side, there was then added one cloister
  founded on a bank cast up for it, and on the other parts the
holy house stood naked. But in future ages the people
  added new banks, (12) and the hill became a larger plain. They
then broke down the wall on the north side, and took in as much
as sufficed afterward for the compass of the
  entire temple. And when they had built walls on three sides of
the temple round about, from the bottom of the hill, and had
performed a work that was greater than could be
  hoped for, (in which work long ages were spent by them, as well
as all their sacred treasures were exhausted, which were still
replenished by those tributes which were sent to God from the
whole habitable earth,) they then
  encompassed their upper courts with cloisters, as well as they
[afterward] did the lowest [court of the] temple. The lowest part
of this was erected to the height of three
  hundred cubits, and in some places more; yet did not the entire
depth of the foundations appear, for they brought earth, and
filled up the valleys, as being desirous to make them on a level
with the narrow streets of the city; wherein they made use of
stones of forty cubits in magnitude; for the great plenty of
money they then had, and the liberality of the people, made this
attempt of theirs to succeed to an incredible degree; and what
could not be so much as hoped for as ever to be accomplished,
was, by perseverance and length of time, brought to perfection.
  
  2. Now for the works that were above these foundations,
  these were not unworthy of such foundations; for all the
cloisters were double, and the pillars to them belonging were
twenty-five cubits in height, and supported the
  cloisters. These pillars were of one entire stone each of them,
and that stone was white marble; and the roofs were adorned with
cedar, curiously graven. The natural
  magnificence, and excellent polish, and the harmony of the
joints in these cloisters, afforded a prospect that was very
remarkable; nor was it on the outside adorned with any
  work of the painter or engraver. The cloisters [of the
  outmost court] were in breadth thirty cubits, while the entire
compass of it was by measure six furlongs, including the tower of
Antonia; those entire courts that were exposed to the air were
laid with stones of all sorts. When you go
  through these [first] cloisters, unto the second [court of the]
temple, there was a partition made of stone all round,
  whose height was three cubits: its construction was very
elegant; upon it stood pillars, at equal distances from one
another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek, and some in
Roman letters, that "no foreigner should go within that
sanctuary" for that second [court of the] temple was called "the
Sanctuary," and was ascended to by fourteen
  steps from the first court. This court was four-square, and had
a wall about it peculiar to itself; the height of its buildings,
although it were on the outside forty cubits, (13) was hidden by
the steps, and on the inside that height was but twenty-five
cubits; for it being built over against a higher part of the hill
with steps, it was no further to be entirely discerned within,
being covered by the hill itself. Beyond these thirteen steps
there was the distance of ten cubits; this was all plain; whence
there were other steps, each of five cubits a-piece, that led to
the gates, which gates on the north and south sides were eight,
on each of those sides four, and of necessity two on the east.
For since there was a partition built for the women on that side,
as the proper place wherein they were to worship, there was a
necessity for a second gate for them: this gate was cut out of
its wall, over against the first gate. There was also on the
other sides one southern and one northern gate, through which
  was a passage into the court of the women; for as to the other
gates, the women were not allowed to pass through
  them; nor when they went through their own gate could
  they go beyond their own wall. This place was allotted to the
women of our own country, and of other countries,
  provided they were of the same nation, and that equally. The
western part of this court had no gate at all, but the wall was
built entire on that side. But then the cloisters which were
betwixt the gates extended from the wall
  inward, before the chambers; for they were supported by
  very fine and large pillars. These cloisters were single, and,
excepting their magnitude, were no way inferior to those of the
lower court.
  
  3. Now nine of these gates were on every side covered
  over with gold and silver, as were the jambs of their doors and
their lintels; but there was one gate that was without the
[inward court of the] holy house, which was of
  Corinthian brass, and greatly excelled those that were only
covered over with silver and gold. Each gate had two
  doors, whose height was severally thirty cubits, and their
breadth fifteen. However, they had large spaces within of thirty
cubits, and had on each side rooms, and those, both in breadth
and in length, built like towers, and their height was above
forty cubits. Two pillars did also support these rooms, and were
in circumference twelve cubits. Now the
  magnitudes of the other gates were equal one to another; but
that over the Corinthian gate, which opened on the east over
against the gate of the holy house itself, was much larger; for
its height was fifty cubits; and its doors were forty cubits; and
it was adorned after a most costly manner, as having much richer
and thicker plates of silver and gold upon them than the other.
These nine gates had that silver and gold poured upon them by
Alexander, the father of
  Tiberius. Now there were fifteen steps, which led away from the
wall of the court of the women to this greater gate; whereas
those that led thither from the other gates were five steps
shorter.
  
  4. As to the holy house itself, which was placed in the midst
[of the inmost court], that most sacred part of the temple, it
was ascended to by twelve steps; and in front its height and its
breadth were equal, and each a hundred cubits,
  though it was behind forty cubits narrower; for on its front it
had what may be styled shoulders on each side, that
  passed twenty cubits further. Its first gate was seventy cubits
high, and twenty-five cubits broad; but this gate had no doors;
for it represented the universal visibility of heaven, and that
it cannot be excluded from any place. Its front was covered with
gold all over, and through it the first part of the house, that
was more inward, did all of it appear; which, as it was very
large, so did all the parts about the more inward gate appear to
shine to those that saw them; but then, as the entire house was
divided into two parts within, it was only the first part of it
that was open to our view. Its height extended all along to
ninety cubits in height, and its length was fifty cubits, and its
breadth twenty. But that gate which was at this end of the first
part of the house was, as we have already observed, all over
covered with
  gold, as was its whole wall about it; it had also golden vines
above it, from which clusters of grapes hung as tall as a man's
height. But then this house, as it was divided into two parts,
the inner part was lower than the appearance of the outer, and
had golden doors of fifty-five cubits altitude, and sixteen in
breadth; but before these doors there was a veil of equal
largeness with the doors. It was a Babylonian
  curtain, embroidered with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet,
and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful. Nor was
this mixture of colors without its mystical
  interpretation, but was a kind of image of the universe; for by
the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by
the fine flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple
the sea; two of them having their colors the
  foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax and the
purple have their own origin for that foundation, the earth
producing the one, and the sea the other. This curtain had also
embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the
  heavens, excepting that of the [twelve] signs, representing
living creatures.
  
  5. When any persons entered into the temple, its floor
  received them. This part of the temple therefore was in
  height sixty cubits, and its length the same; whereas its
breadth was but twenty cubits: but still that sixty cubits in
length was divided again, and the first part of it was cut off at
forty cubits, and had in it three things that were very wonderful
and famous among all mankind, the candlestick, the table [of
shew-bread], and the altar of incense. Now the seven lamps
signified the seven planets; for so many there were springing out
of the candlestick. Now the twelve
  loaves that were upon the table signified the circle of the
zodiac and the year; but the altar of incense, by its thirteen
kinds of sweet-smelling spices with which the sea
  replenished it, signified that God is the possessor of all
things that are both in the uninhabitable and habitable parts of
the earth, and that they are all to be dedicated to his use. But
the inmost part of the temple of all was of twenty cubits. This
was also separated from the outer part by a veil. In this there
was nothing at all. It was inaccessible and inviolable, and not
to be seen by any; and was called the Holy of Holies. Now, about
the sides of the lower part of the temple, there were little
houses, with passages out of one into another; there were a great
many of them, and they
  were of three stories high; there were also entrances on each
side into them from the gate of the temple. But the superior part
of the temple had no such little houses any further, because the
temple was there narrower, and forty cubits higher, and of a
smaller body than the lower parts of it. Thus we collect that the
whole height, including the sixty cubits from the floor, amounted
to a hundred cubits.
  
  6. Now the outward face of the temple in its front wanted
nothing that was likely to surprise either men's minds or their
eyes; for it was covered all over with plates of gold of great
weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a
very fiery splendor, and made those who forced
  themselves to look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as
they would have done at the sun's own rays. But this
  temple appeared to strangers, when they were coming to it at a
distance, like a mountain covered with snow; for as to those
parts of it that were not gilt, they were exceeding white. On its
top it had spikes with sharp points, to prevent any pollution of
it by birds sitting upon it. Of its stones, some of them were
forty-five cubits in length, five in height, and six in breadth.
Before this temple stood the altar, fifteen cubits high, and
equal both in length and breadth; each of which dimensions was
fifty cubits. The figure it was built in was a square, and it had
corners like horns; and the
  passage up to it was by an insensible acclivity. It was
  formed without any iron tool, nor did any such iron tool so
much as touch it at any time. There was also a wall of
  partition, about a cubit in height, made of fine stones, and so
as to be grateful to the sight; this encompassed the holy house
and the altar, and kept the people that were on the outside off
from the priests. Moreover, those that had the gonorrhea and the
leprosy were excluded out of the city
  entirely; women also, when their courses were upon them, were
shut out of the temple; nor when they were free from that
impurity, were they allowed to go beyond the limit
  before-mentioned; men also, that were not thoroughly pure, were
prohibited to come into the inner [court of the] temple; nay, the
priests themselves that were not pure were
  prohibited to come into it also.
  
  7. Now all those of the stock of the priests that could not
minister by reason of some defect in their bodies, came
  within the partition, together with those that had no such
imperfection, and had their share with them by reason of their
stock, but still made use of none except their own private
garments; for nobody but he that officiated had on his sacred
garments; but then those priests that were
  without any blemish upon them went up to the altar clothed in
fine linen. They abstained chiefly from wine, out of this fear,
lest otherwise they should transgress some rules of their
ministration. The high priest did also go up with them; not
always indeed, but on the seventh days and new
  moons, and if any festivals belonging to our nation, which we
celebrate every year, happened. When he officiated, he had on a
pair of breeches that reached beneath his privy parts to his
thighs, and had on an inner garment of linen, together with a
blue garment, round, without seam, with
  fringe work, and reaching to the feet. There were also
  golden bells that hung upon the fringes, and pomegranates
intermixed among them. The bells signified thunder, and
  the pomegranates lightning. But that girdle that tied the
garment to the breast was embroidered with five rows of
  various colors, of gold, and purple, and scarlet, as also of
fine linen and blue, with which colors we told you before the
veils of the temple were embroidered also. The like
  embroidery was upon the ephod; but the quantity of gold
  therein was greater. Its figure was that of a stomacher for the
breast. There were upon it two golden buttons like small shields,
which buttoned the ephod to the garment; in these buttons were
enclosed two very large and very excellent
  sardonyxes, having the names of the tribes of that nation
engraved upon them: on the other part there hung twelve
  stones, three in a row one way, and four in the other; a
sardius, a topaz, and an emerald; a carbuncle, a jasper, and a
sapphire; an agate, an amethyst, and a ligure; an
  onyx, a beryl, and a chrysolite; upon every one of which was
again engraved one of the forementioned names of the tribes. A
mitre also of fine linen encompassed his head, which was tied by
a blue ribbon, about which there was
  another golden crown, in which was engraven the sacred
  name [of God]: it consists of four vowels. However, the high
priest did not wear these garments at other times, but a more
plain habit; he only did it when he went into the most sacred
part of the temple, which he did but once in a year, on that day
when our custom is for all of us to keep a fast to God. And thus
much concerning the city and the temple; but for the customs and
laws hereto relating, we shall
  speak more accurately another time; for there remain a
  great many things thereto relating which have not been
  here touched upon.
  
  8. Now as to the tower of Antonia, it was situated at the
corner of two cloisters of the court of the temple; of that on
the west, and that on the north; it was erected upon a rock of
fifty cubits in height, and was on a great precipice; it was the
work of king Herod, wherein he demonstrated his
  natural magnanimity. In the first place, the rock itself was
covered over with smooth pieces of stone, from its
  foundation, both for ornament, and that any one who would
either try to get up or to go down it might not be able to hold
his feet upon it. Next to this, and before you come to the
edifice of the tower itself, there was a wall three cubits high;
but within that wall all the space of the tower of Antonia itself
was built upon, to the height of forty cubits. The inward parts
had the largeness and form of a palace, it being parted into all
kinds of rooms and other
  conveniences, such as courts, and places for bathing, and broad
spaces for camps; insomuch that, by having all
  conveniences that cities wanted, it might seem to be
  composed of several cities, but by its magnificence it
  seemed a palace. And as the entire structure resembled
  that of a tower, it contained also four other distinct towers
at its four corners; whereof the others were but fifty cubits
high; whereas that which lay upon the southeast corner
  was seventy cubits high, that from thence the whole temple
might be viewed; but on the corner where it joined to the two
cloisters of the temple, it had passages down to them both,
through which the guard (for there always lay in this tower a
Roman legion) went several ways among the
  cloisters, with their arms, on the Jewish festivals, in order
to watch the people, that they might not there attempt to make
any innovations; for the temple was a fortress that guarded the
city, as was the tower of Antonia a guard to the temple; and in
that tower were the guards of those three (14).
  There was also a peculiar fortress belonging to the upper city,
which was Herod's palace; but for the hill Bezetha, it was
divided from the tower Antonia, as we have already
  told you; and as that hill on which the tower of Antonia stood
was the highest of these three, so did it adjoin to the new city,
and was the only place that hindered the sight of the temple on
the north. And this shall suffice at present to have spoken about
the city and the walls about it, because I have proposed to
myself to make a more accurate
  description of it elsewhere.
  
  CHAPTER 6.
  
  
  
  Concerning The Tyrants Simon And John. How Also As
  Titus Was Going Round The Wall Of This City Nicanor Was
  Wounded By A Dart; Which Accident Provoked Titus To
  Press On The Siege.
  
  
  1. Now the warlike men that were in the city, and the
  multitude of the seditious that were with Simon, were ten
thousand, besides the Idumeans. Those ten thousand had
  fifty commanders, over whom this Simon was supreme. The
  Idumeans that paid him homage were five thousand, and
  had eight commanders, among whom those of greatest
  fame were Jacob the son of Sosas, and Simon the son of
  Cathlas. Jotre, who had seized upon the temple, had six
  thousand armed men under twenty commanders; the
  zealots also that had come over to him, and left off their
opposition, were two thousand four hundred, and had the
  same commander that they had formerly, Eleazar, together with
Simon the son of Arinus. Now, while these factions
  fought one against another, the people were their prey on both
sides, as we have said already; and that part of the people who
would not join with them in their wicked
  practices were plundered by both factions. Simon held the upper
city, and the great wall as far as Cedron, and as
  much of the old wall as bent from Siloam to the east, and which
went down to the palace of Monobazus, who was
  king of the Adiabeni, beyond Euphrates; he also held that
fountain, and the Acra, which was no other than the lower city;
he also held all that reached to the palace of queen Helena, the
mother of Monobazus. But John held the
  temple, and the parts thereto adjoining, for a great way, as
also Ophla, and the valley called "the Valley of Cedron;" and
when the parts that were interposed between their
  possessions were burnt by them, they left a space wherein they
might fight with each other; for this internal sedition did not
cease even when the Romans were encamped near
  their very wall. But although they had grown wiser at the first
onset the Romans made upon them, this lasted but a while; for
they returned to their former madness, and
  separated one from another, and fought it out, and did
  everything that the besiegers could desire them to do; for they
never suffered any thing that was worse from the
  Romans than they made each other suffer; nor was there
  any misery endured by the city after these men's actions that
could be esteemed new. But it was most of all unhappy before it
was overthrown, while those that took it did it a greater
kindness for I venture to affirm that the sedition destroyed the
city, and the Romans destroyed the sedition, which it was a much
harder thing to do than to destroy the walls; so that we may
justly ascribe our misfortunes to our own people, and the just
vengeance taken on them to the
  Romans; as to which matter let every one determine by the
actions on both sides.
  
  2. Now when affairs within the city were in this posture, Titus
went round the city on the outside with some chosen horsemen, and
looked about for a proper place where he
  might make an impression upon the walls; but as he was in doubt
where he could possibly make an attack on any side, (for the
place was no way accessible where the valleys
  were, and on the other side the first wall appeared too
  strong to be shaken by the engines,) he thereupon thought it
best to make his assault upon the monument of John the high
priest; for there it was that the first fortification was lower,
and the second was not joined to it, the builders neglecting to
build strong where the new city was not much inhabited; here also
was an easy passage to the third wall, through which he thought
to take the upper city, and,
  through the tower of Antonia, the temple itself But at this
time, as he was going round about the city, one of his
  friends, whose name was Nicanor, was wounded with a
  dart on his left shoulder, as he approached, together with
Josephus, too near the wall, and attempted to discourse to those
that were upon the wall, about terms of peace; for he was a
person known by them. On this account it was that
  Caesar, as soon as he knew their vehemence, that they
  would not hear even such as approached them to persuade
  them to what tended to their own preservation, was
  provoked to press on the siege. He also at the same time gave
his soldiers leave to set the suburbs on fire, and
  ordered that they should bring timber together, and raise banks
against the city; and when he had parted his army
  into three parts, in order to set about those works, he
  placed those that shot darts and the archers in the midst of
the banks that were then raising; before whom he placed
  those engines that threw javelins, and darts, and stones, that
he might prevent the enemy from sallying out upon
  their works, and might hinder those that were upon the wall
from being able to obstruct them. So the trees were now
  cut down immediately, and the suburbs left naked. But now while
the timber was carrying to raise the banks, and the whole army
was earnestly engaged in their works, the Jews were not, however,
quiet; and it happened that the people of Jerusalem, who had been
hitherto plundered and
  murdered, were now of good courage, and supposed they
  should have a breathing time, while the others were very busy
in opposing their enemies without the city, and that they should
now be avenged on those that had been the
  authors of their miseries, in case the Romans did but get the
victory.
  
  3. However, John staid behind, out of his fear of Simon, even
while his own men were earnest in making a sally
  upon their enemies without. Yet did not Simon lie still, for he
lay near the place of the siege; he brought his engines of war,
and disposed of them at due distances upon the
  wall, both those which they took from Cestius formerly, and
those which they got when they seized the garrison that lay in
the tower Antonia. But though they had these engines in their
possession, they had so little skill in using them, that they
were in great measure useless to them; but a few
  there were who had been taught by deserters how to use
  them, which they did use, though after an awkward manner. So
they cast stones and arrows at those that were making the banks;
they also ran out upon them by companies, and fought with them.
Now those that were at work covered
  themselves with hurdles spread over their banks, and their
engines were opposed to them when they made their
  excursions. The engines, that all the legions had ready
  prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more
extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw
darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger
than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of
the Jews, but drove those away that were
  upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the
weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and further.
The blow they gave was no way to be sustained,
  not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those
that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at
first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white
color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great
noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its
brightness; accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers
gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came
from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country language, The
Stone Cometh (15) so those
  that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon
the ground; by which means, and by their thus
  guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm.
But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by
  blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with
  success, when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had
been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow.
Yet did not the Jews, under all this distress, permit the Romans
to raise their banks in quiet; but they shrewdly and boldly
exerted themselves, and repelled them both by night and by day.
  
  4. And now, upon the finishing the Roman works, the
  workmen measured the distance there was from the wall,
  and this by lead and a line, which they threw to it from their
banks; for they could not measure it any otherwise,
  because the Jews would shoot at them, if they came to
  measure it themselves; and when they found that the
  engines could reach the wall, they brought them thither. Then
did Titus set his engines at proper distances, so much nearer to
the wall, that the Jews might not be able to repel them, and gave
orders they should go to work; and when
  thereupon a prodigious noise echoed round about from
  three places, and that on the sudden there was a great
  noise made by the citizens that were within the city, and no
less a terror fell upon the seditious themselves; whereupon both
sorts, seeing the common danger they were in,
  contrived to make a like defense. So those of different
  factions cried out one to another, that they acted entirely as
in concert with their enemies; whereas they ought however,
notwithstanding God did not grant them a lasting concord, in
their present circumstances, to lay aside their enmities one
against another, and to unite together against the
  Romans. Accordingly, Simon gave those that came from
  the temple leave, by proclamation, to go upon the wall;
  John also himself, though he could not believe Simon was in
earnest, gave them the same leave. So on both sides
  they laid aside their hatred and their peculiar quarrels, and
formed themselves into one body; they then ran round the walls,
and having a vast number of torches with them, they threw them at
the machines, and shot darts perpetually
  upon those that impelled those engines which battered the wall;
nay, the bolder sort leaped out by troops upon the hurdles that
covered the machines, and pulled them to
  pieces, and fell upon those that belonged to them, and beat
them, not so much by any skill they had, as principally by the
boldness of their attacks. However, Titus himself still sent
assistance to those that were the hardest set, and
  placed both horsemen and archers on the several sides of the
engines, and thereby beat off those that brought the fire to
them; he also thereby repelled those that shot stones or darts
from the towers, and then set the engines to work in good
earnest; yet did not the wall yield to these blows, excepting
where the battering ram of the fifteenth legion moved the corner
of a tower, while the wall itself continued unhurt; for the wall
was not presently in the same danger with the tower, which was
extant far above it; nor could the fall of that part of the tower
easily break down any part of the wall itself together with it.
  
  5. And now the Jews intermitted their sallies for a while; but
when they observed the Romans dispersed all abroad at
  their works, and in their several camps, (for they thought the
Jews had retired out of weariness and fear,) they all at once
made a sally at the tower Hippicus, through an
  obscure gate, and at the same time brought fire to burn the
works, and went boldly up to the Romans, and to their very
fortifications themselves, where, at the cry they made,
  those that were near them came presently to their
  assistance, and those farther off came running after them; and
here the boldness of the Jews was too hard for the
  good order of the Romans; and as they beat those whom
  they first fell upon, so they pressed upon those that were now
gotten together. So this fight about the machines was very hot,
while the one side tried hard to set them on fire, and the other
side to prevent it; on both sides there was a confused cry made,
and many of those in the forefront of the battle were slain.
However, the Jews were now too hard for the Romans, by the
furious assaults they made like
  madmen; and the fire caught hold of the works, and both all
those works, and the engines themselves, had been in
  danger of being burnt, had not many of these select
  soldiers that came from Alexandria opposed themselves to
prevent it, and had they not behaved themselves with
  greater courage than they themselves supposed they could have
done; for they outdid those in this fight that had
  greater reputation than themselves before. This was the
  state of things till Caesar took the stoutest of his horsemen,
and attacked the enemy, while he himself slew twelve of
  those that were in the forefront of the Jews; which death of
these men, when the rest of the multitude saw, they gave way, and
he pursued them, and drove them all into the city, and saved the
works from the fire. Now it happened at this fight that a certain
Jew was taken alive, who, by Titus's order, was crucified before
the wall, to see whether the rest of them would be aftrighted,
and abate of their obstinacy. But after the Jews were retired,
John, who was commander of the Idumeans, and was talking to a
certain soldier of his acquaintance before the wall, was wounded
by a dart shot at him by an Arabian, and died immediately,
leaving the
  greatest lamentation to the Jews, and sorrow to the
  seditious. For he was a man of great eminence, both for his
actions and his conduct also.
  
  CHAPTER 7.
  
  
  
  How One Of The Towers Erected By The Romans Fell
  Down Of Its Own Accord; And How The Romans After
  Great Slaughter Had Been Made Got Possession Of The
  First Wall. How Also Titus Made His Assaults Upon The
  Second Wall; As Also Concerning Longinus The Roman,
  And Castor The Jew.
  
  1. Now, on the next night, a surprising disturbance fell upon
the Romans; for whereas Titus had given orders for the
  erection of three towers of fifty cubits high, that by setting
men upon them at every bank, he might from thence drive
  those away who were upon the wall, it so happened that
  one of these towers fell down about midnight; and as its fall
made a very great noise, fear fell upon the army, and they,
supposing that the enemy was coming to attack them, ran
  all to their arms. Whereupon a disturbance and a tumult
  arose among the legions, and as nobody could tell what
  had happened, they went on after a disconsolate manner;
  and seeing no enemy appear, they were afraid one of
  another, and every one demanded of his neighbor the
  watchword with great earnestness, as though the Jews had
invaded their camp. And now were they like people under a panic
fear, till Titus was informed of what had happened, and gave
orders that all should be acquainted with it; and then, though
with some difficulty, they got clear of the disturbance they had
been under.
  
  2. Now these towers were very troublesome to the Jews,
  who otherwise opposed the Romans very courageously; for
  they shot at them out of their lighter engines from those
towers, as they did also by those that threw darts, and the
archers, and those that flung stones. For neither could the Jews
reach those that were over them, by reason of their height; and
it was not practicable to take them, nor to
  overturn them, they were so heavy, nor to set them on fire,
because they were covered with plates of iron. So they
  retired out of the reach of the darts, and did no longer
endeavor to hinder the impression of their rams, which, by
continually beating upon the wall, did gradually prevail against
it; so that the wall already gave way to the Nico, for by that
name did the Jews themselves call the greatest of their engines,
because it conquered all things. And now
  they were for a long while grown weary of fighting, and of
keeping guards, and were retired to lodge in the night time at a
distance from the wall. It was on other accounts also thought by
them to be superfluous to guard the wall, there being besides
that two other fortifications still remaining, and they being
slothful, and their counsels having been ill concerted on all
occasions; so a great many grew lazy and retired. Then the Romans
mounted the breach, where Nico
  had made one, and all the Jews left the guarding that wall, and
retreated to the second wall; so those that had gotten over that
wall opened the gates, and received all the army within it. And
thus did the Romans get possession of this first wall, on the
fifteenth day of the siege, which was the seventh day of the
month Artemisius, [Jyar,] when they
  demolished a great part of it, as well as they did of the
northern parts of the city, which had been demolished also by
Cestius formerly.
  
  3. And now Titus pitched his camp within the city, at that
place which was called "the Camp of the Assyrians," having seized
upon all that lay as far as Cedron, but took care to be out of
the reach of the Jews' darts. He then presently began his
attacks, upon which the Jews divided themselves into several
bodies, and courageously defended that wall; while John and his
faction did it from the tower of Antonia, and from the northern
cloister of the temple, and fought the Romans before the
monuments of king Alexander; and
  Sireoh's army also took for their share the spot of ground that
was near John's monument, and fortified it as far as to that gate
where water was brought in to the tower Hippicus. However, the
Jews made violent sallies, and that frequently also, and in
bodies together out of the gates, and there fought the Romans;
and when they were pursued all
  together to the wall, they were beaten in those fights, as
wanting the skill of the Romans. But when they fought them from
the walls, they were too hard for them; the Romans
  being encouraged by their power, joined to their skill, as were
the Jews by their boldness, which was nourished by
  the fear they were in, and that hardiness which is natural to
our nation under calamities; they were also encouraged still by
the hope of deliverance, as were the Romans by their
  hopes of subduing them in a little time. Nor did either side
grow weary; but attacks and rightings upon the wall, and
perpetual sallies out in bodies, were there all the day long; nor
were there any sort of warlike engagements that were not then put
in use. And the night itself had much ado to part them, when they
began to fight in the morning; nay, the night itself was passed
without sleep on both sides, and was more uneasy than the day to
them, while the one was
  afraid lest the wall should be taken, and the other lest the
Jews should make sallies upon their camps; both sides also lay in
their armor during the night time, and thereby were ready at the
first appearance of light to go to the battle. Now among the Jews
the ambition was who should
  undergo the first dangers, and thereby gratify their
  commanders. Above all, they had a great veneration and
  dread of Simon; and to that degree was he regarded by
  every one of those that were under him, that at his
  command they were very ready to kill themselves with their own
hands. What made the Romans so courageous was
  their usual custom of conquering and disuse of being
  defeated, their constant wars, and perpetual warlike
  exercises, and the grandeur of their dominion; and what
  was now their chief encouragement -Titus who was present every
where with them all; for it appeared a terrible thing to grow
weary while Caesar was there, and fought bravely as well as they
did, and was himself at once an eye-witness of such as behaved
themselves valiantly, and he who was to
  reward them also. It was, besides, esteemed an advantage at
present to have any one's valor known by Caesar; on
  which account many of them appeared to have more
  alacrity than strength to answer it. And now, as the Jews were
about this time standing in array before the wall, and that in a
strong body, and while both parties were throwing their darts at
each other, Longinus, one of the equestrian order, leaped out of
the army of the Romans, and leaped
  into the very midst of the army of the Jews; and as they
dispersed themselves upon the attack, he slew two of their men of
the greatest courage; one of them he struck in his mouth as he
was coming to meet him, the other was slain
  by him by that very dart which he drew out of the body of the
other, with which he ran this man through his side as he was
running away from him; and when he had done
  this, he first of all ran out of the midst of his enemies to
his own side. So this man signalized himself for his valor, and
many there were who were ambitious of gaining the like
  reputation. And now the Jews were unconcerned at what
  they suffered themselves from the Romans, and were only
  solicitous about what mischief they could do them; and
  death itself seemed a small matter to them, if at the same time
they could but kill any one of their enemies. But Titus took care
to secure his own soldiers from harm, as well as to have them
overcome their enemies. He also said that
  inconsiderate violence was madness, and that this alone
  was the true courage that was joined with good conduct.
  He therefore commanded his men to take care, when they
  fought their enemies, that they received no harm from them at
the same time, and thereby show themselves to be truly valiant
men.
  
  4. And now Titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower
of the north part of the wall, in which a certain crafty Jew,
whose name was Castor, lay in ambush, with ten
  others like himself, the rest being fled away by reason of the
archers. These men lay still for a while, as in great fear, under
their breastplates; but when the tower was shaken, they arose,
and Castor did then stretch out his hand, as a petitioner, and
called for Caesar, and by his voice moved his compassion, and
begged of him to have mercy upon
  them; and Titus, in the innocency of his heart, believing him
to be in earnest, and hoping that the Jews did now repent,
stopped the working of the battering ram, and forbade them to
shoot at the petitioners, and bid Castor say what he had a mind
to say to him. He said that he would come down, if he would give
him his right hand for his security. To which Titus replied, that
he was well pleased with such his
  agreeable conduct, and would be well pleased if all the
  Jews would be of his mind, and that he was ready to give the
like security to the city. Now five of the ten dissembled with
him, and pretended to beg for mercy, while the rest cried out
aloud that they would never be slaves to the
  Romans, while it was in their power to die in a state of
freedom. Now while these men were quarrelling for a long while,
the attack was delayed; Castor also sent to Simon, and told him
that they might take some time for consultation about what was to
be done, because he would elude the
  power of the Romans for a considerable time. And at the
  same time that he sent thus to him, he appeared openly to
exhort those that were obstinate to accept of Titus's hand for
their security; but they seemed very angry at it, and brandished
their naked swords upon the breast-works, and struck themselves
upon their breast, and fell down as if they had been slain.
Hereupon Titus, and those with him, were amazed at the courage of
the men; and as they were
  not able to see exactly what was done, they admired at
  their great fortitude, and pitied their calamity. During this
interval, a certain person shot a dart at Castor, and
  wounded him in his nose; whereupon he presently pulled
  out the dart, and showed it to Titus, and complained that this
was unfair treatment; so Caesar reproved him that shot the dart,
and sent Josephus, who then stood by him, to
  give his right hand to Castor. But Josephus said that he would
not go to him, because these pretended petitioners meant nothing
that was good; he also restrained those
  friends of his who were zealous to go to him. But still there
was one Eneas, a deserter, who said he would go to him.
  Castor also called to them, that somebody should come
  and receive the money which he had with him; this made
  Eneas the more earnestly to run to him with his bosom
  open. Then did Castor take up a great stone, and threw it at
him, which missed him, because he guarded himself
  against it; but still it wounded another soldier that was
coining to him. When Caesar understood that this was a
  delusion, he perceived that mercy in war is a pernicious thing,
because such cunning tricks have less place under the exercise of
greater severity. So he caused the engine to work more strongly
than before, on account of his anger at the deceit put upon him.
But Castor and his companions
  set the tower on fire when it began to give way, and leaped
through the flame into a hidden vault that was under it, which
made the Romans further suppose that they were
  men of great courage, as having cast themselves into the fire.
  
  CHAPTER 8.
  
  
  
  How The Romans Took The Second Wall Twice,
  And Got All Ready For Taking The Third Wall.
  
  1. Now Caesar took this wall there on the fifth day after he
had taken the first; and when the Jews had fled from him, he
entered into it with a thousand armed men, and those of his
choice troops, and this at a place where were the
  merchants of wool, the braziers, and the market for cloth, and
where the narrow streets led obliquely to the wall.
  Wherefore, if Titus had either demolished a larger part of the
wall immediately, or had come in, and, according to the law of
war, had laid waste what was left, his victory would not, I
suppose, have been mixed with any loss to himself. But now, out
of the hope he had that he should make the
  Jews ashamed of their obstinacy, by not being willing, when he
was able, to afflict them more than he needed to do, he did not
widen the breach of the wall, in order to make a safer retreat
upon occasion; for he did not think they would lay snares for him
that did them such a kindness. When
  therefore he came in, he did not permit his soldiers to kill
any of those they caught, nor to set fire to their houses
neither; nay, he gave leave to the seditious, if they had a mind,
to fight without any harm to the people, and promised to restore
the people's effects to them; for he was very desirous to
preserve the city for his own sake, and the
  temple for the sake of the city. As to the people, he had them
of a long time ready to comply with his proposals; but as to the
fighting men, this humanity of his seemed a mark of his weakness,
and they imagined that he made these
  proposals because he was not able to take the rest of the city.
They also threatened death to the people, if they
  should any one of them say a word about a surrender.
  They moreover cut the throats of such as talked of a peace, and
then attacked those Romans that were come within the wall. Some
of them they met in the narrow streets, and
  some they fought against from their houses, while they
  made a sudden sally out at the upper gates, and assaulted such
Romans as were beyond the wall, till those that
  guarded the wall were so aftrighted, that they leaped down from
their towers, and retired to their several camps: upon which a
great noise was made by the Romans that were
  within, because they were encompassed round on every
  side by their enemies; as also by them that were without,
because they were in fear for those that were left in the city.
Thus did the Jews grow more numerous perpetually,
  and had great advantages over the Romans, by their full
  knowledge of those narrow lanes; and they wounded a
  great many of them, and fell upon them, and drove them
  out of the city. Now these Romans were at present forced to
make the best resistance they could; for they were not able, in
great numbers, to get out at the breach in the wall, it was so
narrow. It is also probable that all those that were gotten
within had been cut to pieces, if Titus had not sent them
succors; for he ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of
these narrow lakes, and he stood himself
  where was the greatest multitude of his enemies, and with his
darts he put a stop to them; as with him did Domitius Sabinus
also, a valiant man, and one that in this battle appeared so to
be. Thus did Caesar continue to shoot darts at the Jews
continually, and to hinder them from coming
  upon his men, and this until all his soldiers had retreated out
of the city.
  
  2. And thus were the Romans driven out, after they had
  possessed themselves of the second wall. Whereupon the
  fighting men that were in the city were lifted up in their
minds, and were elevated upon this their good success,
  and began to think that the Romans would never venture to come
into the city any more; and that if they kept within it
themselves, they should not be any more conquered. For
  God had blinded their minds for the transgressions they
  had been guilty of, nor could they see how much greater
  forces the Romans had than those that were now expelled, no
more than they could discern how a famine was
  creeping upon them; for hitherto they had fed themselves out of
the public miseries, and drank the blood of the city. But now
poverty had for a long time seized upon the better part, and a
great many had died already for want of
  necessaries; although the seditious indeed supposed the
  destruction of the people to be an easement to themselves; for
they desired that none others might be preserved but such as were
against a peace with the Romans, and were
  resolved to live in opposition to them, and they were
  pleased when the multitude of those of a contrary opinion were
consumed, as being then freed from a heavy burden.
  And this was their disposition of mind with regard to those
that were within the city, while they covered themselves with
their armor, and prevented the Romans, when they
  were trying to get into the city again, and made a wall of
their own bodies over against that part of the wall that was cast
down. Thus did they valiantly defend themselves for three days;
but on the fourth day they could not support themselves against
the vehement assaults of Titus but were compelled by force to fly
whither they had fled before; so he quietly possessed himself
again of that wall, and
  demolished it entirely. And when he had put a garrison into the
towers that were on the south parts of the city, he
  contrived how he might assault the third wall.
  
  CHAPTER 9.
  
  
  
  Titus When The Jews Were Not At All Mollified By His
  Leaving Off The Siege For A While, Set Himself Again To
  Prosecute The Same; But Soon Sent Josephus To
  Discourse With His Own Countrymen About Peace.
  
  1. A Resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a
little while, and to afford the seditious an interval for
consideration, and to see whether the demolishing of their second
wall would not make them a little more compliant, or whether they
were not somewhat afraid of a famine,
  because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be
sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in
order to compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the
  usual appointed time when he must distribute subsistence money
to the soldiers was now come, he gave orders that
  the commanders should put the army into battle-array, in the
face of the enemy, and then give every one of the
  soldiers their pay. So the soldiers, according to custom,
opened the cases wherein their arms before lay covered,
  and marched with their breastplates on, as did the
  horsemen lead their horses in their fine trappings. Then did
the places that were before the city shine very splendidly for a
great way; nor was there any thing so grateful to
  Titus's own men, or so terrible to the enemy, as that sight.
For the whole old wall, and the north side of the temple, were
full of spectators, and one might see the houses full of such as
looked at them; nor was there any part of the city which was not
covered over with their multitudes; nay, a very great
consternation seized upon the hardiest of the Jews themselves,
when they saw all the army in the same
  place, together with the fineness of their arms, and the good
order of their men. And I cannot but think that the seditious
would have changed their minds at that sight,
  unless the crimes they had committed against the people
  had been so horrid, that they despaired of forgiveness from the
Romans; but as they believed death with torments must be their
punishment, if they did not go on in the defense of the city,
they thought it much better to die in war. Fate also prevailed so
far over them, that the innocent were to perish with the guilty,
and the city was to be destroyed with the seditious that were in
it.
  
  2. Thus did the Romans spend four days in bringing this
  subsistence-money to the several legions. But on the fifth day,
when no signs of peace appeared to come from the
  Jews, Titus divided his legions, and began to raise banks, both
at the tower of Antonia and at John's monument. Now his designs
were to take the upper city at that monument, and the temple at
the tower of Antonia; for if the temple were not taken, it would
be dangerous to keep the city
  itself; so at each of these parts he raised him banks, each
legion raising one. As for those that wrought at John's
  monument, the Idumeans, and those that were in arms with Simon,
made sallies upon them, and put some stop to
  them; while John's party, and the multitude of zealots with
them, did the like to those that were before the tower of
Antonia. These Jews were now too hard for the Romans,
  not only in direct fighting, because they stood upon the higher
ground, but because they had now learned to use
  their own engines; for their continual use of them one day
after another did by degrees improve their skill about them; for
of one sort of engines for darts they had three hundred, and
forty for stones; by the means of which they made it more tedious
for the Romans to raise their banks. But then Titus, knowing that
the city would be either saved or
  destroyed for himself, did not only proceed earnestly in the
siege, but did not omit to have the Jews exhorted to
  repentance; so he mixed good counsel with his works for
  the siege. And being sensible that exhortations are
  frequently more effectual than arms, he persuaded them to
surrender the city, now in a manner already taken, and
  thereby to save themselves, and sent Josephus to speak to them
in their own language; for he imagined they might
  yield to the persuasion of a countryman of their own.
  
  3. So Josephus went round about the wall, and tried to find a
place that was out of the reach of their darts, and yet within
their hearing, and besought them, in many words, to spare
themselves, to spare their country and their temple, and not to
be more obdurate in these cases than foreigners themselves; for
that the Romans, who had no relation to
  those things, had a reverence for their sacred rites and
places, although they belonged to their enemies, and had till now
kept their hands off from meddling with them; while such as were
brought up under them, and, if they be
  preserved, will be the only people that will reap the benefit
of them, hurry on to have them destroyed. That certainly they
have seen their strongest walls demolished, and that the wall
still remaining was weaker than those that were already taken.
That they must know the Roman power was
  invincible, and that they had been used to serve them; for,
that in case it be allowed a right thing to fight for liberty,
that ought to have been done at first; but for them that have
once fallen under the power of the Romans, and have now
  submitted to them for so many long years, to pretend to
  shake off that yoke afterward, was the work of such as had a
mind to die miserably, not of such as were lovers of
  liberty. Besides, men may well enough grudge at the
  dishonor of owning ignoble masters over them, but ought
  not to do so to those who have all things under their
  command; for what part of the world is there that hath
  escaped the Romans, unless it be such as are of no use
  for violent heat, or for violent cold? And evident it is that
fortune is on all hands gone over to them; and that God, when he
had gone round the nations with this dominion, is now settled in
Italy. That, moreover, it is a strong and fixed law, even among
brute beasts, as well as among men, to
  yield to those that are too strong for them; and to stiffer
those to have the dominion who are too hard for the rest in war;
for which reason it was that their forefathers, who were far
superior to them, both in their souls and bodies, and other
advantages, did yet submit to the Romans, which
  they would not have suffered, had they not known that God was
with them. As for themselves, what can they depend
  on in this their opposition, when the greatest part of their
city is already taken? and when those that are within it are
under greater miseries than if they were taken, although their
walls be still standing? For that the Romans are not unacquainted
with that famine which is in the city, whereby the people are
already consumed, and the fighting men will in a little time be
so too; for although the Romans should leave off the siege, and
not fall upon the city with their swords in their hands, yet was
there an insuperable war
  that beset them within, and was augmented every hour,
  unless they were able to wage war with famine, and fight
against it, or could alone conquer their natural appetites. He
added this further, how right a thing it was to change their
conduct before their calamities were become incurable, and to
have recourse to such advice as might preserve them,
  while opportunity was offered them for so doing; for that the
Romans would not be mindful of their past actions to their
disadvantage, unless they persevered in their insolent
  behavior to the end; because they were naturally mild in their
conquests, and preferred what was profitable, before what their
passions dictated to them; which profit of theirs lay not in
leaving the city empty of inhabitants, nor the country a desert;
on which account Caesar did now offer
  them his right hand for their security. Whereas, if he took the
city by force, he would not save any of them, and this
especially, if they rejected his offers in these their utmost
distresses; for the walls that were already taken could not but
assure them that the third wall would quickly be taken also. And
though their fortifications should prove too strong for the
Romans to break through them, yet would the
  famine fight for the Romans against them.
  
  4. While Josephus was making this exhortation to the Jews, many
of them jested upon him from the wall, and many
  reproached him; nay, some threw their darts at him: but
  when he could not himself persuade them by such open
  good advice, he betook himself to the histories belonging to
their own nation, and cried out aloud, "O miserable
  creatures! are you so unmindful of those that used to assist
you, that you will fight by your weapons and by your hands
against the Romans? When did we ever conquer any other
  nation by such means? and when was it that God, who is
  the Creator of the Jewish people, did not avenge them
  when they had been injured? Will not you turn again, and look
back, and consider whence it is that you fight with such
violence, and how great a Supporter you have
  profanely abused? Will not you recall to mind the prodigious
things done for your forefathers and this holy place, and how
great enemies of yours were by him subdued under
  you? I even tremble myself in declaring the works of God before
your ears, that are unworthy to hear them; however, hearken to
me, that you may be informed how you fight not only against the
Romans, but against God himself. In old times there was one
Necao, king of Egypt, who was also
  called Pharaoh; he came with a prodigious army of soldiers, and
seized queen Sarah, the mother of our nation. What
  did Abraham our progenitor then do? Did he defend himself from
this injurious person by war, although he had three hundred and
eighteen captains under him, and an immense
  army under each of them? Indeed he deemed them to be
  no number at all without God's assistance, and only spread out
his hands towards this holy place, (16) which you have now
polluted, and reckoned upon him as upon his invincible supporter,
instead of his own army. Was not our queen
  sent back, without any defilement, to her husband, the very
next evening? - while the king of Egypt fled away, adoring this
place which you have defiled by shedding thereon the blood of
your own countrymen; and he also trembled at
  those visions which he saw in the night season, and
  bestowed both silver and gold on the Hebrews, as on a
  people beloved by God. Shall I say nothing, or shall I
  mention the removal of our fathers into Egypt, who, (17) when
they were used tyrannically, and were fallen under
  the power of foreign kings for four hundred ears together, and
might have defended themselves by war and by
  fighting, did yet do nothing but commit themselves to God! Who
is there that does not know that Egypt was overrun
  with all sorts of wild beasts, and consumed by all sorts of
distempers? how their land did not bring forth its fruit? how the
Nile failed of water? how the ten plagues of Egypt
  followed one upon another? and how by those means our
  fathers were sent away under a guard, without any
  bloodshed, and without running any dangers, because God
  conducted them as his peculiar servants? Moreover, did not
Palestine groan under the ravage the Assyrians made,
  when they carried away our sacred ark? as did their idol Dagon,
and as also did that entire nation of those that
  carried it away, how they were smitten with a loathsome
  distemper in the secret parts of their bodies, when their very
bowels came down together with what they had eaten, till those
hands that stole it away were obliged to bring it back again, and
that with the sound of cymbals and
  timbrels, and other oblations, in order to appease the anger of
God for their violation of his holy ark. It was God who then
became our General, and accomplished these great
  things for our fathers, and this because they did not meddle
with war and fighting, but committed it to him to judge about
their affairs. When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, brought along
with him all Asia, and encompassed this city round with his army,
did he fall by the hands of men? were not those hands lifted up
to God in prayers, without meddling with their arms, when an
angel of God destroyed that
  prodigious army in one night? when the Assyrian king, as he
rose the next day, found a hundred fourscore and five thousand
dead bodies, and when he, with the remainder of his army, fled
away from the Hebrews, though they were
  unarmed, and did not pursue them. You are also
  acquainted with the slavery we were under at Babylon,
  where the people were captives for seventy years; yet were they
not delivered into freedom again before God made
  Cyrus his gracious instrument in bringing it about;
  accordingly they were set free by him, and did again
  restore the worship of their Deliverer at his temple. And, to
speak in general, we can produce no example wherein our
  fathers got any success by war, or failed of success when
without war they committed themselves to God. When they
  staid at home, they conquered, as pleased their Judge; but when
they went out to fight, they were always disappointed: for
example, when the king of Babylon besieged this very city, and
our king Zedekiah fought against him, contrary to what
predictions were made to him by Jeremiah the
  prophet, he was at once taken prisoner, and saw the city and
the temple demolished. Yet how much greater was the
  moderation of that king, than is that of your present
  governors, and that of the people then under him, than is that
of you at this time! for when Jeremiah cried out aloud, how very
angry God was at them, because of their
  transgressions, and told them they should be taken
  prisoners, unless they would surrender up their city, neither
did the king nor the people put him to death; but for you, (to
pass over what you have done within the city, which I am not able
to describe as your wickedness deserves,) you
  abuse me, and throw darts at me, who only exhort you to
  save yourselves, as being provoked when you are put in
  mind of your sins, and cannot bear the very mention of
  those crimes which you every day perpetrate. For another
example, when Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, lay
  before this city, and had been guilty of many indignities
against God, and our forefathers met him in arms, they
  then were slain in the battle, this city was plundered by our
enemies, and our sanctuary made desolate for three years and six
months. And what need I bring any more
  examples? Indeed what can it be that hath stirred up an army of
the Romans against our nation? Is it not the impiety of the
inhabitants? Whence did our servitude commence? Was it not
derived from the seditions that were among our forefathers, when
the madness of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and our mutual quarrels,
brought Pompey upon this city, and when God reduced those under 
subjection to the Romans who were unworthy of the liberty they
had enjoyed? After a siege, therefore, of three months, they were
forced to surrender themselves, although they had not been guilty
of such offenses, with regard to our sanctuary and our laws, as
you have; and this while they had much greater advantages to go
to war than you have. Do not we know what end Antigonus, the son
of Aristobulus, came to, under whose reign God provided that this
city should be taken again upon account of the people's offenses?
When Herod, the son of Antipater, brought upon us Sosius, and
Sosius brought upon us the Roman army, they were then encompassed
and besieged for six months, till, as a punishment for their
sins, they were taken, and the city was plundered by the enemy.
Thus it appears that arms were never given to our nation, but
that we are always given up to be fought against, and to be
taken; for I suppose that such as inhabit this holy place ought
to commit the disposal of all things to God, and then only to
disregard the assistance of men when they resign themselves up to
their Arbitrator, who is above. As for you, what have you done of
those things that are recommended by our legislator? and what
have you not done of those things that he hath condemned? How
much more impious are you than those who were so quickly taken!
You have not avoided so much as those sins that are usually done
in secret; I mean thefts, and treacherous plots against men, and
adulteries. You are quarrelling about rapines and murders, and
invent strange ways of wickedness. Nay, the temple itself is
become the receptacle of all, and this Divine place is polluted
by the hands of those of our own country; which place hath yet
been reverenced by the Romans when it was at a distance from
them, when they have suffered many of their own customs to give
place to our law. And, after all this, do you expect Him whom you
have so impiously abused to be your supporter? To be sure then 
you have a right to be petitioners, and to call upon Him to
assist you, so pure are your hands! Did your king [Hezekiah] lift
up such hands in prayer to God against the king of Assyria, when
he destroyed that great army in one night? And do the Romans
commit such wickedness as did the king of Assyria, that you may
have reason to hope for the like vengeance upon them? Did not
that king accept of money from our king on this condition, that
he should not destroy the city, and yet, contrary to the oath he
had taken, he came down to burn the temple? while the Romans do 
demand no more than that accustomed tribute which our fathers
paid to their fathers; and if they may but once obtain that, they
neither aim to destroy this city, nor to touch this sanctuary;
nay, they will grant you besides, that your posterity shall be
free, and your possessions secured to you, and will preserve our
holy laws inviolate to you. And it is plain madness to expect
that God should appear as well disposed towards the wicked as
towards the righteous, since he knows when it is proper to punish
men for their sins immediately; accordingly he brake the power of
the Assyrians the very first night that they pitched their camp.
Wherefore, had he judged that our nation was worthy of freedom,
or the Romans of punishment, he had immediately inflicted
punishment upon those Romans, as he did upon the Assyrians, when
Pompey began to meddle with our nation, or when after him Sosius
came up against us, or when Vespasian laid waste Galilee, or,
lastly, when Titus came first of all near to this city; although
Magnus and Sosius did not only suffer nothing, but took the city
by force; as did Vespasian go from the war he made against you to
receive the empire; and as for Titus, those springs that were
formerly almost dried up when they were under your power (18)
since he is come, run more plentifully than they did before;
accordingly, you know that Siloam, as well as all the other
springs that were without the city, did so far fail, that water
was sold by distinct measures; whereas they now have such a great
quantity of water for your enemies, as is sufficient not only for
drink both for themselves and their cattle, but for watering
their gardens also. The same wonderful sign you had also
experience of formerly, when the forementioned king of Babylon
made war against us, and when he took the city, and burnt the
temple; while yet I believe the Jews of that age were not so
impious as you are. Wherefore I cannot but suppose that God is
fled out of his sanctuary, and stands on the side of those
against whom you fight. Now even a man, if he be but a good man,
will fly from an impure house, and will hate those that are in
it; and do you persuade yourselves that God will abide with you
in your iniquities, who sees all secret things, and hears what is
kept most private? Now what crime is there, I pray you, that is
so much as kept secret among you, or is concealed by you? nay,
what is there that is not open to your very enemies? for you show
your transgressions after a pompous manner, and contend one with
another which of you shall be more wicked than another; and you
make a public demonstration of your injustice, as if it were
virtue. However, there is a place left for your preservation, if
you be willing to accept of it; and God is easily reconciled to
those that confess their faults, and repent of them. O
hard-hearted wretches as you are! cast away all your arms, and
take pity of your country already going to ruin; return from your
wicked ways, and have regard to the excellency of that city which
you are going to betray, to that excellent temple with the
donations of so many countries in it. Who could bear to be the
first that should set that temple on fire? who could be willing
that these things should be no more? and what is there that can
better deserve to be preserved? O insensible creatures, and more
stupid than are the stones themselves! And if you cannot look at
these things with discerning eyes, yet, however, have pity upon
your families, and set before every one of your eyes your
children, and wives, and parents, who will be gradually consumed
either by famine or by war. I am sensible that  this danger will
extend to my mother, and wife, and to that family of mine who
have been by no means ignoble, and indeed to one that hath been
very eminent in old time; and perhaps you may imagine that it is
on their account only that I give you this advice; if that be
all, kill them; nay, take my own blood as a reward, if it may but
procure your preservation; for I am ready to die, in case you
will but return to a sound mind after my death."
  
CHAPTER 10.
  
  
  
How A Great Many Of The People Earnestly Endeavored
To Desert To The Romans; As Also What Intolerable
Things Those That Staid Behind Suffered By Famine, And
The Sad Consequences Thereof.
  
1. As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious
would neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe
for them to alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had
a great inclination to desert to the Romans; accordingly, some of
them sold what they had, and even the most precious things that
had been laid up as treasures by them, for every small matter,
and swallowed down pieces of gold, that they might not be found
out by the robbers; and when they had escaped to the Romans, 
went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully for
themselves; for Titus let a great number of them go away into the
country, whither they pleased. And the main reasons why they were
so ready to desert were these: That now they should be freed from
those miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet
should not be in slavery to the Romans: however, John and Simon,
with their factions, did more carefully watch these men's going
out than they did the coming in of the Romans; and if any one did
but afford the least shadow of suspicion of such an intention,
his throat was cut immediately.
  
2. But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether
they staid in the city, or attempted to get out of it; for they
were equally destroyed in both cases; for every such person was
put to death under this pretense, that they were going to desert,
but in reality that the robbers might get what they had. The
madness of the seditious did also increase together with their
famine, and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and
more; for there was no corn which any where appeared publicly,
but the robbers came running into, and searched men's private
houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them, because
they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they 
tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more
carefully concealed it. The indication they made use of whether
they had any or not was taken from the bodies of these miserable
wretches; which, if they were in good case, they supposed they
were in no want at all of food; but if they were wasted away,
they walked off without searching any further; nor did they think
it proper to kill such as these, because they saw they would very
soon die of themselves for want of food. Many there were indeed
who sold what they had for one measure; it was of wheat, if they
were of the richer sort; but of barley, if they were poorer. When
these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost rooms of
their houses, and ate the corn they had gotten; some did it
without grinding it, by reason of the extremity of the want they
were in, and others baked bread of it, according as necessity and
fear dictated to them: a table was no where laid for a distinct
meal, but they snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked,
and ate it very hastily. 

3. It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly
bring tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while
the more powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were
lamenting [for want of it.] But the famine was too hard for all
other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to
modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this
case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels
that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what
was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their
infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under
their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very
last drops that might preserve their lives: and while they ate
after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but
the seditious every where came upon them immediately, and
snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for
when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that
the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open
the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating
almost up out of their very throats, and this by force: the old
men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid
what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so
doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged
or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as
they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down
upon the floor. But still they were more barbarously cruel to
those that had prevented their coming in, and had actually
swallowed down what they were going to seize upon, as if they had
been unjustly  defrauded of their right. They also invented
terrible methods of torments to discover where any food was, and
they were these to stop up the passages of the privy parts of the
miserable wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their
fundaments; and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even
to hear, in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of
bread, or that he might discover a handful of barley-meal that
was concealed; and this was done when these tormentors were not
themselves hungry; for the thing had been less barbarous had
necessity forced them to it; but this was done to keep their
madness in exercise, and as making preparation of provisions for
themselves for the following days. These men went also to meet
those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the
Roman guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and
when those people thought they had got clear of the enemy, they
snatched from them what they had brought with them, even while
they had frequently entreated them, and that by calling upon the
tremendous name of God, to give them back some part of what they
had brought; though these would not give them the least crumb,
and they were to be well contented that they were only spoiled,
and not slain at the same time.
  
  4. These were the afflictions which the lower sort of people
suffered from these tyrants' guards; but for the men that were in
dignity, and withal were rich, they were carried before the
tyrants themselves; some of whom were falsely accused of laying
treacherous plots, and so were destroyed; others of them were
charged with designs of betraying the city to the Romans; but the
readiest way of all was this, to suborn somebody to affirm that
they were resolved to desert to the enemy. And he who was utterly 
despoiled of what he had by Simon was sent back again to John, as
of those who had been already plundered by Jotre, Simon got what
remained; insomuch that they drank the blood of the populace to
one another, and divided the dead bodies of the poor creatures
between them; so that although, on account of their ambition
after dominion, they contended with each other, yet did they very
well agree in their wicked practices; for he that did not
communicate what he got by the miseries of others to the other
tyrant seemed to be too little guilty, and in one respect only;
and he that did not partake of what was so communicated to him
grieved at this, as at the loss of what was a valuable thing,
that he had no share in such barbarity.
  
5. It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every
instance of these men's iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind
here at once briefly: - That neither did any other city ever
suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation
more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of
the world. Finally, they brought the Hebrew nation into contempt,
that they might themselves appear  comparatively less impious
with regard to strangers. They confessed what was true, that they
were the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive
offspring of our nation, while they overthrew the city
themselves, and forced the Romans, whether they would or no, to
gain a melancholy reputation, by acting gloriously against them,
and did almost draw that fire upon the temple, which they seemed
to think came too slowly; and indeed when they saw that temple
burning from the upper city, they were neither troubled at it,
nor did they shed any tears on that account, while yet these
passions were discovered among the Romans themselves; which
circumstances we shall speak of hereafter in their proper place,
when we come to treat of such matters.
  
  CHAPTER 11.
  
  
  
How The Jews Were Crucified Before The Walls Of The
City Concerning Antiochus Epiphanes; And How The Jews
Overthrew The Banks That Had Been Raised By The
Romans,
  
1. So now Titus's banks were advanced a great way, 
notwithstanding his soldiers had been very much distressed from
the wall. He then sent a party of horsemen, and ordered they
should lay ambushes for those that went out into the valleys to
gather food. Some of these were indeed fighting men, who were not
contented with what they got by rapine; but the greater part of
them were poor people, who were deterred from deserting by the
concern they were under for their own relations; for they could
not hope to escape away, together with their wives and children,
without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think of 
leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their
account; nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus
going out; so nothing remained but that, when they were concealed
from the robbers, they should be taken by the enemy; and when
they were going to be taken, they were forced to defend
themselves for fear of being punished; as after they had fought,
they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy; so
they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of
tortures, before they died, and were then crucified before the
wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to
pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay,
some days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for
him to let those that were taken by force go their way, and to
set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as great
deal them useless to him. The main  reason why he did not forbid
that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield
at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards
be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of
the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they
caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the
crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that
room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the
bodies. (19)
  
2. But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad
sight, that, on the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude
believe otherwise; for they brought the relations of those that
had deserted upon the wall, with such of the populace as were
very eager to go over upon the security offered them, and showed
them what miseries those underwent who fled to the Romans; and
told them that those who were caught were supplicants to them,
and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight kept many of 
those within the city who were so eager to desert, till the truth
was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto
certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a
quiet departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus
commanded that the hands of many of those that were caught should
be cut off, that they might not be thought deserters, and might
be credited on account of the calamity they were under, and sent
them in to John and Simon, with this exhortation, that they would
now at length leave off [their madness], and not force him to
destroy the city, whereby they would have those advantages of
repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would
preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and
that temple which was their peculiar. He then went round about
the banks that were cast up, and hastened them, in order to show
that his words should in no long time be followed by his deeds.
In answer to which the seditious cast reproaches upon Caesar
himself, and upon his father also, and cried out, with a loud
voice, that they contemned death, and did well in preferring it
before slavery; that they would do all the mischief to the Romans
they could while they had breath in them; and that for their own
city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed, they had no
concern about it, and that the world itself was a better temple
to God than this. That yet this temple would be preserved by him
that inhabited therein, whom they still had for their assistant
in this war, and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings,
which would come to nothing, because the conclusion of the whole
depended upon God only. These words were mixed with reproaches,
and with them they made a mighty clamor.
  
3. In the mean time Antiochus Epiphanes came to the city, having
with him a considerable number of other armed men, and a band
called the Macedonian band about him, all of the same age, tall,
and just past their childhood, armed, and instructed after the
Macedonian manner, whence it was that they took that name. Yet
were many of them unworthy of so famous a nation; for it had so
happened, that the king of Commagene had flourished more than any
other kings that were under the power of the Romans, till a
change happened in his condition; and when he was become an old
man, he declared plainly that we ought not to call any man happy
before he is dead. But this son of his, who was then come thither
before his father was decaying, said that he could not but wonder
what made the Romans so tardy in making their attacks upon the
wall.  Now he was a warlike man, and naturally bold in exposing
himself to dangers; he was also so strong a man, that his
boldness seldom failed of having success. Upon this Titus smiled,
and said he would share the pains of an attack with him. However,
Antiochus went as he then was, and with his Macedonians made a
sudden assault upon the wall; and, indeed, for his own part, his
strength and skill were so great, that he guarded himself from
the Jewish darts, and yet shot his darts at them, while yet the
young men with him were almost all sorely galled; for they had so
great a regard to the promises that had been made of their
courage, that they would needs persevere in their fighting, and
at length many of them retired, but not till they were wounded;
and then they perceived that true Macedonians, if they were to be
conquerors, must have Alexander's good fortune also.
  
4. Now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth
day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] so had they much ado to
finish them by the twenty-ninth day of the same month, after they
had labored hard for seventeen days continually. For there were
now four great banks raised, one of which was at the tower
Antonia; this was raised by the fifth legion, over against the
middle of that pool which was called Struthius. Another was cast
up by the twelfth legion, at the distance of about twenty cubits
from the other. But the labors of the tenth legion, which lay a
great way off these, were on the north quarter, and at the pool
called Amygdalon; as was that of the fifteenth legion about
thirty cubits from it, and at the high priest's monument. And
now, when the engines were brought, John had from within
undermined the space that was over against the tower of Antonia,
as far as the banks themselves, and had supported the ground over
the mine  with beams laid across one another, whereby the Roman
works stood upon an uncertain foundation. Then did he order such
materials to be brought in as were daubed over with pitch and
bitumen, and set them on fire; and as the cross beams that
supported the banks were burning, the  ditch yielded on the
sudden, and the banks were shaken down, and fell into the ditch
with a prodigious noise. Now at the first there arose a very
thick smoke and dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the
bank; but as the suffocated materials were now gradually
consumed, a plain flame brake out; on which sudden appearance of
the flame a consternation fell upon the Romans, and the
shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and indeed this
accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they had 
already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to
come. They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the
pains to extinguish the fire, since if it were extinguished, the
banks were swallowed up already [and become useless to them].
  
5. Two days after this, Simon and his party made an attempt to
destroy the other banks; for the Romans had brought their engines
to bear there, and began already to make the wall shake. And here
one Tephtheus, of Garsis, a city of Galilee, and Megassarus, one
who was derived from some of queen Mariamne's servants, and with
them one from Adiabene, he was the son of Nabateus, and called by
the name of Chagiras, from the ill fortune he had, the word
signifying "a lame man," snatched some torches, and ran suddenly
upon the engines. Nor were there during this war any men that
ever sallied out of the city who were their superiors, either in
their boldness, or in the terror they struck into their enemies.
For they ran out upon the Romans, not as if they were enemies,
but friends, without fear or delay; nor did they leave their
enemies till they had rushed violently through the midst of them,
and set their machines on fire. And though they had darts thrown
at them on every side, and were on every side assaulted with
their enemies' swords, yet did they not withdraw themselves out
of the dangers they were in, till the fire had caught hold of the
instruments; but when the flame went up, the Romans came running
from their camp to save their  engines. Then did the Jews hinder
their succors from the wall, and fought with those that
endeavored to quench the fire, without any regard to the danger
their bodies were in. So the Romans pulled the engines out of the
fire, while the hurdles that covered them were on fire; but the
Jews caught hold of the battering rams through the flame itself,
and held them fast, although the iron upon them was become red
hot; and now the fire spread itself from the engines to the
banks, and prevented those that came to defend them; and all this
while the Romans were  encompassed round about with the flame;
and, despairing of saying their works from it, they retired to
their camp. Then did the Jews become still more and more in
number by the coming of those that were within the city to their
assistance; and as they were very bold upon the good success they
had had, their violent assaults were almost irresistible; nay,
they proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemies' camp,
and fought with their guards. Now  there stood a body of soldiers
in array before that camp, which succeeded one another by turns
in their armor; and as to those, the law of the Romans was
terrible, that he who left his post there, let the occasion be
whatsoever it might be, he was to die for it; so that body of
soldiers, preferring rather to die in fighting courageously, than
as a punishment for their cowardice, stood firm; and at the
necessity these men were in of standing to it, many of the others
that had run away, out of shame, turned back again; and when they
had set the engines against the wall, they put the multitude from
coming more of them out of the city, [which they could the more
easily do] because they had made no provision for preserving or
guarding their bodies at this time; for the Jews fought now hand
to hand with all that came in their way, and, without any
caution, fell against the points of their enemies' spears, and
attacked them bodies against bodies; for they were now too hard
for the Romans, not so much by their other warlike actions, as by
these courageous assaults they made upon them; and the Romans
gave way more to their boldness than they did to the sense of the
harm they had received from them.
  
6. And now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia, whither he
was gone to look out for a place for raising other banks, and
reproached the soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to
be in danger, when they had taken the wails of their enemies, and
sustained the fortune of men besieged, while the Jews were
allowed to sally out against them, though they were already in a
sort of prison. He then went round about the enemy with some
chosen troops, and fell upon their flank himself; so the Jews,
who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to
Titus, and continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed
one among another, and the dust that was raised so far hindered
them from seeing one another, and the noise that was made so far
hindered them from hearing one another, that neither side could
discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not flinch,
though not so much from their real strength, as from their
despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by
reason of the regard they had to glory, and to their reputation
in war, and because Caesar himself went into the danger before
them; insomuch that I cannot but think the Romans would in the
conclusion have now taken even the whole multitude of the Jews,
so very angry were they at them, had these not prevented the
upshot of the battle, and retired into the city. However, seeing
the banks of the Romans were demolished, these Romans were very
much east down upon the loss of what had cost them so long pains,
and this in one hour's time. And many indeed despaired of taking
the city with their usual engines of war only.
  
CHAPTER 12.
  
  
Titus Thought Fit To Encompass The City Round With A
Wall; After Which The Famine Consumed The People By
Whole Houses And Families Together.
  
1. And now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be
done. Those that were of the warmest tempers thought he should
bring the whole army against the city and storm the wall; for
that hitherto no more than a part of their army had fought with
the Jews; but that in case the entire army was to come at once,
they would not be able to sustain their attacks, but would be
overwhelmed by their darts. But of those that were for a more
cautious management, some were for raising their banks again; and
others advised to let the banks alone, but to lie still before
the city, to guard against the coming out of the Jews, and
against their carrying provisions into the city, and so to leave
the enemy to the famine, and this without direct fighting with
them; for that despair was not to be conquered, especially as to
those who are desirous to die by the sword, while a more terrible
misery than that is reserved for them. However, Titus did not
think it fit for so great an army to lie entirely idle, and that
yet it was in vain to fight with those that would be destroyed
one by another; he also showed them how impracticable it was to
cast up any more banks, for want of materials, and to guard
against the Jews coming out still more impracticable; as also,
that to encompass the whole city round with his army was not very
easy, by reason of its magnitude, and the difficulty of the
situation, and on other accounts dangerous, upon the sallies the
Jews might make out of the city. For although they might guard
the known passages out of the place, yet would they, when they
found themselves under the greatest distress, contrive secret
passages out, as being well acquainted with all such places; and
if any provisions were carried in by stealth, the siege would
thereby be longer delayed. He also owned that he was afraid that
the length of time thus to be spent would diminish the glory of
his success; for though it be true that length of time will
perfect every thing, yet that to do what we do in a little time
is still necessary to the gaining reputation. That therefore his
opinion was, that if they aimed at quickness joined with
security, they must build a wall round about the whole city;
which was, he thought, the only way to prevent the Jews from
coming out any way, and that then they would either entirely
despair of saving the city, and so would surrender it up to him,
or be still the more easily conquered when the famine had further
weakened them; for that besides this  wall, he would not lie
entirely at rest afterward, but would take care then to have
banks raised again, when those that would oppose them were become
weaker. But that if any one should think such a work to be too
great, and not to be finished without much difficulty, he ought
to consider that it is not fit for Romans to undertake any small
work, and that none but God himself could with ease accomplish
any great thing whatsoever.
  
2. These arguments prevailed with the commanders. So Titus gave
orders that the army should be distributed to their several
shares of this work; and indeed there now came upon the soldiers
a certain divine fury, so that they did not only part the whole
wall that was to be built among them, nor did only one legion
strive with another, but the lesser divisions of the army did the
same; insomuch that each soldier was ambitious to please his
decurion, each decurion his centurion, each centurion his
tribune, and the ambition of the tribunes was to please their
superior commanders, while Caesar himself took notice of and 
rewarded the like contention in those commanders; for he went
round about the works many times every day, and took a view of
what was done. Titus began the wall from the camp of the
Assyrians, where his own camp was pitched, and drew it down to
the lower parts of Cenopolis; thence it went along the valley of
Cedron, to the Mount of Olives; it then bent towards the south,
and encompassed the mountain as far as the rock called
Peristereon, and that other hill which lies next it, and is over
the valley which reaches to Siloam; whence it bended again to the
west, and went down to the valley of the Fountain, beyond which
it went up again at the monument of Ananus the high  priest, and
encompassing that mountain where Pompey had formerly pitched his
camp, it returned back to the north side of the city, and was
carried on as far as a certain village called "The House of the
Erebinthi;" after which it encompassed Herod's monument, and
there, on the east, was joined to Titus's own camp, where it
began. Now the length of this wall was forty furlongs, one only
abated. Now at this wall without were erected thirteen places to
keep garrison in, whose circumferences, put together, amounted to
ten furlongs; the whole was completed in three days; so that what
would naturally have required some months was done in so short an
interval as is incredible. When Titus had therefore encompassed
the city with this wall, and put garrisons into proper places, be
went round the wall, at the first watch of the night, and
observed how the guard was kept; the second watch he allotted to
Alexander; the commanders of legions took the third watch. They
also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in
the night time, and who should go all night long round the spaces
that were interposed between the garrisons.
  
3. So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews,
together with their liberty of going out of the city. Then did
the famine widen its progress, and devoured the people by whole
houses and families; the upper rooms were full of women and
children that were dying by famine, and the lanes of the city
were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children also and
the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows, all
swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their
misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick
themselves were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and
well were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those
dead bodies, and by the uncertainty there was how soon they 
should die themselves; for many died as they were burying others,
and many went to their coffins before that fatal hour was come.
Nor was there any lamentations made under these calamities, nor
were heard any mournful complaints; but the famine confounded all
natural passions; for those who were just going to die looked
upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes and
open mouths. A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had
seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more
terrible than these miseries were themselves; for they brake open
those houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and
plundered them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings
of their bodies, went out laughing, and tried the points of their
swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove what metal
they were made of they thrust some of those through that still
lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to
lend them their right hand and their sword to despatch them, they
were too  proud to grant their requests, and left them to be
consumed by the famine. Now every one of these died with their
eyes fixed upon the temple, and left the seditious alive behind
them. Now the seditious at first gave orders that the dead should
be buried out of the public treasury, as not enduring the stench
of their dead bodies. But afterwards, when they could not do
that, they had them cast down from the walls into the valleys
beneath.
  
4. However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys,
saw them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running
about them, he gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to
heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing; and
such was the sad case of the city itself. But the Romans were
very joyful, since none of the seditious could now make sallies
out of the city, because they were themselves disconsolate, and
the famine already touched them also. These Romans besides had
great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of Syria, and out
of the neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand near to
the wall of the city, and show the people what great quantities
of provisions they had, and so make the enemy more sensible of
their famine, by the great plenty, even to satiety, which they
had themselves. However, when the seditious still showed no
inclinations of yielding, Titus, out of his commiseration of the
people that remained, and out of his earnest desire of rescuing
what was still left out of these miseries, began to raise his
banks again, although materials for them were hard to he come at;
for all the trees that were about the city had been already cut
down for the making of the former banks. Yet did the soldiers
bring with them other materials from the distance of ninety
furlongs, and thereby raised banks in four parts, much greater
than the former, though this was done only at the tower of
Antonia. So Caesar went his rounds through the legions, and
hastened on the works, and showed the robbers that  they were now
in his hands. But these men, and these only, were incapable of
repenting of the wickednesses they had been guilty of; and
separating their souls from their bodies, they used them both as
if they belonged to other folks, and not to themselves. For no
gentle affection could touch their souls, nor could any pain
affect their bodies, since they could still tear the dead bodies
of the people as dogs do, and fill the prisons with those that
were sick. 

CHAPTER 13.
  
  
  
The Great Slaughters And Sacrilege That Were In
Jerusalem.
  
1. Accordingly Simon would not suffer Matthias, by whose means he
got possession of the city, to go off without torment. This
Matthias was the son of Boethus, and was one of the high priests,
one that had been very faithful to the people, and in great
esteem with them; he, when the multitude were distressed by the
zealots, among whom John was numbered, persuaded the people to
admit this Simon to come in to assist them, while he had made no
terms with him, nor expected any thing that was evil from him.
But when Simon was come in, and had gotten the city under his
power, he esteemed him that had advised them to admit him as his
enemy equally with the rest, as looking upon that advice as a
piece of his simplicity only; so he had him then brought before
him, and condemned to die for being on the side of the Romans,
without giving him leave to make his defense. He condemned also
his three sons to die with him; for as to the fourth, he
prevented him by running away to Titus before. And when he begged
for this, that he might be slain before his sons, and that as a
favor, on account that he had procured the gates of the city to
be opened to him, he gave order that he should be slain the last
of them all; so he was not slain till he had seen his sons slain
before his eyes, and that by being produced over against the
Romans; for such a charge had Simon given to Artanus, the son of
Bamadus, who was the most barbarous of all his guards. He also
jested upon him, and told him that he might now see whether those
to whom he intended to go over would send him any succors or not;
but still he forbade their dead bodies should be buried. After
the  slaughter of these, a certain priest, Ananias, the son of
Masambalus, a person of eminency, as also Aristens, the scribe of
the sanhedrim, and born at Emmaus, and with them fifteen men of
figure among the people, were slain. They also kept Josephus's
father in prison, and made public proclamation, that no citizen
whosoever should either speak to him himself, or go into his
company among others, for fear he should betray them. They also
slew such as joined in lamenting these men, without any further 
examination.
  
2. Now when Judas, the son of Judas, who was one of Simon's under
officers, and a person intrusted by him to keep one of the
towers, saw this procedure of Simon, he called together ten of
those under him, that were most faithful to him, (perhaps this
was done partly out of pity to those that had so barbarously been
put to death, but principally in order to provide for his own
safety,) and spoke thus to them: "How long shall we bear these
miseries? or what hopes have we of deliverance by thus continuing 
faithful to such wicked wretches? Is not the famine already come
against us? Are not the Romans in a manner gotten within the
city? Is not Simon become unfaithful to his benefactors? and is
there not reason to fear he will very soon bring us to the like
punishment, while the security the Romans offer us is sure? Come
on, let us surrender up this wall, and save ourselves and the
city. Nor will Simon be very much hurt, if, now he despairs of
deliverance, he be brought to justice a little sooner than he
thinks on." Now these ten were prevailed upon by those arguments;
so he sent the rest of those that were under him, some one way,
and some another, that no discovery might be made of what they
had resolved upon. Accordingly, he called to the Romans from the
tower about the third hour; but they, some of them out of pride,
despised what he said, and  others of them did not believe him to
be in earnest, though the greatest number delayed the matter, as
believing they should get possession of the city in a little
time, without any hazard. But when Titus was just coming thither
with his armed men, Simon was acquainted with the matter before
he came, and presently took the tower into his own custody,
before it was surrendered, and seized upon these men, and put
them to death in the sight of the Romans
themselves; and when he had mangled their dead bodies, he threw
them down before the wall of the city.
  
3. In the mean time, Josephus, as he was going round the city,
had his head wounded by a stone that was thrown at him; upon
which he fell down as giddy. Upon which fall of his the Jews made
a sally, and he had been hurried away into the city, if Caesar
had not sent men to protect him immediately; and as these men
were fighting, Josephus was taken up, though he heard little of
what was done. So the seditious supposed they had now slain that
man whom they were the most desirous of killing, and made
thereupon a great noise, in way of rejoicing. This accident was
told in the city, and the multitude that remained became very
disconsolate at the news, as being persuaded that he was really
dead, on whose account alone they could venture to desert to the
Romans. But when Josephus's mother heard in prison that her son
was dead, she said to those that watched about her, That she had
always been of opinion, since the siege of Jotapata, [that he
would be slain,] and she should never enjoy him alive any more.
She also made great lamentation privately to the maid-servants
that were about her, and said, That this was all the advantage
she had of bringing so extraordinary a person as this son into
the world; that she should not be able even to bury that son of
hers, by whom she expected to have been buried herself. However,
this false report did not put his mother to pain, nor afford
merriment to the robbers, long; for Josephus soon recovered of
his wound, and came out, and cried out aloud, That it would not
be long ere they should be punished for this wound they had given
him. He also made a fresh exhortation to the people to come out
upon the security that would be given them. This sight of 
Josephus encouraged the people greatly, and brought a great
consternation upon the seditious.
  
4. Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped
down from the wall immediately, while others of them went out of
the city with stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon
they fled away to the Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied
these than what they had found within the city; and they met with
a quicker despatch from the too great abundance they had among
the Romans, than they could have done from the famine  among the
Jews; for when they came first to the Romans, they were puffed up
by the famine, and swelled like men in a dropsy; after which they
all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty,
and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skillful enough
to restrain their appetites, and by degrees took in their food
into bodies unaccustomed thereto. Yet did another plague seize
upon those that were thus preserved; for there was found among
the Syrian deserters a certain person who was caught gathering
pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews' bellies; for
the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we told you
before, when they came out, and for these did the seditious
search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the
city, insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for
twelve Attic [drams], as was sold before for twenty-five. But
when this contrivance was discovered in one instance, the fame of
it filled their several camps, that the deserters came to them
full of gold. So the multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians,
cut up those that came as supplicants, and searched their
bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews
that was more terrible than this, since in one night's time about
two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.
  
5. When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice, he
had like to have surrounded those that had been guilty of it with
his horse, and have shot them dead; and he had done it, had not
their number been so very great, and those that were liable to
this punishment would have been manifold more than those whom
they had slain. However, he called together the commanders of the 
auxiliary troops he had with him, as well as the commanders of
the Roman legions, (for some of his own soldiers had been also
guilty herein, as he had been informed,) and had great
indignation against both sorts of them, and said to them, "What!
have any of my own soldiers done such things as this out of the
uncertain hope of gain, without regarding their own weapons,
which are made of silver and gold? Moreover, do the Arabians and 
Syrians now first of all begin to govern themselves as they
please, and to indulge their appetites in a foreign war, and
then, out of their barbarity in murdering men, and out of their
hatred to the Jews, get it ascribed to the Romans?" for this
infamous practice was said to be spread among some of his own
soldiers also. Titus then threatened that he would put such men
to death, if any of them were discovered to be so insolent as to
do so again; moreover, he gave it in charge to the legions, that
they should make a search after such as were suspected, and
should bring them to him. But it appeared that the love of money
was too hard for all their dread of punishment, and a vehement
desire of gain is natural to men, and no passion is so
venturesome as covetousness; otherwise such passions have certain
bounds, and are subordinate to fear. But in reality it was God
who condemned the whole nation, and  turned every course that was
taken for their preservation to their destruction. This,
therefore, which was forbidden by Caesar under such a
threatening, was ventured upon privately against the deserters,
and these barbarians would go out still, and meet those that ran
away before any saw them, and looking about them to see that no
Roman spied them, they dissected them, and pulled this polluted
money out of their bowels; which money was still found in a few
of them, while yet a great many were destroyed by the bare hope
there was of thus getting by them, which miserable  treatment
made many that were deserting to return back again into the city.
  
6. But as for John, when he could no longer plunder the people,
he betook himself to sacrilege, and melted down many of the
sacred utensils, which had been given to the temple; as also many
of those vessels which were necessary for such as ministered
about holy things, the caldrons, the dishes, and the tables; nay,
he did not abstain from those pouring vessels that were sent them
by Augustus and his wife; for the Roman emperors did ever  both
honor and adorn this temple; whereas this man, who was a Jew,
seized upon what were the donations of foreigners, and said to
those that were with him, that it was proper for them to use
Divine things, while they were fighting for the Divinity, without
fear, and that such whose warfare is for the temple should live
of the temple; on which account he emptied the vessels of that
sacred wine and oil, which the priests kept to be poured on the
burnt-offerings, and which lay in the inner court of the temple,
and distributed it among the multitude, who, in their anointing
themselves and drinking, used [each of them] above an hin of
them. And here I cannot but speak my mind, and what the concern I
am under dictates to me, and it is this: I suppose, that had the
Romans made any longer delay in  coming against these villains,
that the city would either have been swallowed up by the ground
opening upon them, or been overflowed by water, or else been
destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom (20) perished
by, for it had brought forth a generation of men much more
atheistical than were those that suffered such punishments; for
by their madness it was that all the people came to be destroyed.
  
7. And, indeed, why do I relate these particular calamities?
while Manneus, the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this
very time, and told him that there had been carried out through
that one gate, which was intrusted to his care, no fewer than a
hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty dead
bodies, in the interval between the fourteenth day of the month
Xanthieus, [Nisan,] when the Romans pitched their camp by the
city, and the first day of the month Panemus [Tamuz]. This was
itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was not
himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to
pay the public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was
obliged of necessity to number them, while the rest were buried
by their relations; though all their burial was but this, to
bring them away, and cast them out of the city. After this man
there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens, and told
him the entire number of the poor that were dead, and that no
fewer than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates,
though still the number of the rest could not be discovered; and
they told him further, that when they were no longer able to
carry out the dead bodies of the poor, they laid their corpses on
heaps in very large houses, and shut them up therein; as also
that a medimnus of wheat was sold for a talent; and that when, a
while  afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, by reason
the city was all walled about, some persons were driven to that
terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old
dunghills of cattle, and to eat the dung which they got there;
and what they of old could not endure so much as to see they now
used for food. When the Romans barely heard all this, they
commiserated their case; while the seditious, who saw it also,
did not repent, but suffered the same distress to come upon
themselves; for they were blinded by that fate which was already
coming upon the city, and upon themselves also.

WAR BOOK 5 FOOTNOTES

(1) This appears to be the first time that the zealots ventured
to pollute this most sacred court of the temple, which was the
court of the priests, wherein the temple itself and the altar
stood. So that the conjecture of those that would interpret that
Zacharias, who was slain "between the temple and the altar"
several months before, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4, as if he were slain
there by these zealots, is groundless, as I have noted on that
place already.

(2) The Levites.

(3) This is an excellent reflection of Josephus, including his
hopes of the restoration of the Jews upon their repentance, See
Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 46, which is the grand "Hope of
Israel," as Manasseh-ben-Israel, the famous Jewish Rabbi, styles
it, in his small but remarkable treatise on that subject, of
which the Jewish prophets are every where full. See the principal
of those prophecies collected together at the end of the Essay on
the Revelation, p. 822, etc.

(4) This destruction of such a vast quantity of corn and other
provisions, as was sufficient for many years. was the direct
occasion of that terrible famine, which consumed incredible
numbers of Jews in Jerusalem during its siege. Nor probably could
the Romans have taken this city, after all, had not these
seditious Jews been so infatuated as thus madly to destroy, what
Josephus here justly styles, "The nerves of their power."

(5) This timber, we see, was designed for the rebuilding those
twenty additional cubits of the holy house above the hundred,
which had fallen down some years before. See the note on Antiq.
B. XV. ch. 11. sect. 3.

(6) There being no gate on the west, and only on the west, side
of the court of the priests, and so no steps there, this was the
only side that the seditious, under this John of Gischala, could
bring their engines close to the cloisters of that court
end-ways, though upon the floor of the court of Israel. See the
scheme of that temple, in the description of the temples hereto
belonging.

(7) We may here note, that Titus is here called "a king," and
"Caesar," by Josephus, even while he was no more than the
emperor's son, and general of the Roman army, and his father
Vespasian was still alive; just as the New Testament says
"Archelaus reigned," or "was king," Matthew 2:22, though he was
properly no more than ethnarch, as Josephus assures us, Antiq. B.
XVII. ch. 11. sect. 4; Of the War, B. II. ch. 6. sect. 3. Thus
also the Jews called the Roman emperors "kings," though they
never took that title to themselves:" We have no king but
Caesar," John 19:15. "Submit to the king as supreme," 1 Peter
2:13, 17; which is also the language of the Apostolical
Constitutions, II. II, 31; IV. 13; V. 19; VI. 2, 25; VII. 16;
VIII. 2, 13; and elsewhere in the New Testament, Matthew 10:18;
17:25; 1 Timothy 2:2; and in Josephus also; though I suspect
Josephus particularly esteemed Titus as joint king with his
father ever since his divine dreams that declared them both such,
B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9.

(8) This situation of the Mount of Olives, on the east of
Jerusalem, at about the distance of five or six furlongs, with
the valley of Cedron interposed between that mountain and the
city, are things well known both in the Old and New Testament, in
Josephus elsewhere, and in all the descriptions of Palestine.

(9) Here we see the true occasion of those vast numbers of Jews
that were in Jerusalem during this siege by Titus, and perished
therein; that the siege began at the feast of the passover, when
such prodigious multitudes of Jews and proselytes of the gate
were come from all parts of Judea, and from other countries, in
order to celebrate that great festival. See the note B. VI. ch.
9. sect. 3. Tacitus himself informs us, that the number of men,
women, and children in Jerusalem, when it was besieged by the
Romans, as he had been informed. This information must have been
taken from the Romans: for Josephus never recounts the numbers of
those that were besieged, only he lets us know, that of the
vulgar, carried dead out of the gates, and buried at the public
charges, was the like number of 600,000, ch. viii. sect. 7.
However, when Cestius Gallus came first to the siege, that sum in
Tacitus is no way disagreeable to Josephus's history, though they
were become much more numerous when Titus encompassed the city at
the passover. As to the number that perished during this siege,
Josephus assures us, as we shall see hereafter, they were
1,100,000, besides 97,000 captives. But Tacitus's history of the
last part of this siege is not now extant; so we cannot compare
his parallel numbers with those of Josephus.

(10) Perhaps, says Dr. Hudson, here was that gate, called the
"Gate of the Corner," in 2 Chronicles 26:9. See ch. 4. sect. 2

(11) These dove-courts in Josephus, built by Herod the Great,
are, in the opinion of Reland, the very same that are mentioned
by the Talmudists, and named by them "Herod's dove courts." Nor
is there any reason to suppose otherwise, since in both accounts
they were expressly tame pigeons which were kept in them.

(12) See the description of the temples hereto belonging, ch. 15.
But note, that what Josephus here says of the original scantiness
of this Mount Moriah, that it was quite too little for the
temple, and that at first it held only one cloister or court of
Solomon's building, and that the foundations were forced to be
added long afterwards by degrees, to render it capable of the
cloisters for the other courts, etc., is without all foundation
in the Scriptures, and not at all confirmed by his exacter
account in the Antiquities. All that is or can be true here is
this, that when the court of the Gentiles was long afterward to
be encompassed with cloisters, the southern foundation for these
cloisters was found not to be large or firm enough, and was
raised, and that additional foundation supported by great pillars
and arches under ground, which Josephus speaks of elsewhere,
Antiq. B. XV. ch. 11. sect. 3, and which Mr. Maundrel saw, and
describes, p. 100, as extant under ground at this day.

(13) What Josephus seems here to mean is this: that these
pillars, supporting the cloisters in the second court, had their
foundations or lowest parts as deep as the floor of the first or
lowest court; but that so far of those lowest parts as were equal
to the elevation of the upper floor above the lowest were, and
must be, hidden on the inside by the ground or rock itself, on
which that upper court was built; so that forty cubits visible
below were reduced to twenty-five visible above, and implies the
difference of their heights to be fifteen cubits. The main
difficulty lies here, how fourteen or fifteen steps should give
an ascent of fifteen cubits, half a cubit seeming sufficient for
a single step. Possibly there were fourteen or fifteen steps at
the partition wall, and fourteen or fifteen more thence into the
court itself, which would bring the whole near to the just
proportion. See sect. 3, infra. But I determine nothing.

(14) These three guards that lay in the tower of Antonia must be
those that guarded the city, the temple, and the tower of
Antonia.

(15) What should be the meaning of this signal or watchword, when
the watchmen saw a stone coming from the engine, "The Stone
Cometh," or what mistake there is in the reading, I cannot tell.
The MSS., both Greek and Latin, all agree in this reading; and I
cannot approve of any groundless conjectural alteration of the
text from ro to lop, that not the son or a stone, but that the
arrow or dart cometh; as hath been made by Dr. Hudson, and not
corrected by Havercamp. Had Josephus written even his first
edition of these books of the war in pure Hebrew, or had the Jews
then used the pure Hebrew at Jerusalem, the Hebrew word for a son
is so like that for a stone, ben and eben, that such a correction
might have been more easily admitted. But Josephus wrote his
former edition for the use of the Jews beyond Euphrates, and so
in the Chaldee language, as he did this second edition in the
Greek language; and bar was the Chaldee word for son, instead of
the Hebrew ben, and was used not only in Chaldea, etc. but in
Judea also, as the New Testament informs us. Dio lets us know
that the very Romans at Rome pronounced the name of Simon the son
of Giora, Bar Poras for Bar Gioras, as we learn from Xiphiline,
p. 217. Reland takes notice, "that many will here look for a
mystery, as though the meaning were, that the Son of God came now
to take vengeance on the sins of the Jewish nation;" which is
indeed the truth of the fact, but hardly what the Jews could now
mean; unless possibly by way of derision of Christ's threatening
so often made, that he would come at the head of the Roman army
for their destruction. But even this interpretation has but a
very small degree of probability. If I were to make an emendation
by mere conjecture, I would read instead of, though the likeness
be not so great as in lo; because that is the word used by
Josephus just before, as has been already noted on this very
occasion, while, an arrow or dart, is only a poetical word, and
never used by Josephus elsewhere, and is indeed no way suitable
to the occasion, this engine not throwing arrows or darts, but
great stones, at this time.

(16) Josephus supposes, in this his admirable speech to the Jews,
that not Abraham only, but Pharaoh king of Egypt, prayed towards
a temple at Jerusalem, or towards Jerusalem itself, in which were
Mount Sion and Mount Moriah, on which the tabernacle and temple
did afterwards stand; and this long before either the Jewish
tabernacle or temple were built. Nor is the famous command given
by God to Abraham, to go two or three days' journey, on purpose
to offer up his son Isaac there, unfavorable to such a notion.

(17) Note here, that Josephus, in this his same admirable speech,
calls the Syrians, nay, even the Philistines, on the most south
part of Syria, Assyrians; which Reland observes as what was
common among the ancient writers. Note also, that Josephus might
well put the Jews in mind, as he does here more than once, of
their wonderful and truly miraculous deliverance from
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, while the Roman army, and himself
with them, were now encamped upon and beyond that very spot of
ground where the Assyrian army lay seven hundred and eighty years
before, and which retained the very name of the Camp of the
Assyrians to that very day. See chap. 7. sect. 3, and chap. 12.
sect. 2.

(18) This drying up of the Jerusalem fountain of Siloam when the
Jews wanted it, and its flowing abundantly when the enemies of
the Jews wanted it, and these both in the days of Zedekiah and of
Titus, (and this last as a certain event well known by the Jews
at that time, as Josephus here tells them openly to their faces,)
are very remarkable instances of a Divine Providence for the
punishment of the Jewish nation, when they were grown very
wicked, at both those times of the destruction of Jerusalem.

(19) Reland very properly takes notice here, how justly this
judgment came upon the Jews, when they were crucified in such
multitudes together, that the Romans wanted room for the crosses,
and crosses for the bodies of these Jews, since they had brought
this judgment on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.

(20) Josephus, both here and before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4,
esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of the lake Asphaltiris,
or under its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus also took the
same notion from him, Hist. V. ch. 6. 7, which the great Reland
takes to be the very truth, both in his note on this place, and
in his Palestina, tom. I. p. 254-258; though I rather suppose
part of that region of Pentapolis to be now under the waters of
the south part of that sea, but perhaps not the whole country.

  
BOOK VI.
  
  
  
Containing The Interval Of About One Month.
  
  
From The Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were
Reduced To The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus.
  
  
CHAPTER 1.
  
  
THAT THE MISERIES STILL GREW WORSE; AND HOW
THE ROMANS MADE AN ASSAULT UPON THE TOWER
OF ANTONIA.
  
1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every
day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the
calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon
themselves, after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the
multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a
horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which was a
hinderance to those that would make sallies out of the city, and
fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array, who had
been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon
those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they
terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor
did they deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill
omen to themselves; but as they had their right hands already
polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and in that
condition ran out to fight with  foreigners, they seem to me to
have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow in
punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they
had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner
in that despair of deliverance they were already in. And now the
Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting together
their materials, raised their banks in one and twenty days, after
they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that
adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about,
as I have already related. And truly the very view itself of the
country was a melancholy thing; for those places which were
before adorned with trees and pleasant gardens were now become a
desolate country  every way, and its trees were all cut down: nor
could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most
beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but
lament and mourn sadly at so great a change: for the war had laid
all the signs of beauty quite waste: nor if any one that had
known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he
have known it again; but though he were at the city itself, yet
would he have inquired for it notwithstanding.
  
2. And now the banks were finished, they afforded a foundation
for fear both to the Romans and to the Jews; for the Jews
expected that the city would be taken, unless they could burn
those banks, as did the Romans expect that, if these were once
burnt down, they should never be able to take it; for there was a
mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies of the soldiers
began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls faint
with so many instances of ill success; nay, the very calamities
themselves that were in the city proved a greater discouragement
to the Romans than those within the city; for they found the
fighting men of the Jews to be not at all mollified among such
their sore afflictions, while they had themselves perpetually
less and less hopes of success, and their banks were forced to
yield to the stratagems of the enemy, their engines to the
firmness of their wall, and their closest fights to the boldness
of their attack; and, what was their greatest discouragement of
all, they found the Jews' courageous souls to be superior to the
multitude of the miseries they were under, by their sedition,
their famine, and the war itself; insomuch that they were ready
to imagine that the violence of their attacks was invincible, and
that the alacrity they showed would not be discouraged by their
calamities; for what would not those be able to bear if they
should be fortunate, who turned their very misfortunes to the
improvement of their valor! These considerations made the Romans
to keep a stronger guard about their banks than they formerly had
done.
  
3. But now John and his party took care for securing themselves
afterward, even in case this wall should be thrown down, and fell
to their work before the battering rams were brought against
them. Yet did they not compass what they endeavored to do, but as
they were gone out with their torches, they came back under great
discouragement before they came near to the banks; and the
reasons were these: that, in the first place, their conduct did
not seem to be unanimous, but they went out in distinct parties,
and at distinct intervals, and after a slow manner, and
timorously, and, to say all in a word, without a Jewish courage;
for they were now defective in what is peculiar to our nation,
that is, in boldness, in violence of assault, and in running upon
the enemy all together, and in persevering in what they go about,
though they do not at first succeed in it; but they now went out
in a more languid manner than usual, and at the same time found
the  Romans set in array, and more courageous than ordinary, and
that they guarded their banks both with their bodies and their
entire armor, and this to such a degree on all sides, that they
left no room for the fire to get among them, and that every one
of their souls was in such good courage, that they would sooner
die than desert their ranks; for besides their notion that all
their hopes were cut off, in case these their works were once
burnt, the soldiers were greatly ashamed that subtlety should
quite be too hard for courage, madness for armor, multitude for
skill, and Jews for Romans. The Romans had now also another
advantage, in that their engines for sieges co-operated with them
in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they were
coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an
impediment to him that was next to him, as did the danger of
going farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for
those that had run under the darts, some of them were terrified
by the good order and closeness of the enemies' ranks before they
came to a close fight, and others were pricked with their spears,
and turned back again; at length they reproached one another for
their cowardice, and retired without doing any thing. This attack
was made upon the first day of the month Panemus [Tamuz.] So when
the Jews were retreated, the Romans brought their engines,
although they had all the while  stones thrown at them from the
tower of Antonia, and were assaulted by fire and sword, and by
all sorts of darts, which necessity afforded the Jews to make use
of; for although these had great dependence on their own wall,
and a contempt of the Roman engines, yet did they endeavor to
hinder the Romans from bringing them. Now these Romans struggled
hard, on the contrary, to bring them, as deeming that this zeal
of the Jews was in order to avoid any impression to be made on
the tower of Antonia, because its wall was but weak, and its
foundations rotten. However, that tower did not yield to the
blows given it from the  engines; yet did the Romans bear the
impressions made by the enemies' darts which were perpetually
cast at them, and did not give way to any of those dangers that
came upon them from above, and so they brought their engines to
bear. But then, as they were beneath the other, and were sadly
wounded by the stones thrown down upon them, some of them threw
their shields over their bodies, and partly with their hands, and
partly with their bodies, and partly with crows, they undermined
its foundations, and with great pains they removed four of its
stones. Then night  came upon both sides, and put an end to this
struggle for the present; however, that night the wall was so
shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used
his stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the
ground then gave way, and the wall fell down suddenly.
  
4. When this accident had unexpectedly happened, the minds of
both parties were variously affected; for though one would expect
that the Jews would be discouraged, because this fall of their
wall was unexpected by them, and they had made no provision in
that case, yet did they pull up their courage, because the tower
of Antonia itself was still standing; as was the unexpected joy
of the Romans at this fall of the wall soon quenched by the sight
they had of another wall, which John and his party had built
within it. However, the attack of this second wall appeared to be 
easier than that of the former, because it seemed a thing of
greater facility to get up to it through the parts of the former
wall that were now thrown down. This new wall appeared also to be
much weaker than the tower of Antonia, and accordingly the Romans
imagined that it had been erected so much on the sudden, that
they should soon overthrow it: yet did not any body venture now
to go up to this wall; for that such as first ventured so to do
must certainly be killed. 

5. And now Titus, upon consideration that the alacrity of
soldiers in war is chiefly excited by hopes and by good words,
and that exhortations and promises do frequently make men to
forget the hazards they run, nay, sometimes to despise death
itself, got together the most courageous part of his army, and
tried what he could do with his men by these methods. "O fellow
soldiers," said he, "to make an exhortation to men to do what
hath no peril in it, is on that very account inglorious to such
to whom that exhortation is made; and indeed so it is in him that
makes the exhortation, an argument of his own cowardice also. I 
therefore think that such exhortations ought then only to be made
use of when affairs are in a dangerous condition, and yet are
worthy of being attempted by every one themselves; accordingly, I
am fully of the same opinion with you, that it is a difficult
task to go up this wall; but that it is proper for those that
desire reputation for their valor to struggle with difficulties
in such cases will then appear, when I have particularly shown
that it is a brave thing to die with glory, and that the courage
here necessary shall not go unrewarded in those that first begin
the attempt. And let my first argument to move you to it be taken
from what probably some would think reasonable to dissuade you, I
mean the constancy and patience of these Jews, even under their
ill successes; for it is unbecoming you, who are Romans and my
soldiers, who have in peace been taught how to make wars, and who
have also been used to conquer in those wars, to be inferior to
Jews, either in action of the hand, or in courage of the soul,
and this especially when you are at the conclusion of your
victory, and are assisted by God himself; for as to our
misfortunes, they have been owing to the madness of the Jews,
while their sufferings have been owing to your valor, and to the
assistance God hath afforded you; for as to the seditions they
have been in, and the famine they are under, and the siege they
now endure, and the fall of their walls without our engines, what
can they all be but demonstrations of  God's anger against them,
and of his assistance afforded us? It will not therefore be
proper for you, either to show yourselves inferior to those to
whom you are really superior, or to betray that Divine assistance
which is afforded you. And, indeed, how can it be esteemed
otherwise than a base and unworthy thing, that while the Jews,
who need not be much ashamed if they be deserted, because they
have long learned to be slaves to others, do yet despise death,
that they may be so no longer; and do make sallies into the very
midst of us frequently, no in hopes of conquering us, but merely
for a demonstration of their courage; we, who have gotten
possession of almost all the world that belongs to either land or
sea, to whom it will be a great shame if we do not conquer them,
do not once undertake any attempt against our enemies wherein
there is much danger, but sit still idle, with such brave arms as
we have, and only wait till the famine and fortune do our
business themselves, and this when we have it in our power, with
some small hazard, to gain all that we desire! For if we go up to
this tower of Antonia, we gain the city; for if there should be
any more occasion for fighting against those within the city,
which I do not suppose there will, since we shall then be upon
the top of the hill (1) and be upon our enemies before they can
have taken breath, these advantages promise us no less than a
certain and sudden victory. As for myself, I shall at present
wave any commendation of those who die in war, (2) and omit to
speak of the immortality of those men who are slain in the midst
of their martial bravery; yet cannot I forbear to imprecate upon
those who are of a contrary disposition, that they may die in
time of peace, by some distemper or other, since their souls are
condemned to the grave,  together with their bodies. For what man
of virtue is there who does not know, that those souls which are
severed from their fleshly bodies in battles by the sword are
received by the ether, that purest of elements, and joined to
that company which are placed among the stars; that they become
good demons, and propitious heroes, and show themselves as such
to their posterity afterwards? while upon those souls that wear
away in and with their distempered bodies comes a subterranean
night to dissolve them to nothing, and a deep oblivion to take
away all the remembrance of them, and this notwithstanding they
be clean from all spots and defilements of this world; so that,
in this ease, the soul at the same time comes to the utmost
bounds of its life, and of its body, and of its memorial also.
But since he hath determined that death is to come of necessity
upon all men, a sword is a better instrument for that purpose
than any disease whatsoever. Why is it not then a very mean thing
for us not to yield up that to the public benefit which we must
yield up to fate? And this discourse have I made, upon the
supposition that those who at first attempt to go upon this wall
must needs be killed in the attempt, though still men of true
courage have a chance to escape even in the most hazardous 
undertakings. For, in the first place, that part of the former
wall that is thrown down is easily to be ascended; and for the
new-built wall, it is easily destroyed. Do you, therefore, many
of you, pull up your courage, and set about this work, and do you
mutually encourage and assist one another; and this your bravery
will soon break the hearts of your enemies; and perhaps such a
glorious undertaking as yours is may be accomplished without
bloodshed. For although it be justly to be supposed that the Jews
will try to hinder you at your first beginning to go up to them;
yet when you have once concealed yourselves from them, and driven
them away by force, they will not be able to sustain your efforts
against them any longer, though but a few of you prevent them,
and get over the wall. As for that person who first mounts the
wall, I should blush for shame if I did not make him to be envied
of others, by those rewards I would bestow upon him. If such a
one escape with his life, he shall have the command of others
that are now but his equals; although it be true also that the
greatest rewards will accrue to such as die in the attempt." (3)
  
6. Upon this speech of Titus, the rest of the multitude were
afrighted at so great a danger. But there was one, whose name was
Sabinus, a soldier that served among the cohorts, and a Syrian by
birth, who appeared to be of very great fortitude, both in the
actions he had done, and the courage of his soul he had shown;
although any body would have thought, before he came to his work,
that he was of such a weak constitution of body, that he was not
fit to be a soldier; for his color was black, his flesh was lean
and thin, and lay close together; but there was a certain heroic
soul that dwelt in this small body, which body was indeed much
too narrow for that peculiar courage which was in him.
Accordingly he was the first that rose up, when he thus spake: "I
readily surrender up myself to thee, O Caesar; I first ascend the
wall, and I heartily wish that my fortune may follow my courage
and my resolution And if some ill fortune grudge me the success
of my undertaking, take notice that my ill success will not be
unexpected, but that I choose death voluntarily for thy sake."
When he had said this, and had spread out his sheild over his
head with his left hand, and hill, with his right hand, drawn his
sword, he marched up to the wall, just about the sixth hour of
the day. There followed him eleven others, and no more, that
resolved to imitate his bravery; but still this was the principal
person of them all, and went first, as excited by a divine fury.
Now those that guarded the wall shot at them from thence, and
cast innumerable darts upon them from every side; they also
rolled very large stones upon them, which overthrew some of those
eleven that were with him. But as for Sabinus himself, he met the
darts that were cast at him and though he was overwhelmed with
them, yet did he not leave off the violence of his attack before
he had gotten up on the top of the wall, and had put the enemy to
flight. For as the Jews were astonished at his great strength,
and the bravery of his soul, and as, withal, they imagined more
of them had got upon the wall than really had, they were put to
flight. And now one cannot but complain here of fortune, as still
envious at virtue, and always hindering the performance of
glorious achievements: this was the case of the man before us,
when he had just obtained his purpose; for he then stumbled at a
certain large stone, and fell down upon it headlong, with a very
great noise. Upon which the Jews turned back, and when they saw
him to be alone, and fallen down also, they threw darts at him
from every side. However. be got upon his knee, and covered
himself with his shield, and at the first defended himself
against them, and wounded many of  those that came near him; but
he was soon forced to relax his right hand, by the multitude of
the wounds that had been given him, till at length he was quite
covered over with darts before he gave up the ghost. He was one
who deserved a better fate, by reason of his bravery; but, as
might be expected, he fell under so vast an attempt. As for the
rest of his partners, the Jews dashed three of them to pieces
with stones, and slew them as they were gotten up to the top of
the wall; the other eight being wounded, were pulled down, and
carried back to the camp. These things were done upon the third
day of the month Panemus [Tamuz].
  
7. Now two days afterward twelve of those men that were on the
forefront, and kept watch upon the banks, got together, and
called to them the standard-bearer of the fifth legion, and two
others of a troop of horsemen, and one trumpeter; these went
without noise, about the ninth hour of the night, through the
ruins, to the tower of Antonia; and when they had cut the throats
of the first guards of the place, as they were asleep, they got
possession of the wall, and ordered the trumpeter to sound his
trumpet. Upon which the rest of the guard got up on the sudden,
and ran away, before any body could see how many they were that
were gotten up; for, partly from the fear they were in, and
partly from the sound of the trumpet which they heard, they
imagined a great number of the enemy were gotten up. But as soon
as Caesar heard the signal, he ordered the army  to put on their
armor immediately, and came thither with his commanders, and
first of all ascended, as did the chosen men that were with him.
And as the Jews were flying away to the temple, they fell into
that mine which John had dug under the Roman banks. Then did the
seditious of both the bodies of the Jewish army, as well that
belonging to John as that belonging to Simon, drive them away;
and indeed  were no way wanting as to the highest degree of force
and alacrity; for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if
once the Romans got into the temple, as did the Romans look upon
the same thing as the beginning of their entire conquest. So a
terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the temple, while
the Romans were forcing their way, in order to get possession of
that temple, and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of
Antonia; in which battle the darts were on both sides useless, as
well as the spears, and both sides drew their swords, and fought
it out hand to hand. Now during this struggle the positions of
the men were undistinguished on both sides, and they fought at
random, the men being intermixed one with another, and
confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place; while the
noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct manner,
because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on both
sides, and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of
those that were dead, and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to
which side soever the battle inclined, those that had the
advantage exhorted one another to go on, as did those that were
beaten make great lamentation. But still there was no room for
flight, nor for pursuit, but disorderly revolutions and retreats,
while the armies were intermixed one with another; but those that
were in the first ranks were under the necessity of killing or
being killed, without any way for escaping; for those on both
sides that came behind forced those before them to go on, without
leaving any space between the armies. At length the Jews' violent
zeal was too hard for the Romans' skill, and the battle already 
inclined entirely that way; for the fight had lasted from the
ninth hour of the night till the seventh hour of the day, While
the Jews came on in crowds, and had the danger the temple was in
for their motive; the Romans having no more here than a part of
their army; for those legions, on which the soldiers on that side
depended, were not come up to them. So it was at present thought
sufficient by the Romans to take possession of the tower of
Antonia.
  
8. But there was one Julian, a centurion, that came from
Eithynia, a man he was of great reputation, whom I had formerly
seen in that war, and one of the highest fame, both for his skill
in war, his strength of body, and the courage of his soul. This
man, seeing the Romans giving ground, and ill a sad condition,
(for he stood by Titus at the tower of Antonia,) leaped out, and
of himself alone put the Jews to flight, when they were already
conquerors, and made them retire as far as the corner of the
inner court of the temple; from him the multitude fled away in
crowds, as supposing that neither his strength nor his violent
attacks could be those of a mere man. Accordingly, he rushed
through the midst of the Jews, as they were dispersed all abroad,
and killed those that he caught. Nor, indeed, was there any sight
that appeared more wonderful in the eyes of Caesar, or more
terrible to others, than this. However, he was himself pursued by
fate, which it all not possible that he, who was but a mortal
man, should escape; for as he had shoes all full of thick and
sharp nails (4) as had every one of the other soldiers, so when
he ran on the pavement of the temple, he slipped, and fell down
upon his back with a very great noise, which was made by his
armor. This made those that were running away to turn back;
whereupon those Romans that were in the tower of Antonia set up a
great shout, as they were in fear for the man. But the Jews got
about him in crowds, and struck at him with their spears and with
their swords on all sides. Now he  received a great many of the
strokes of these iron weapons upon his shield, and often
attempted to get up again, but was thrown down by those that
struck at him; yet did he, as he lay along, stab many of them
with his sword. Nor was he soon killed, as being covered with his
helmet and his breastplate in all those parts of his body where
he might be mortally wounded; he also pulled his neck close to
his body, till all his other limbs were shattered, and nobody
durst come to defend him, and then he yielded to his fate. Now
Caesar was deeply affected on account of this man of so great
fortitude, and especially as he was killed in the sight of so
many people; he was desirous himself to come to his assistance,
but the place would not give him leave, while such as could have
done it were too much terrified to attempt it. Thus when Julian
had struggled with death a great while, and had let but few of
those that had given him his mortal wound go off unhurt, he had
at last his throat cut, though not without some difficulty, and
left behind him a very great fame, not only among the Romans, and
with Caesar himself, but among his enemies also; then did the
Jews catch up his dead body, and put the Romans to flight again,
and shut them up in the tower of Antonia. Now those that most
signalized themselves, and fought most zealously in this battle
of the Jewish side, were one Alexas and Gyphtheus, of John's
party, and of Simon's party were Malachias, and Judas the son of
Merto, and James the son of Sosas, the commander of the Idumeans;
and of the zealots, two brethren, Simon and Judas, the sons of
Jairus. 

CHAPTER 2.
  
  
How Titus Gave Orders To Demolish The Tower Of Antonia
And Then Persuaded Josephus To Exhort The Jews Again
[To A Surrender].
  
1. And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him
to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a
ready passage for his army to come up; while he himself had
Josephus brought to him, (for he had been informed that on that
very day, which was the seventeenth day (5)of Panemus, [Tamuz,]
the sacrifice called "the Daily Sacrifice" had failed, and had
not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it, and that
the people were grievously troubled at it,) and commanded him to
say the same things to John that he had said before, that if he
had any malicious inclination for fighting, he might come out
with as many of his men as he pleased, in order to fight, without
the danger of destroying either his city or temple; but that he
desired he would not defile the temple, nor thereby offend
against God. That he might, if he pleased, offer the sacrifices
which were now discontinuned by any of the Jews whom he should
pitch upon. Upon this Josephus  stood in such a place where he
might be heard, not by John only, but by many more, and then
declared to them what Caesar had given him in charge, and this in
the Hebrew language. (6) So he earnestly prayed them to spare
their own city, and to prevent that fire which was just ready to
seize upon the temple, and to offer their usual sacrifices to God
therein. At these words of his a great sadness and silence were
observed among the people. But the tyrant himself cast many
reproaches upon Josephus, with imprecations besides; and at last
added this withal, that he did never fear the taking of the city,
because it was God's own city. In answer to which Josephus said
thus with a loud voice: "To be sure thou hast kept this city
wonderfully pure for God's sake; the temple also continues
entirely unpolluted! Nor hast thou been guilty of ally impiety
against him for whose assistance thou hopest! He still receives
his accustomed sacrifices! Vile wretch that thou art! if any one
should deprive thee of thy daily food, thou wouldst esteem him to
be an enemy to thee; but thou hopest to have that God for thy
supporter in this war whom thou hast deprived of his everlasting
worship; and thou imputest those sins to the Romans, who to this
very time take care to have our laws observed, and almost compel
these sacrifices to be still offered to God, which have by thy
means been intermitted! Who is there that can avoid groans and
lamentations at the amazing change that is made in this city?
since very foreigners and enemies do now correct that impiety
which thou hast occasioned; while thou, who art a Jew, and wast
educated in our laws, art become a greater enemy to them than the
others. But still, John, it is never dishonorable to repent, and
amend what hath been done amiss, even at the last extremity. Thou
hast an instance before thee in Jechoniah, (7) the king of the
Jews, if thou hast a mind to save the city, who, when the king of
Babylon made war against him, did of his own accord go out of
this city before it was taken, and did undergo a  voluntary
captivity with his family, that the sanctuary might not be
delivered up to the enemy, and that he might not see the house of
God set on fire; on which account he is celebrated among all the
Jews, in their sacred memorials, and his memory is become
immortal, and will be conveyed fresh down to our posterity
through all ages. This, John, is an excellent example in such a
time of danger, and I dare venture to promise that the Romans
shall still forgive thee. And take notice that I, who make this
exhortation to thee, am one of thine own nation; I, who am a Jew,
do make this promise to thee. And it will become thee to consider
who I am that give thee this counsel, and whence I am derived;
for while I am alive I shall never be in such slavery, as to
forego my own kindred, or forget the laws of our forefathers.
Thou hast indignation at me again, and makest a clamor at me, and
reproachest me; indeed I cannot deny but I am worthy of worse
treatment than all this amounts to, because, in opposition to
fate, I make this kind invitation to thee, and endeavor to force
deliverance upon those whom God hath condemned. And who is there
that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets
contain in them, - and particularly that oracle which is just now
going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold
that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the
slaughter of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and
the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen?
It is God, therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this
fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans, (8)
and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your
pollutions."
  
2. As Josephus spoke these words, with groans and tears in his
eyes, his voice was intercepted by sobs. However, the Romans
could not but pity the affliction he was under, and wonder at his
conduct. But for John, and those that were with him, they were
but the more exasperated against the Romans on this account, and
were desirous to get Josephus also into their power: yet did that
discourse influence a great many of the better sort; and truly
some of them were so afraid of the guards set by the seditious,
that they tarried where they were, but still were satisfied that
both they and the city were doomed to destruction. Some also
there were who, watching a proper opportunity when  they might
quietly get away, fled to the Romans, of whom were the high
priests Joseph and Jesus, and of the sons of high priests three,
whose father was Ishmael, who was beheaded in Cyrene, and four
sons of Matthias, as also one son of the other Matthias, who ran
away after his father's death, (9) and whose father was slain by
Simon the son of Gioras, with three of his sons, as I have
already related; many also of the other nobility went over to the
Romans, together with the high priests. Now Caesar not only
received these men very kindly in other respects, but, knowing
they would not willingly live after the customs of other nations,
he sent them to Gophna, and desired them to remain there for the
present, and told them, that when he was gotten clear of this
war, he would restore each of them to their possessions again; so
they cheerfully retired to that small city which was allotted
them, without fear of any danger. But as they did not appear, the
seditious gave out again that these deserters were slain by the
Romans, which was done in order to deter the rest from running
away, by fear of the like treatment. This trick of theirs
succeeded now for a while, as did the like trick before; for the
rest were hereby deterred from deserting, by fear of the like 
treatment.
  
3. However, when Titus had recalled those men from Gophna, he
gave orders that they should go round the wall, together with
Josephus, and show themselves to the people; upon which a great
many fled to the Romans. These men also got in a great number
together, and stood before the Romans, and besought the
seditious, with groans and tears in their eyes, in the first
place to receive the Romans entirely into the city, and save that
their own place of residence again; but that, if they would not
agree to such a proposal, they would at least depart out of the
temple, and save the holy house for their own use; for that the
Romans would not venture to set the sanctuary on fire but under
the most pressing necessity. Yet did the seditious still more and
more contradict them; and while they cast loud and bitter
reproaches upon these deserters, they also set their engines for
throwing of darts, and javelins, and stones upon the sacred gates
of the temple, at due  distances from one another, insomuch that
all the space round about within the temple might be compared to
a burying-ground, so great was the number of the dead bodies
therein; as might the holy house itself be compared to a citadel.
Accordingly, these men rushed upon these holy places in their
armor, that were otherwise unapproachable, and that while their
hands were yet warm with the blood of their own people which they
had shed; nay, they proceeded to such great transgressions, that
the very same indignation which Jews would naturally have against
Romans, had they been guilty of such abuses against them, the
Romans now
had against Jews, for their impiety in regard to their own
religious customs. Nay, indeed, there were none of the Roman
soldiers who did not look with a sacred horror upon the holy
house, and adored it, and wished that the robbers would repent
before their miseries became incurable.
  
4. Now Titus was deeply affected with this state of things, and
reproached John and his party, and said to them, "Have not you,
vile wretches that you are, by our permission, put up this
partition-wall before your sanctuary? Have not you been allowed
to put up the pillars thereto belonging, at due distances, and on
it to engrave in Greek, and in your own letters, this
prohibition, that no foreigner should go beyond that wall. (10)
Have not we given you leave to kill such as go beyond it, though
he were a Roman? And what do you do now, you pernicious villains? 
Why do you trample upon dead bodies in this temple? and why do
you pollute this holy house with the blood of both foreigners and
Jews themselves? I appeal to the gods of my own country, and to
every god that ever had any regard to this place; (for I do not
suppose it to be now regarded by any of them;) I also appeal to
my own army, and to those Jews that are now with me, and even to
yourselves, that I do not force you to defile this your
sanctuary; and if you will but change the place whereon you will
fight, no Roman shall either come near your sanctuary, or offer
any affront to it; nay, I will endeavor to preserve you your holy
house, whether you will or not." (11)
  
5. As Josephus explained these things from the mouth of Caesar,
both the robbers and the tyrant thought that these exhortations
proceeded from Titus's fear, and not from his good-will to them,
and grew insolent upon it. But when Titus saw that these men were
neither to be moved by commiseration towards themselves, nor had
any concern upon them to have the holy house spared, he proceeded 
unwillingly to go on again with the war against them. He could
not indeed bring all his army against them, the place was so
narrow; but choosing thirty soldiers of the most valiant out of
every hundred, and committing a thousand to each tribune, and
making Cerealis their commander-in-chief, he gave orders that
they should attack the guards of the temple about the ninth hour
of that night. But as he was now in his armor, and preparing to
go down with them, his friends would not let him go, by reason of
the greatness of the danger, and what the commanders suggested to
them; for they said that he would do more by sitting above in the
tower of Antonia, as a dispenser of rewards to those soldiers
that signalized themselves in the fight, than by coming down and
hazarding his own person in the forefront of them; for that they
would all fight stoutly while Caesar looked upon them. With this
advice Caesar complied, and said that the only reason he had for
such  compliance with the soldiers was this, that he might be
able to judge of their courageous actions, and that no valiant
soldier might lie concealed, and miss of his reward, and no
cowardly soldier might go unpunished; but that he might himself
be an eye-witness, and able to give evidence of all that was
done, who was to be the disposer of punishments and rewards to
them. So he sent the soldiers about their work at the hour
forementioned, while he went out himself to a higher place in the
tower of Antonia, whence he might see what was done, and there
waited with impatience to see the event.
  
6. However, the soldiers that were sent did not find the guards
of the temple asleep, as they hoped to have done; but were
obliged to fight with them immediately hand to hand, as they
rushed with violence upon them with a great shout. Now as soon as
the rest within the temple heard that shout of those that were
upon the watch, they ran out in troops upon them. Then did the
Romans receive the onset of those that came first upon them; but
those that followed them fell upon their own troops, and many of
them treated their own soldiers as if they had been enemies; for
the great confused noise that was made on both sides hindered
them from distinguishing one another's voices, as did the
darkness of the night hinder them from the like distinction by
the sight, besides that blindness which arose otherwise also from
the passion and the fear they were in at the same time; for which
reason it was all one to the soldiers who it was they struck at.
However, this ignorance did less harm to the Romans than to the
Jews, because they were joined together under their shields, and
made their sallies more regularly than the others did, and each
of them remembered their watch-word; while the Jews were
perpetually dispersed abroad, and made their attacks and retreats
at random, and so did frequently seem to one another to be
enemies; for every one of them received those of their own men
that came back in the dark as Romans, and made an assault upon
them; so that more of them were wounded by their own men than by
the enemy, till, upon the coming on of the day, the nature of the
right was discerned by the eye afterward. Then did they stand in
battle-array in distinct bodies, and cast their darts regularly,
and regularly defended themselves; nor did either side yield or
grow weary. The Romans contended with each other who should fight
the most strenuously, both single men and entire regiments, as
being under the eye of Titus; and every one concluded that this
day would begin his promotion if he fought bravely. What were the
great encouragements of the Jews to act vigorously were, their
fear for themselves and for the temple, and the presence of their
tyrant, who exhorted some, and beat and threatened others, to act
courageously. Now, it so happened, that this fight was for the
most part a stationary one, wherein the soldiers went on and came
back in a short time, and suddenly; for there was no long space
of ground for either of their flights or pursuits. But still
there was a tumultuous noise among the Romans from the tower of
Antonia, who loudly cried out upon all occasions to their own men
to press on courageously, when they were too hard for the Jews,
and to stay when they were retiring backward; so that here was a
kind of theater of war; for what was done in this fight could not
be concealed either from Titus, or from those that were about
him. At length it appeared that this fight, which began at the
ninth hour of the night, was not over till past the fifth hour of
the day; and that, in the same place where the battle began,
neither party could say they had made the other to retire; but
both the armies left the victory almost in uncertainty between
them; wherein those that signalized themselves on the Roman side
were a great many, but on the Jewish side, and of those that were
with Simon, Judas the son of Merto, and Simon the son of Josas;
of the Idumeans, James and Simon, the latter of whom was the son
of Cathlas, and James was the son of Sosas; of those that were
with John, Gyphtheus and Alexas; and of the zealots, Simon the
son of Jairus.
  
7. In the mean time, the rest of the Roman army had, in seven
days' time, overthrown [some] foundations of the tower of
Antonia, and had made a ready and broad way to the temple. Then
did the legions come near the first court, (12) and began to
raise their banks. The one bank was over against the north-west
corner of the inner temple (13) another was at that northern
edifice which was between the two gates; and of the other two,
one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the temple;
the other against its northern cloister. However, these works
were thus far advanced by the Romans, not without great pains and 
difficulty, and particularly by being obliged to bring their
materials from the distance of a hundred furlongs. They had
further difficulties also upon them; sometimes by their
over-great security they were in that they should overcome the
Jewish snares laid for them, and by that boldness of the Jews
which their despair of escaping had inspired them withal; for
some of their horsemen, when they went out to gather wood or hay,
let their horses feed without having their bridles on during the
time of foraging; upon which horses the Jews sallied out in whole
bodies, and seized them. And when this was continually done, and
Caesar believed what the truth was, that the horses were stolen
more by the negligence of his own men than by the valor of the
Jews, he determined to use greater severity to oblige the rest to
take care of their horses; so he commanded that one of those
soldiers who had lost their horses should be capitally punished;
whereby he so terrified the rest, that they preserved their
horses for the time to come; for they did not any longer let them
go from them to feed by themselves, but, as if they had grown to
them, they went always along with them when they wanted
necessaries. Thus did the Romans still continue to make war
against the temple, and to raise their banks against it.
  
8. Now after one day had been interposed since the Romans
ascended the breach, many of the seditious were so pressed by the
famine, upon the present failure of their ravages, that they got
together, and made an attack on those Roman guards that were upon
the Mount of Olives, and this about the eleventh hour of the day,
as supposing, first, that they would not expect such an onset,
and, in the next place, that they were then taking care of their
bodies, and that therefore they should easily beat them. But the
Romans were apprized of their coming to attack them beforehand,
and, running together from the neighboring camps on the sudden,
prevented them from getting over  their fortification, or forcing
the wall that was built about them. Upon this came on a sharp
fight, and here many great actions were performed on both sides;
while the Romans showed both their courage and their skill in
war, as did the Jews come on them with immoderate violence and
intolerable passion. The one part were urged on by shame, and the
other by necessity; for it seemed a very shameful thing to the
Romans to let the Jews go, now they were taken in a kind of net;
while the Jews had but one hope of saving themselves, and that
was in case they could by violence break through the Roman wall;
and one whose name was Pedanius, belonging to a party of
horsemen, when the Jews were already beaten and forced down into
the valley together, spurred his horse on their flank with great
vehemence, and caught up a certain young man belonging to the
enemy by his ankle, as he was running away; the man was, however,
of a robust body, and in his armor; so low did Pedanius bend
himself downward from his horse, even as he was galloping away,
and so great was the strength of his right hand, and of the rest
of his body, as also such skill had he in horsemanship. So this
man seized upon that his prey, as upon a precious treasure, and
carried him as his captive to Caesar; whereupon Titus admired the
man that had seized the other for his great strength, and ordered
the man that was caught to be punished [with death] for his
attempt against the Roman wall, but betook himself to the siege
of the temple, and to pressing on the raising of the banks.
  
9. In the mean time, the Jews were so distressed by the fights
they had been in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and
creeping up to the holy house itself, that they, as it were, cut
off those limbs of their body which were infected, in order to
prevent the distemper's spreading further; for they set the
north-west cloister, which was joined to the tower of Antonia, on
fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits of that
cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the
forenamed month, [Panemus or Tamuz,] the Romans set fire to the
cloister that joined to the other, when the fire went fifteen
cubits farther. The Jews, in like manner, cut off its roof; nor
did they entirely leave off what they were about till the tower
of Antonia was parted from the temple, even when it was in their
power to have stopped the fire; nay, they lay still while the
temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the
fire to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were
still fighting one against another about the temple, and the war
was managed by continual sallies of particular parties against
one another.
  
10. Now there was at this time a man among the Jews, low of
stature he was, and of a despicable appearance; of no character
either as to his family, or in other respects: his flame was
Jonathan. He went out at the high priest John's monument, and
uttered many other insolent things to the Romans, a challenged
the best of them all to a single combat.But many of those that
stood there in the army huffed him, and many of them (as they
might well be) were afraid of him. Some of them also reasoned
thus, and that justly enough: that it was not fit to fight with a
man that desired to die, because those that utterly despaired of 
deliverance had, besides other passions, a violence in attacking
men that could not be opposed, and had no regard to God himself;
and that to hazard oneself with a person, whom, if you overcome,
you do no great matter, and by whom it is hazardous that you may
be taken prisoner, would be an instance, not of manly courage,
but of unmanly rashness. So there being nobody that came out to
accept the man's challenge, and the Jew cutting them with a great
number of reproaches, as cowards, (for he was a very haughty man
in himself, and a great despiser of the Romans,) one whose name
was Pudens, of the body of horsemen, out of his abomination of
the other's words, and of his impudence withal, and perhaps out
of an inconsiderate arrogance, on account of the other's lowness
of stature, ran out to him, and was too hard for him in other
respects, but was betrayed by his ill fortune; for he fell down,
and as he was down, Jonathan came running to him,  and cut his
throat, and then, standing upon his dead body, he brandished his
sword, bloody as it was, and shook his shield with his left hand,
and made many acclamations to the Roman army, and exulted over
the dead man, and jested upon the Romans; till at length one
Priscus, a centurion, shot a dart at him as he was leaping and
playing the fool with himself, and thereby pierced him through;
upon which a shout was set up both by the Jews and the Romans,
though on different accounts. So Jonathan grew giddy by the pain
of his wounds, and fell down upon the body of his adversary, as a
plain instance how suddenly vengeance may come upon men that have
success in war, without any just deserving the same.
  
CHAPTER 3.
  
  
  
Concerning A Stratagem That Was Devised By The Jews,
By Which They Burnt Many Of The Romans; With Another
Description Of The Terrible Famine That Was In The City. 

1. But now the seditious that were in the temple did every day
openly endeavor to beat off the soldiers that were upon the
banks, and on the twenty-seventh day of the forenamed month
[Panemus or Tamuz] contrived such a stratagem as this: They
filled that part of the western cloister (14) which was between
the beams, and the roof under them, with dry materials, as also
with bitumen and pitch, and then retired from that place, as
though they were tired with the pains they had taken; at which
procedure of theirs, many of the most inconsiderate among the
Romans, who were carried away with violent passions, followed
hard after them as they were retiring, and applied ladders to the
cloister, and got up to it suddenly; but the prudent part of
them, when they understood this unaccountable retreat of the
Jews, stood still where they were before. However, the cloister
was full of those that were gone up the ladders; at which time
the Jews set it all on fire; and as the flame burst out every
where on the sudden, the Romans that were out of the danger were
seized with a very great consternation, as were those that were
in the midst of the danger in the utmost distress. So when they
perceived themselves surrounded with the flames, some of them
threw themselves down backwards into the city, and some among 
their enemies [in the temple]; as did many leap down to their own
men, and broke their limbs to pieces; but a great number of those
that were going to take these violent methods were prevented by
the fire; though some prevented the fire by their own swords.
However, the fire was on the sudden carried so far as to surround
those who would have otherwise perished. As for Caesar himself,
he could not, however, but commiserate those that thus perished,
although they got up thither without any order for so doing,
since there was no way of giving the many relief. Yet was this
some comfort to those that were destroyed, that every body might
see that person grieve, for whose sake they came to their end;
for he cried out openly to them, and leaped up, and exhorted
those that were about him to do their utmost to relieve them; So
every one of them died cheerfully, as carrying along with him
these words and this intention of Caesar as a sepulchral
monument. Some there were indeed who retired into the wall of the
cloister, which was broad, and were preserved out of the fire,
but were then surrounded by the Jews; and although they made
resistance against the Jews for a long time, yet were they
wounded by them, and at length they all fell down dead.
  
2. At the last a young man among them, whose name was Longus,
became a decoration to this sad affair, and while every one of
them that perished were worthy of a memorial, this man appeared
to deserve it beyond all the rest. Now the Jews admired this man
for his courage, and were further desirous of having him slain;
so they persuaded him to come down to them, upon security given
him for his life. But Cornelius his brother persuaded him on the
contrary, not to tarnish his own glory, nor that of the Roman
army. He complied with this last advice, and lifting up his sword
before both armies, he slew himself. Yet there was one Artorius
among those surrounded by the fire who escaped by his subtlety;
for when he had with a loud voice called to him Lucius, one of
his fellow soldiers that lay with him in the same tent, and said
to him, "I do leave thee heir of all I have, if thou wilt come
and receive me." Upon this he came running to receive him
readily; Artorius then threw himself down upon him, and saved his
own life, while he that received him was dashed so vehemently
against the stone pavement by the other's weight, that he died
immediately. This melancholy accident made the Romans sad for a
while, but still it made them more upon their guard for the
future, and was of advantage to them against the delusions of the
Jews, by which they were greatly damaged through their
unacquaintedness with the places, and with the nature of the
inhabitants. Now this cloister was burnt down as far as John's
tower, which he built in the war he made against Simon over the
gates that led to the Xystus. The Jews also cut off the rest of
that cloister from the temple, after they had destroyed those
that got up to it. But the next day the Romans burnt down the
northern cloister entirely, as far as the east cloister, whose
common angle joined to the valley that was called Cedron, and was
built over it; on which account the depth was frightful. And this
was the state of the temple at that time.
  
3. Now of those that perished by famine in the city, the number
was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable;
for if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did any where
appear, a war was commenced presently, and the dearest friends
fell a fighting one with another about it, snatching from each
other the most miserable supports of life. Nor would men believe
that those who were dying had no food, but the robbers would
search them when they were expiring, lest any one should have
concealed food in their bosoms, and counterfeited dying; nay,
these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and
staggering along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of
the houses like drunken men; they would also, in the great
distress they were in, rush into the very same houses two or
three times in one and the same day. Moreover, their hunger was
so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew every thing, while
they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not
touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length abstain
from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to
their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very wisps of old
hay became food to some; and some gathered up fibres, and sold a
very small weight of them for four Attic [drachmae]. But why do I
describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on men
in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to relate a
matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, (15) either
among the Greeks or Barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it,
and incredible when heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this
calamity of ours, that I might not seem to deliver what is so
portentous to posterity, but that I have innumerable witnesses to
it in my own age; and besides, my country would have had little
reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries that she
underwent at this time.
  
4. There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name
was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which
signifies the house of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and
her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the
multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time. The
other effects of this woman had been already seized upon, such I
mean as she had brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the
city. What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she
had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the rapacious
guards, who came every day running into her house for that
purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and
by the frequent reproaches and  imprecations she east at these
rapacious villains, she had provoked them to anger against her;
but none of them, either out of the indignation she had raised
against herself, or out of commiseration of her case, would take
away her life; and if she found any food, she perceived her
labors were for others, and not for herself; and it was now
become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while
the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also
her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor
did she consult with any thing but with her passion and the
necessity she was in. She then attempted a most unnatural thing;
and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast,
she said, "O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve
thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war
with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves.
This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes
upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both
the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these
seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that
is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews." As soon as
she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and
eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her
concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and
smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that
they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them
what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a
very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was
left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and
amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she
said to them, "This is mine own son, and what hath been done was
mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it
myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman,
or more compassionate than a  mother; but if you be so
scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten
the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also." After which
those men went out trembling, being never so much aftrighted at
any thing as they were at this, and with some difficulty they
left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon which the whole
city was full of this horrid action immediately; and while every
body laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they
trembled, as if this unheard of action had been done by
themselves. So those that were thus distressed by the famine were
very desirous to die, and those already dead were esteemed happy,
because they had not lived long enough either to hear or to see
such miseries.
  
5. This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom
could not believe it, and others pitied the distress which the
Jews were under; but there were many of them who were hereby
induced to a more bitter hatred than ordinary against our nation.
But for Caesar, he excused himself before God as to this matter,
and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews, as
well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices; but
that they, instead of concord, had chosen sedition; instead of
peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine. That they
had begun with their own hands to burn down that temple which we
have preserved hitherto; and that therefore they deserved to eat
such food as this was. That, however, this horrid action of
eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of
their very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city
upon the habitable earth to be seen by the sun, wherein mothers
are thus fed, although such food be fitter for the fathers than
for the mothers to eat of, since it is they that continue still
in a state of war against us, after they have undergone such
miseries as these. And at the same time that he said this, he
reflected on the desperate condition these men must be in; nor
could he expect that such men could be recovered to sobriety of
mind, after they had endured those very sufferings, for the
avoiding whereof it only was probable they might have repented.
  
CHAPTER 4.
  
  
When The Banks Were Completed And The Battering
Rams Brought, And Could Do Nothing, Titus Gave Orders
To Set Fire To The Gates Of The Temple; In No Long Time
After Which The Holy House Itself Was Burnt Down, Even
Against His Consent.
  
1. And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the
eighth day of the month Lous [Ab]. Whereupon Titus gave orders
that the battering rams should be brought, and set over against
the western edifice of the inner temple; for before these were
brought, the firmest of all the other engines had battered the
wall for six days together without ceasing, without making any
impression upon it; but the vast largeness and strong connexion
of the stones were superior to that engine, and to the other
battering rams also. Other Romans did indeed undermine the
foundations of the northern gate, and after a world of pains
removed the outermost stones, yet was the gate still upheld by
the inner stones, and stood still unhurt; till the workmen,
despairing of all such attempts by engines and crows, brought
their ladders to the cloisters. Now the Jews did not interrupt
them in so doing; but when they were gotten up, they fell upon
them, and fought with them; some of them they thrust down, and
threw them backwards headlong; others of them they met and slew;
they also beat many of those that went down the ladders again,
and slew them with their swords before they could bring their
shields to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw down
from above when they were full of armed men; a great slaughter
was made of the Jews also at the same time, while those that bare
the ensigns fought hard for them, as deeming it a terrible thing,
and what would tend to their great shame, if they permitted them
to be stolen away. Yet did the Jews at length get possession of
these engines, and destroyed those that had gone up the ladders,
while the rest were so intimidated by what those suffered who
were slain, that they retired; although none of the Romans died
without having done good service before his death. Of the
seditious, those that had fought bravely in the former battles
did the like now, as besides them did Eleazar, the brother's son
of Simon the tyrant. But when Titus perceived that his endeavors
to spare a foreign temple turned to the damage of his soldiers,
and then be killed, he gave order to set the gates on fire. 

2. In the mean time, there deserted to him Ananus, who came from
Emmaus, the most bloody of all Simon's guards, and Archelaus, the
son of Magadatus, they hoping to be still forgiven, because they
left the Jews at a time when they were the conquerors. Titus
objected this to these men, as a cunning trick of theirs; and as
he had been informed of their other barbarities towards the Jews,
he was going in all haste to have them both slain. He told them
that they were only driven to this desertion because of the
utmost distress they were in, and did not come away of their own
good disposition; and that those did not deserve to be preserved,
by whom their own city was already set on fire, out of which fire
they now hurried themselves away. However, the security he had
promised deserters overcame his resentments, and he dismissed
them accordingly, though he did not give them the same privileges
that he had  afforded to others. And now the soldiers had already
put fire to the gates, and the silver that was over them quickly
carried the flames to the wood that was within it, whence it
spread itself all on the sudden, and caught hold on the
cloisters. Upon the Jews seeing this fire all about them, their
spirits sunk together with their bodies, and they were under such
astonishment, that not one of them made any haste, either to
defend himself or to quench the fire, but they stood as mute
spectators of it only. However, they did not so grieve at the
loss of what was now burning, as to grow wiser thereby for the
time to come; but as though the holy house itself had been on
fire already, they whetted their passions against the Romans.
This fire prevailed  during that day and the next also; for the
soldiers were not able to burn all the cloisters that were round
about together at one time, but only by pieces.
  
3. But then, on the next day, Titus commanded part of his army to
quench the fire, and to make a road for the more easy marching up
of the legions, while he himself gathered the commanders
together. Of those there were assembled the six principal
persons: Tiberius Alexander, the commander [under the general] of
the whole army; with Sextus Cerealis, the commander of the fifth
legion; and Larcius Lepidus, the commander of the tenth legion;
and Titus Frigius, the commander of the fifteenth legion: there
was also with them Eternius, the leader of the two legions that
came from Alexandria; and Marcus Antonius Julianus, procurator of
Judea: after these came together all the rest of the procurators
and tribunes. Titus proposed to these that they should give him
their advice what should be done about the holy house. Now some
of these thought it would be the best way to act according to the
rules of war, [and demolish it,] because the Jews would never
leave off rebelling while that house was standing; at which house
it was that they used to get all together. Others of them were of
opinion, that in case the Jews would leave it, and none of them
would lay their arms up in it, he might save it; but that in case
they got upon it, and fought any more, he might burn it; because
it must then be looked upon not as a holy house, but as a
citadel; and that the impiety of burning it would then belong to
those that forced this to be done, and not to them. But Titus
said, that "although the Jews should get upon that holy house,
and fight us thence, yet ought we not to revenge ourselves on
things that are inanimate, instead of the men themselves;" and
that he was not in any case for burning down so vast a work as
that was, because this would be a mischief to the Romans
themselves, as it would be an ornament to their government while
it continued. So Fronto, and Alexander, and Cerealis grew bold
upon that declaration, and agreed to the opinion of Titus. Then
was this assembly dissolved, when Titus had given orders to the
commanders that the rest of their forces should lie still; but
that they should make use of such as were most courageous in this
attack. So he commanded that the chosen men that were taken out
of the cohorts should make their way through the ruins, and 
quench the fire.
  
4. Now it is true that on this day the Jews were so weary, and
under such consternation, that they refrained from any attacks.
But on the next day they gathered their whole force together, and
ran upon those that guarded the outward court of the temple very
boldly, through the east gate, and this about the second hour of
the day. These guards received that their attack with great
bravery, and by covering themselves with their shields before, as
if it were with a wall, they drew their squadron close together;
yet was it evident that they could not abide there very long, but
would be overborne by the multitude of those that sallied out
upon them, and by the heat of their passion. However, Caesar
seeing, from the tower of Antonia, that this squadron was likely
to give way, he sent some chosen horsemen to support them.
Hereupon the Jews found themselves not able to sustain their
onset, and upon the slaughter of those in the forefront, many of
the rest were put to flight. But as the Romans were going off,
the Jews turned upon them, and fought them; and as those Romans
came back upon them, they retreated again, until about the fifth
hour of the day they were overborne, and shut themselves up in
the inner [court of the] temple.
  
5. So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to
storm the temple the next day, early in the morning, with his
whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house. But as for
that house, God had, for certain, long ago doomed it to the fire;
and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of
ages; it was the tenth day of the month Lous, [Ab,] upon which it
was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon; although these flames
took their rise from the Jews themselves, and were occasioned by
them; for upon Titus's retiring, the seditious lay still for a
little while, and then attacked the Romans again, when those that
guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire
that was burning the inner [court of the] temple; but these
Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy
house itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying
for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so
great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine
fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire,
and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden
window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were
round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the
flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so
mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it;
and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered any
thing to restrain their force, since that holy house was
perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard
about it.
  
6. And now a certain person came running to Titus, and told him
of this fire, as he was resting himself in his tent after the
last battle; whereupon he rose up in great haste, and, as he was,
ran to the holy house, in order to have a stop put to the fire;
after him followed all his commanders, and after them followed
the several legions, in great astonishment; so there was a great
clamor and tumult raised, as was natural upon the disorderly
motion of so great an army. Then did Caesar, both by calling to
the soldiers that were fighting, with a loud voice, and by giving
a signal to them with his right hand, order them to quench the
fire. But they did not hear what he said, though he spake so
loud, having their ears already dimmed by a greater noise another
way; nor did they attend to the signal he made with his hand
neither, as still some of them were distracted with fighting, and
others with passion. But as for the legions that came running
thither, neither any persuasions nor any threatenings could
restrain their violence, but each one's own passion was his
commander at this time; and as they were crowding into the temple
together, many of them were trampled on by one another, while a
great number fell among the ruins of the cloisters, which were
still hot and smoking, and were destroyed in the same miserable
way with those whom they had conquered; and when they were come
near the holy house, they made as if they did not so much as hear
Caesar's orders to the contrary; but they encouraged those that
were before them to set it on fire. As for the seditious, they
were in too great distress already to afford their assistance
[towards quenching the fire]; they were every where slain, and
every where beaten; and as for a great part of the people, they
were weak and without arms, and had their throats cut wherever
they were caught. Now round about the altar lay dead bodies
heaped one upon another, as at the steps (16) going up to it ran
a great quantity of their blood, whither also the dead bodies
that were slain above [on the altar] fell down.
  
7. And now, since Caesar was no way able to restrain the
enthusiastic fury of the soldiers, and the fire proceeded on more
and more, he went into the holy place of the temple, with his
commanders, and saw it, with what was in it, which he found to be
far superior to what the relations of foreigners contained, and
not inferior to what we ourselves boasted of and believed about
it. But as the flame had not as yet reached to its inward parts,
but was still consuming the rooms that were about the holy house,
and Titus supposing what the fact was, that the house itself
might yet he saved, he came in haste and endeavored to persuade 
the soldiers to quench the fire, and gave order to Liberalius the
centurion, and one of those spearmen that were about him, to beat
the soldiers that were refractory with their staves, and to
restrain them; yet were their passions too hard for the regards
they had for Caesar, and the dread they had of him who forbade
them, as was their hatred of the Jews, and a certain vehement
inclination to fight them, too hard for them also. Moreover, the
hope of plunder induced many to go on, as having this opinion,
that all the places within were full of money, and as seeing that
all round about it was made of gold. And besides, one of those
that went into the place prevented Caesar, when he ran so hastily
out to restrain the soldiers, and threw the fire upon the hinges
of the gate, in the dark; whereby the flame burst out from within
the holy house itself immediately, when the commanders retired,
and Caesar with them, and when nobody any longer forbade those
that were without to set fire to it. And thus was the holy house
burnt down, without Caesar's approbation.
  
8. Now although any one would justly lament the destruction of
such a work as this was, since it was the most admirable of all
the works that we have seen or heard of, both for its curious
structure and its magnitude, and also for the vast wealth
bestowed upon it, as well as for the glorious reputation it had
for its holiness; yet might such a one comfort himself with this
thought, that it was fate that decreed it so to be, which is
inevitable, both as to living creatures, and as to works and
places also. However, one cannot but wonder at the accuracy of
this period thereto relating; for the same month and day were now
observed, as I said before, wherein the holy house was burnt
formerly by the Babylonians. Now the number of years that passed
from its first foundation, which was laid by king Solomon, till
this its destruction, which happened in the second year of the
reign of Vespasian, are collected to be one thousand one hundred
and thirty, besides seven months and fifteen days; and from the
second building of it, which was done by Haggai, in the second
year of Cyrus the king, till its destruction under Vespasian,
there were six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days.
  
CHAPTER 5.
  
  
The Great Distress The Jews Were In Upon The
Conflagration Of The Holy House. Concerning A False
Prophet, And The Signs That Preceded This Destruction.
  
1. While the holy house was on fire, every thing was plundered
that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught
were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any
reverence of gravity, but children, and old men, and profane
persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner; so that
this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them to
destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their
lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame
was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the 
groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high,
and the works at the temple were very great, one would have
thought the whole city had been on fire. Nor can one imagine any
thing either greater or more terrible than this noise; for there
was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all
together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now
surrounded with fire and sword. The people also that were left
above were beaten back upon the enemy, and under a great
consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they were
under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this
outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of
those that were worn away by the famine, and their mouths almost
closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house, they exerted
their utmost strength, and brake out into  groans and outcries
again: Pera (17) did also return the echo, as well as the
mountains round about [the city,] and augmented the force of the
entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this
disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on
which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on
every part of it, that the blood was larger in quantity than the
fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that
slew them; for the ground did no where appear visible, for the
dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of
those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them. And now it
was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the
inner court of the temple by the Romans,] and had much ado to get
into the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the
remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of that outer
court. As for the priests, some of them plucked up from the holy
house the spikes (18) that were upon it, with their bases, which
were made of lead, and shot them at the Romans instead of darts.
But then as they gained nothing by so doing, and as the fire
burst out upon them, they retired to the wall that was eight
cubits broad, and there they tarried; yet did two of these of
eminence among them, who might have saved themselves by going
over to the Romans, or have borne up with  courage, and taken
their fortune with the others, throw themselves into the fire,
and were burnt together with the holy house; their names were
Meirus the son of Belgas, and Joseph the son of Daleus.
  
2. And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what
was round about the holy house, burnt all those places, as also
the remains of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one
on the east side, and the other on the south; both which,
however, they burnt afterward. They also burnt down the treasury
chambers, in which was an immense quantity of money, and an
immense number of garments, and other precious goods there
reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that
the entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the
rich people had there built themselves chambers [to contain  such
furniture]. The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters
that were in the outer [court of the] temple, whither the women
and children, and a great mixed multitude of the people, fled, in
number about six thousand. But before Caesar had determined any
thing about these people, or given the commanders any orders
relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage, that they set
that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that some
of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and
some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of
them escape with his life. A false prophet (19) was the occasion
of these people's destruction, who had  made a public
proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them
to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive
miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great
number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the
people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for
deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from
deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above  fear and care
by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply
with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe
that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him,
then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his
deliverance. 

3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers,
and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor
give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly
foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated,
without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard
the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star
(20) resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet,
that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews'
rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war,
when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of
unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, (21)
[Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light
shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be
bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed
to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by
the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed
immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she
was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb
in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the
inner (22) [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly
heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and
rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very
deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire
stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth
hour of the night. Now those  that kept watch in the temple came
hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of
it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty
was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar
to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the
gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that
the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord,
and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies.
So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the
desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days
after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month
Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible
phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be
a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not
the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to
deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and
troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among
the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast
which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into
the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform
their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place,
they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they
heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us remove
hence." But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus,
the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years
before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very
great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our
custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple,
(23) began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a
voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against
Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and
the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his
cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of
the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace
had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the
man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not
he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to
those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words
which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the
case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the
man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped
till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any
supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his
voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of
the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And when
Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was?
and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no
manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his
melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and
dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the
war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was
seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these
lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe
to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that
beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food;
but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a
melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the 
loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven
years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired
therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest
fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round
upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to
the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And
just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there
came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed
him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he
gave up the ghost.
  
4. Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God
takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our
race what is for their preservation; but that men perish by those
miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves;
for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their
temple four-square, while at the same time they had it written in
their sacred oracles, "That then should their city be taken, as
well as their holy house, when once their temple should become
four-square." But now, what did the most elevate them in
undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found
in their sacred writings, how," about that time, one from their
country should become governor of the habitable earth." The Jews
took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and
many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their
determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government
of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is
not possible for men to avoid fate, although they see it
beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals
according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly
despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the
taking of their city and their own destruction.
  
CHAPTER 6.
  
  
  
How The Romans Carried Their Ensigns To The Temple,
And Made Joyful Acclamations To Titus. The Speech That
Titus Made To The Jews When They Made Supplication
For Mercy. What Reply They Made Thereto; And How That
Reply Moved Titus's Indignation Against Them.
  
1. And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the
city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all
the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple
(24) and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did
they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus
imperator (25) with the greatest acclamations of joy. And now all
the soldiers had such vast quantities of the spoils which they
had gotten by plunder, that in Syria a pound weight of gold was
sold for half its former value. But as for those priests that
kept themselves still upon the wall of the holy house,(26) there
was a boy that, out of the thirst he was in, desired some of the
Roman guards to give him their right hands as a security for his
life, and confessed he was very thirsty. These guards
commiserated his age, and the distress he was in, and gave him
their right hands accordingly. So he came down himself, and drank
some water, and filled the vessel he had with him when he came to
them with water, and then went off, and fled away to his own
friends; nor could any of those guards overtake him; but still
they reproached him for his perfidiousness. To which he made this
answer: "I have not broken the agreement; for the security I had
given me was not in order to my staying with you, but only in
order to my coming down safely, and taking up some water; both
which things I have performed, and thereupon think myself to have
been faithful to my engagement." Hereupon those whom the child
had imposed upon admired at his cunning, and that on account of
his age. On the fifth day afterward, the priests that were pined
with the famine came down, and when they were brought to Titus by
the guards, they begged for their lives; but he replied, that the
time of pardon was over as to them, and that this very holy
house, on whose account only they could justly hope to be
preserved, was destroyed; and that it was agreeable to their
office that priests should perish with the house itself to which
they belonged. So he ordered them to be put to death.
  
2. But as for the tyrants themselves, and those that were with
them, when they found that they were encompassed on every side,
and, as it were, walled round, without any method of escaping,
they desired to treat with Titus by word of mouth. Accordingly,
such was the kindness of his nature, and his desire of preserving
the city from destruction, joined to the advice of his friends,
who now thought the robbers were come to a temper, that he placed
himself on the western side of the outer [court of the] temple;
for there were gates on that side above the Xystus, and a bridge
that connected the upper city to the temple. This bridge it was
that lay between the tyrants and Caesar, and parted them; while
the multitude stood on each side; those of the Jewish nation
about Sinran and John, with great hopes of pardon; and the Romans
about Caesar, in great expectation how Titus would receive their
supplication. So Titus charged his soldiers to restrain their
rage, and to let their darts alone, and appointed an interpreter
between them, which was a sign that he was the conqueror, and
first began the discourse, and said, "I hope you, sirs, are now
satiated with the miseries of your country, who have not bad any
just notions, either of our great power, or of your own great
weakness, but have, like madmen, after a violent and
inconsiderate manner, made such attempts, as have brought your
people, your city, and your holy house to destruction. You have
been the men that have never left off rebelling since Pompey
first conquered you, and have, since that time, made open war
with the Romans. Have you depended on your multitude, while a
very small part of the Roman soldiery have been strong enough for
you? Have you relied on the fidelity of your confederates? And
what nations are there, out of the limits of our dominion, that
would choose to assist the Jews before the Romans? Are your
bodies stronger than ours? nay, you know that the [strong]
Germans themselves are our servants. Have you stronger walls than
we have? Pray, what greater obstacle is there than the wall of
the ocean, with which the Britons are encompassed, and yet do
adore the arms of the Romans. Do you exceed us in courage of
soul, and in the sagacity of your commanders? Nay, indeed, you
cannot but know that  the very Carthaginians have been conquered
by us. It can therefore be nothing certainly but the kindness of
us Romans which hath excited you against us; who, in the first
place, have given you this land to possess; and, in the next
place, have set over you kings of your own nation; and, in the
third place, have preserved the laws of your forefathers to you,
and have withal permitted you to live, either by yourselves, or
among others, as it should please you: and, what is our chief
favor of all we have given you leave to gather up that tribute
which is paid to God (27) with such other gifts that are
dedicated to him; nor have we called those that carried these
donations to account, nor prohibited them; till at length you
became richer than we ourselves, even when you were our enemies;
and you made preparations for war against us with our own money;
nay, after all, when you were in the enjoyment of all these
advantages, you turned your too great plenty against those that
gave it you, and, like merciless serpents, have thrown out your
poison against those that treated you kindly. I suppose,
therefore, that you might despise the slothfulness of Nero, and,
like limbs of the body that are broken or dislocated, you did
then lie quiet, waiting for some other time, though still with a
malicious intention, and have now showed your distemper to be
greater than ever, and have extended your desires as far as your
impudent and immense hopes would enable you to do it. At this
time my father came into this country, not with a design to
punish you for what you had done under Cestius, but to admonish
you; for had he come to overthrow your nation, he had run
directly to your fountain-head, and had immediately laid this
city waste; whereas he went and burnt Galilee and the neighboring
parts, and thereby gave you time for repentance; which instance
of humanity you took for an argument of his weakness, and
nourished up your impudence by our mildness. When Nero was gone
out of the world, you did as the wickedest wretches would have
done, and encouraged yourselves to act against us by our civil
dissensions, and abused that time, when both I and my father were
gone away to Egypt, to make preparations for this war. Nor were
you ashamed to raise disturbances against us when we were made
emperors, and this while you had experienced how mild we had
been, when we were no more than generals of the army. But when
the government was devolved upon us, and all other people did
thereupon lie quiet, and even foreign nations sent embassies, and
congratulated our access to the government, then did you Jews
show yourselves to be our enemies. You sent embassies to those of
your nation that are beyond Euphrates to assist you in your
raising disturbances; new walls were built by you round your
city, seditions arose, and one tyrant contended against another,
and a civil war broke out among you; such indeed as became none
but so wicked a people as you are. I then came to this city, as
unwillingly sent by my father, and received melancholy
injunctions from him. When I heard that the people were disposed
to peace, I rejoiced at it; I exhorted you to leave off these
proceedings before I began this war; I spared you even when you
had fought against me a great while; I gave my right hand as
security to the deserters; I observed what I had promised
faithfully. When they fled to me, I had compassion on many of
those that I had taken captive; I tortured those that were eager
for war, in order to restrain them. It was unwillingly that I
brought my engines of war against your walls; I always prohibited
my soldiers, when they were set upon your slaughter, from their
severity against you. After every victory I persuaded you to
peace, as though I had been myself conquered. When I came near
your temple, I again departed from the laws of war, and exhorted
you to spare your own sanctuary, and to preserve your holy house
to yourselves. I allowed you a quiet exit out of it, and security
for your preservation; nay, if you had a mind, I gave you leave
to fight in another place. Yet have you still despised every one
of my proposals, and have set fire to your holy house with your
own hands. And now, vile wretches, do you desire to treat with me
by word of mouth? To what purpose is it that you would save such
a holy house as this was, which is now destroyed? What
preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your
temple? Yet do you stand still at this very time in your armor;
nor can you bring yourselves so much as to pretend to be
supplicants even in this your utmost extremity. O miserable
creatures! what is it you depend on? Are not your people dead? is
not your holy house gone? is not your city in my power? and are
not your own very lives in my hands? And do you still deem it a
part of valor to die? However, I will not imitate your madness.
If you throw down your arms, and deliver up your bodies to me, I
grant you your lives; and I will act like a mild master of a
family; what cannot be healed shall be punished, and the rest I
will preserve for my own use."
  
3. To that offer of Titus they made this reply: That they could
not accept of it, because they had sworn never to do so; but they
desired they might have leave to go through the wall that had
been made about them, with their wives and children; for that
they would go into the desert, and leave the city to him. At this
Titus had great indignation, that when they were in the case of
men already taken captives, they should pretend to make their own
terms with him, as if they had been conquerors. So he ordered
this proclamation to be made to them, That they should no more
come out to him as deserters, nor hope for any further security;
for that he would henceforth spare nobody, but fight them with
his whole army; and that they must save themselves as well as
they could; for that he would from henceforth treat them
according to the laws of war. So he gave orders to the soldiers
both to burn and to plunder the city; who did nothing indeed that
day; but on the next day they set fire to the repository of the
archives, to Acra, to the council-house, and to the place called
Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of
queen Helena, which was in the middle of Acra; the lanes also 
were burnt down, as were also those houses that were full of the
dead bodies of such as were destroyed by famine.
  
4. On the same day it was that the sons and brethren of Izates
the king, together with many others of the eminent men of the
populace, got together there, and besought Caesar to give them
his right hand for their security; upon which, though he was very
angry at all that were now remaining, yet did he not lay aside
his old moderation, but received these men. At that time, indeed,
he kept them all in custody, but still bound the king's sons and
kinsmen, and led them with him to Rome, in order to make them 
hostages for their country's fidelity to the Romans.
  
CHAPTER 7.
  
  
  
What Afterward Befell The Seditious When They Had Done
A Great Deal Of Mischief, And Suffered Many Misfortunes; As Also
How Caesar Became Master Of The Upper City,
  
1. And now the seditious rushed into the royal palace, into which
many had put their effects, because it was so strong, and drove
the Romans away from it. They also slew all the people that had
crowded into it, who were in number about eight thousand four
hundred, and plundered them of what they had. They also took two
of the Romans alive; the one was a horseman, and the other a
footman. They then cut the throat of the footman, and immediately
had him drawn through the whole city, as revenging themselves
upon the whole body of the Romans by this one instance. But the
horseman said he had somewhat to suggest to them in order to
their preservation; whereupon he was brought before Simon; but he
having nothing to say when he was there, he was delivered to
Ardalas, one of his commanders, to be punished, who bound his
hands behind him, and put a riband over his eyes, and then
brought him out over against the Romans, as intending to cut off
his head. But the man prevented that execution, and ran away to
the Romans, and this while the Jewish executioner was drawing out
his sword. Now when he was gotten away from the enemy, Titus
could not think of putting him to death; but because he deemed
him unworthy of being a Roman soldier any longer, on account that
he had been taken alive by the enemy, he took away his arms, and
ejected him out of the legion whereto he had belonged; which, to
one that had a sense of shame, was a penalty severer than death
itself.
  
2. On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower
city, and set all on fire as far as Siloam. These soldiers were
indeed glad to see the city destroyed. But they missed the
plunder, because the seditious had carried off all their effects,
and were retired into the upper city; for they did not yet at all
repent of the mischiefs they had done, but were insolent, as if
they had done well; for, as they saw the city on fire, they
appeared cheerful, and put on joyful countenances, in
expectation, as they said, of death to end their miseries.
Accordingly, as the people were now slain, the holy house was
burnt down, and the city was on fire, there was nothing further
left for the enemy to do. Yet did not Josephus grow weary, even
in this utmost extremity, to beg of them to spare what was left
of the city; he spake largely to them about their barbarity and
impiety, and gave them his advice in order to their escape;
though he gained nothing thereby more than to be laughed at by
them; and as they could not think of surrendering themselves up,
because of the oath they had taken, nor were strong enough to
fight with the Romans any longer upon the square, as being
surrounded on all sides, and a kind of prisoners already, yet
were they so accustomed to kill people, that they could not
restrain their right hands from acting accordingly. So they
dispersed themselves before the city, and laid themselves in
ambush among its ruins, to catch those that attempted to desert
to the Romans; accordingly many such deserters were caught by
them, and were all slain; for these were too weak, by reason of
their want of food, to fly away from them; so their dead bodies
were thrown to the dogs. Now every other sort of death was
thought more tolerable than the famine, insomuch that, though the
Jews despaired now of mercy, yet would they fly to the Romans,
and would themselves, even of their own accord, fall among the
murderous rebels also. Nor was there any place in the city that
had no dead bodies in it, but what was entirely covered with
those that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion; and
all was full of the dead bodies of such as had perished, either
by that sedition or by that famine.
  
3. So now the last hope which supported the tyrants, and that
crew of robbers who were with them, was in the caves and caverns
under ground; whither, if they could once fly, they did not
expect to be searched for; but endeavored, that after the whole
city should be destroyed, and the Romans gone away, they might
come out again, and escape from them. This was no better than a
dream of theirs; for they were not able to lie hid either from
God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these
under-ground subterfuges, and set more places on fire than did
the Romans themselves; and those that fled out of their houses
thus set on fire into the ditches, they killed without mercy, and
pillaged them also; and if they discovered food belonging to any
one, they seized upon it and swallowed it down, together with
their blood also; nay, they were now come to fight one with
another about their plunder; and I cannot but think that, had not
their destruction prevented it, their barbarity would have made
them taste of even the
  dead bodies themselves.
  
CHAPTER 8.
  
  
  
How Caesar Raised Banks Round About The Upper City
[Mount Zion] And When They Were Completed, Gave
Orders That The Machines Should Be Brought. He Then
Possessed Himself Of The Whole City.
  
1. Now when Caesar perceived that the upper city was so steep
that it could not possibly be taken without raising banks against
it, he distributed the several parts of that work among his army,
and this on the twentieth day of the month Lous [Ab]. Now the
carriage of the materials was a difficult task, since all the
trees, as I have already told you, that were about the city,
within the distance of a hundred furlongs, had their branches cut
off already, in order to make the former banks. The works that
belonged to the four legions were erected on the west side of the
city, over against the royal palace; but the whole body of the
auxiliary troops, with the rest of the multitude that were with
them, [erected their banks] at the Xystus, whence they reached to
the bridge, and that tower of Simon which he had built as a
citadel for himself against John, when they were at war one with
another.
  
2. It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans got
together privately, and took counsel about surrendering up
themselves to the Romans. Accordingly, they sent five men to
Titus, and entreated him to give them his right hand for their
security. So Titus thinking that the tyrants would yield, if the
Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the war depended, were once
withdrawn from them, after some reluctancy and delay, complied
with them, and gave them security for their lives, and sent the
five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out,
Simon perceived it, and immediately slew the five men that had
gone to Titus, and took their commanders, and put them in prison,
of whom the most eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas; but as for
the multitude of the Idumeans, who did not at all know what to
do, now their commanders were taken from them, he had them
watched, and secured the walls by a more numerous garrison, Yet
could not that garrison resist those that were deserting; for
although a great number of them were slain, yet were the
deserters many more in number. They were all received by the
Romans, because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former
orders for killing them, and because the very soldiers grew weary
of killing them, and because they hoped to get some money by
sparing them; for they left only the populace, and sold the rest
of the multitude, (28) with their wives and children, and every
one of them at a very low price, and that because such as were
sold were very many, and the buyers were few: and although Titus
had made proclamation beforehand, that no deserter should come
alone by himself, that so they might bring out their families
with them, yet did he receive such as these also. However, he set
over them such as were to distinguish some from others, in order
to see if any of them deserved to be punished. And indeed the
number of those that were sold was immense; but of the populace
above forty thousand were saved, whom Caesar let go whither every
one of them pleased.
  
3. But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son
of Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus, upon his having security
given him, by the oath of Caesar, that he should be preserved,
upon condition that he should deliver to him certain of the
precious things that had been reposited in the temple (29) came
out of it, and delivered him from the wall of the holy house two
candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy house, with
tables, and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold, and very
heavy. He also delivered to him the veils and the garments, with
the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels
that belonged to their sacred worship. The treasurer of the
temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on, and showed
Titus the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great quantity
of purple and scarlet, which were there reposited for the uses of
the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a
large quantity of other sweet spices, (30) which used to be mixed
together, and offered as incense to God every day. A great many
other treasures were also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments
of the temple not a few; which things thus delivered to Titus
obtained of him for this man the same pardon that he had allowed
to such as deserted of their own accord.
  
4. And now were the banks finished on the seventh day of the
month Gorpieus, [Elul,] in eighteen days' time, when the Romans
brought their machines against the wall. But for the seditious,
some of them, as despairing of saving the city, retired from the
wall to the citadel; others of them went down into the
subterranean vaults, though still a great many of them defended
themselves against those that brought the engines for the
battery; yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by
their strength; and, what was the principal thing of all, by
going cheerfully about their work, while the Jews were quite
dejected, and become weak. Now as soon as a part of the wall was
battered down, and certain of the towers yielded to the
impression of the battering rams, those that opposed themselves
fled away, and such a terror fell upon the tyrants, as was much
greater than the occasion required; for before the enemy got over
the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for
flying away. And now one might see these men, who had hitherto
been so insolent and arrogant in their wicked practices, to be
cast down and to tremble, insomuch that it would pity one's heart
to observe the change that was made in those vile persons.
Accordingly, they ran with great violence upon the Roman wall
that encompassed them, in order to force away those that guarded
it, and to break through it, and get away. But when they saw that
those who had formerly been faithful to them had gone away, (as
indeed they were fled whithersoever the great distress they were
in persuaded them to flee,) as also when those that came running
before the rest told them that the western wall was entirely
overthrown, while others said the Romans were gotten in, and
others that they were near, and looking out for them, which were
only the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their sight,
they fell upon their face, and greatly lamented their own mad
conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed, that they
could not flee away. And here one may chiefly reflect on the
power of God exercised upon these wicked wretches, and on the
good fortune of the Romans; for these tyrants did now wholly
deprive themselves of the security they had in their own power,
and came down from those very towers of their own accord, wherein
they could have never been taken by force, nor indeed by any
other way than by famine. And thus did the Romans, when they had 
taken such great pains about weaker walls, get by good fortune
what they could never have gotten by their engines; for three of
these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines
whatsoever, concerning which we have treated above.
  
5. So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they
were ejected out of them by God himself, and fled immediately to
that valley which was under Siloam, where they again recovered
themselves out of the dread they were in for a while, and ran
violently against that part of the Roman wall which lay on that
side; but as their courage was too much depressed to make their
attacks with sufficient force, and their power was now broken
with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the guards, and
dispersing themselves at distances from each other, went down
into the subterranean caverns. So the Romans being now become
masters of the walls, they both placed their ensigns upon the
towers, and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had
gained, as having found the end of this war much lighter than its
beginning; for when they had gotten upon the last wall, without
any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be
true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what
such an unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in
numbers into the lanes of the city with their swords drawn, they
slew those whom they overtook without and set fire to the houses
whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every  soul in them, and
laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to
the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of
dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is, of
such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this
sight, and went out without touching any thing. But although they
had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner,
yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but
they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the
very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run
down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of
the houses was quenched  with these men's blood. And truly so it
happened, that though the slayers left off at the evening, yet
did the fire greatly prevail in the night; and as all was
burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul] upon
Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries during
this siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from
its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of
the world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these
sore misfortunes, as by producing such a generation of men as
were the occasions of this its overthrow.
  
CHAPTER 9.
  
  
  
What Injunctions Caesar Gave When He Was Come Within
The City. The Number Of The Captives And Of Those That
Perished In The Siege; As Also Concerning Those That
Had Escaped Into The Subterranean Caverns, Among
Whom Were The Tyrants Simon And John Themselves.
  
1. Now when Titus was come into this [upper] city, he admired not
only some other places of strength in it, but particularly those
strong towers which the tyrants in their mad conduct had
relinquished; for when he saw their solid altitude, and the
largeness of their several stones, and the exactness of their
joints, as also how great was their breadth, and how extensive
their length, he expressed himself after the manner following:
"We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it
was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these
fortifications; for what could the hands of men or any machines
do towards overthrowing these towers?" At which time he had many
such discourses to his friends; he also let such go free as had
been bound by the tyrants, and were left in the prisons. To
conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the city, and
overthrew its walls, he left these towers as a monument of his
good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled him
to take what could not otherwise have been taken by him.
  
2. And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with
killing men, and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still
remaining alive, Caesar gave orders that they should kill none
but those that were in arms, and opposed them, but should take
the rest alive. But, together with those whom they had orders to
slay, they slew the aged and the infirm; but for those that were
in their flourishing age, and who might be useful to them, they
drove them together into the temple, and shut them up within the
walls of the court of the women; over which Caesar set one of his
freed-men, as also Fronto, one of his own friends; which last was
to determine every one's fate, according to his merits. So this
Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who
were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out
the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the
triumph; and as for the rest of the multitude that were above
seventeen years old, he put them into bonds, and sent them to the
Egyptian mines (31) Titus also sent a great number into the
provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed
upon their theatres, by the sword and by the wild beasts; but
those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for
slaves. Now during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing
these men, there perished, for want of food, eleven thousand; 
some of whom did not taste any food, through the hatred their
guards bore to them; and others would not take in any when it was
given them. The multitude also was so very great, that they were
in want even of corn for their sustenance.
  
3. Now the number (32) of those that were carried captive during
this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was
the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven
hundred thousand, 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. And that this city could contain so many people in it,
is manifest by that 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 contemn that nation, entreated the
high priests, if the thing were possible, to take the number of
their whole multitude. So these high priests, upon the coming of
that feast which is called the Passover, when they slay their
sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the eleventh, but so that a
company not less than ten (33)  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, found the number of
sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred;
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; for as to those that
have the leprosy, or the gonorrhea, or women that have their
monthly courses, or such as are otherwise polluted, it is not
lawful for them to be partakers of this sacrifice; nor indeed for
any foreigners neither, who come hither to worship.
  
4. Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote
places, but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in
prison, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was
crowded with inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude of those
that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either
men or God ever brought upon the world; for, to speak only of
what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of them, some they
carried captives, and others they made a search for under ground,
and when they found where they were, they broke up the ground and
slew all they met with. There were also found slain there above
two thousand persons, partly by their own hands, and partly by
one another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then the
ill savor of the dead bodies was most offensive to those that
lighted upon them, insomuch that some were obliged to get away
immediately, while others were so greedy of gain, that they would
go in among the dead bodies that lay on heaps, and tread upon
them; for a great deal of treasure was found in these caverns,
and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to be esteemed
lawful. Many also of those that had been put in prison by the
tyrants were now brought out; for they did not leave off their
barbarous cruelty at the very last: yet did God avenge himself
upon them both, in a manner agreeable to justice. As for John, he
wanted food, together with his brethren, in these caverns, and
begged that the Romans would now give him their right hand for
his security, which he had often proudly rejected before; but for
Simon, he struggled hard with the distress he was in, fill he was
forced to surrender himself, as we shall relate hereafter; so he
was reserved for the triumph, and to be then slain; as was John
condemned to perpetual imprisonment. And now the Romans set fire
to the extreme parts of the city, and burnt them down, and
entirely demolished its walls.

CHAPTER 10.
  
  
That Whereas The City Of Jerusalem Had Been Five Times
Taken Formerly, This Was The Second Time Of Its
Desolation. A Brief Account Of Its History.
  
1. And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign
of Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpeius [Elul]. It
had been taken five (34) times before, though this was the second
time of its desolation; for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after
him Antiochus, and after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and
Herod, took the city, but still preserved it; but before all
these, the king of Babylon conquered it, and made it desolate,
one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years and six months
after it was built. But he who first built it. Was a potent man
among the Canaanites, and is in our own tongue called
[Melchisedek], the Righteous King, for such he really was; on
which account he was [there] the first priest of God, and first
built a temple [there], and called the city Jerusalem, which was
formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews,
ejected the Canaanites, and set-tied his own people therein. It
was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and
seventy-seven years and six months after him. And from king
David, who was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this
destruction under Titus, were one thousand one hundred and
seventy-nine years; but from its first building, till this last
destruction, were two thousand one hundred and seventy-seven
years; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor its vast riches, nor
the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable earth, nor the
greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious account,
been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed. And thus
ended the siege of Jerusalem.

WAR BOOK 6 FOOTNOTES

(1) Reland notes here, very pertinently, that the tower of
Antonia stood higher than the floor of the temple or court
adjoining to it; and that accordingly they descended thence into
the temple, as Josephus elsewhere speaks also. See Book VI. ch.
2. sect. 5.

(2) In this speech of Titus we may clearly see the notions which
the Romans then had of death, and of the happy state of those who
died bravely in war, and the contrary estate of those who died
ignobly in their beds by sickness. Reland here also produces two
parallel passages, the one out of Atonia Janus Marcellinus,
concerning the Alani, lib. 31, that "they judged that man happy
who laid down his life in battle ;" the other of Valerius
Maximus, lib. 11. ch. 6, who says, "that the Cimbri and Celtiberi
exulted for joy in the army, as being to go out of the world
gloriously and happily."

(3) See the note on p. 809.

(4) No wonder that this Julian, who had so many nails in his
shoes, slipped upon the pavement of the temple, which was smooth,
and laid with marble of different colors.

(5) This was a remarkable day indeed, the seventeenth of
Paneruns. [Tamuz,] A.D. 70, when, according to Daniel's
prediction, six hundred and six years before, the Romans "in half
a week caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease," Daniel 9:27.
For from the month of February, A.D. 66, about which time
Vespasian entered on this war, to this very time, was just three
years and a half. See Bishop Lloyd's Tables of Chronology,
published by Mr. Marshall, on this year. Nor is it to be omitted,
what year nearly confirms this duration of the war, that four
years before the war begun was somewhat above seven years five
months before the destruction of Jerusalem, ch. 5. sect. 3.

(6) The same that in the New Testament is always so called, and
was then the common language of the Jews in Judea, which was the
Syriac dialect.

(7) Our present copies of the Old Testament want this encomium
upon king Jechoniah or Jehoiachim, which it seems was in
Josephus's copy.

(8) Of this oracle, see the note on B. IV. ch. 6. sect. 3.
Josephus, both here and in many places elsewhere, speaks so, that
it is most evident he was fully satisfied that God was on the
Romans' side, and made use of them now for the destruction of
that wicked nation of the Jews; which was for certain the true
state of this matter, as the prophet Daniel first, and our Savior
himself afterwards, had clearly foretold. See Lit. Accompl. of
Proph. p. 64, etc.

(9) Josephus had before told us, B. V. ch. 13. sect. 1, that this
fourth son of Matthias ran away to the Romans "before" his
father's and brethren's slaughter, and not "after" it, as here.
The former account is, in all probability, the truest; for had
not that fourth son escaped before the others were caught and put
to death, he had been caught and put to death with them. This
last account, therefore, looks like an instance of a small
inadvertence of Josephus in the place before us.

(10) Of this partition-wall separating Jews and Gentiles, with
its pillars and inscription, see the description of the temples,
ch. 15.

(11) That these seditious Jews were the direct occasions of their
own destruction, and of the conflagration of their city and
temple, and that Titus earnestly and constantly labored to save
both, is here and every where most evident in Josephus.

(12) Court of the Gentiles.

(13) Court of Israel.

(14) Of the court of the Gentiles.

(15) What Josephus observes here, that no parallel examples had
been recorded before this time of such sieges, wherein mothers
were forced by extremity of famine to eat their own children, as
had been threatened to the Jews in the law of Moses, upon
obstinate disobedience, and more than once fulfilled, (see my
Boyle's Lectures, p. 210-214,) is by Dr. Hudson supposed to have
had two or three parallel examples in later ages. He might have
had more examples, I suppose, of persons on ship-board, or in a
desert island, casting lots for each others' bodies; but all this
was only in cases where they knew of no possible way to avoid
death themselves but by killing and eating others. Whether such
examples come up to the present case may be doubted. The Romans
were not only willing, but very desirous, to grant those Jews in
Jerusalem both their lives and their liberties, and to save both
their city and their temple. But the zealots, the rubbers, and
the seditious would hearken to no terms of submission. They
voluntarily chose to reduce the citizens to that extremity, as to
force mothers to this unnatural barbarity, which, in all its
circumstances, has not, I still suppose, been hitherto paralleled
among the rest of mankind.

(16) These steps to the altar of burnt-offering seem here either
an improper and inaccurate expression of Josephus, since it was
unlawful to make ladder steps; (see description of the temples,
ch. 13., and note on Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 5;) or else those
steps or stairs we now use were invented before the days of Herod
the Great, and had been here built by him; though the later Jews
always deny it, and say that even Herod's altar was ascended to
by an acclivity only.

(17) This Perea, if the word be not mistaken in the copies,
cannot well be that Perea which was beyond Jordan, whose
mountains were at a considerable distance from Jordan, and much
too remote from Jerusalem to join in this echo at the
conflagration of the temple; but Perea must be rather some
mountains beyond the brook Cedron, as was the Mount of Olives, or
some others about such a distance from Jerusalem; which
observation is so obvious, that it is a wonder our commentators
here take no notice of it.

(18) Reland I think here judges well, when he interprets these
spikes (of those that stood on the top of the holy house) with
sharp points; they were fixed into lead, to prevent the birds
from sitting there, and defiling the holy house; for such spikes
there were now upon it, as Josephus himself hath already assured
us, B. V. ch. 5. sect. 6.

(19) Reland here takes notice, that these Jews, who had despised
the true Prophet, were deservedly abused and deluded by these
false ones.

(20) Whether Josephus means that this star was different from
that comet which lasted a whole year, I cannot certainly
determine. His words most favor their being different one from
another.

(21) Since Josephus still uses the Syro-Macedonian month
Xanthicus for the Jewish month Nisan, this eighth, or, as
Nicephorus reads it, this ninth of Xanthicus or Nisan was almost
a week before the passover, on the fourteenth; about which time
we learn from St. John that many used to go "out of the country
to Jerusalem to purify themselves," John 11:55, with 12:1; in
agreement with Josephus also, B. V. ch. 3. sect. 1. And it might
well be, that in the sight of these this extraordinary light
might appear.

(22) This here seems to be the court of the priests.

(23) Both Reland and Havercamp in this place alter the natural
punctuation and sense of Josephus, and this contrary to the
opinion of Valesilus and Dr. Hudson, lest Josephus should say
that the Jews built booths or tents within the temple at the
feast of tabernacles; which the later Rabbins will not allow to
have been the ancient practice: but then, since it is expressly
told us in Nehemiah, ch. 8:16, that in still elder times "the
Jews made booths in the courts of the house of God" at that
festival, Josephus may well be permitted to say the same. And
indeed the modern Rabbins are of very small authority in all such
matters of remote antiquity.

(24) Take Havercamp's note here: "This (says he) is a remarkable
place; and Tertullian truly says in his Apologetic, ch. 16. p.
162, that the entire religion of the Roman camp almost consisted
in worshipping the ensigns, in swearing by the ensigns, and in
preferring the ensigns before all the [other] gods." See what
Havercamp says upon that place of Tertullian.

(25) This declaring Titus imperator by the soldiers, upon such
signal success, and the slaughter of such a vast number of
enemies, was according to the usual practice of the Romans in
like cases, as Reland assures us on this place.

(26) The Jews of later times agree with Josephus, that there were
hiding-places or secret chambers about the holy house, as Reland
here informs us, where he thinks he has found these very walls
described by them.

(27) Spanheim notes here, that the Romans used to permit the Jews
to collect their sacred tribute, and send it to Jerusalem; of
which we have had abundant evidence in Josephus already on other
occasions.

(28) This innumerable multitude of Jews that were "sold" by the
Romans was an eminent completion of God's ancient threatening by
Moses, that if they apostatized from the obedience to his laws,
they should be "sold unto their enemies for bond-men and
bond-women," Deuteronomy 28;68. See more especially the note on
ch. 9. sect. 2. But one thing is here peculiarly remarkable, that
Moses adds, Though they should be "sold" for slaves, yet "no man
should buy them;" i.e. either they should have none to redeem
them from this sale into slavery; or rather, that the slaves to
be sold should be more than were the purchasers for them, and so
they should be sold for little or nothing; which is what Josephus
here affirms to have been the case at this time.

(29) What became of these spoils of the temple that escaped the
fire, see Josephus himself hereafter, B. VII. ch. 5. sect. 5, and
Reland de Spoliis Templi, p. 129-138.

(30) These various sorts of spices, even more than those four
which Moses prescribed, Exodus 31:34, we see were used in their
public worship under Herod's temple, particularly cinnamon and
cassia; which Reland takes particular notice of, as agreeing with
the latter testimony of the Talmudists.

(31) See the several predictions that the Jews, if they became
obstinate in their idolatry and wickedness, should be sent again
or sold into Egypt for their punishment, Deuteronomy 28:68;
Jeremiah 44:7; Hosea 8:13; 9:3; 9:4, 5; 2 Samuel 15:10-13; with
Authentic Records, Part I. p. 49, 121; and Reland Painest And,
tom. II. p. 715.

(32) The whole multitude of the Jews that were destroyed during
the entire seven years before this time, in all the countries of
and bordering on Judea, is summed up by Archbishop Usher, from
Lipsius, out of Josephus, at the year of Christ 70, and amounts
to 1,337,490. Nor could there have been that number of Jews in
Jerusalem to be destroyed in this siege, as will be presently set
down by Josephus, but that both Jews and proselytes of justice
were just then come up out of the other countries of Galilee,
Samaria, Judea, and Perea and other remoter regions, to the
passover, in vast numbers, and therein cooped up, as in a prison,
by the Roman army, as Josephus himself well observes in this and
the next section, and as is exactly related elsewhere, B. V. ch.
3. sect. 1 and ch. 13. sect. 7.

(33)This number of a company for one paschal lamb, between ten
and twenty, agrees exactly with the number thirteen, at our
Savior's last passover. As to the whole number of the Jews that
used to come up to the passover, and eat of it at Jerusalem, see
the note on B. II. ch. 14. sect. 3. This number ought to be here
indeed just ten times the number of the lambs, or just 2,565,(D0,
by Josephus's own reasoning; whereas it is, in his present
copies, no less than 2,700,(D0, which last number is, however,
nearest the other number in the place now cited, which is
3,000,000. But what is here chiefly remarkable is this, that no
foreign nation ever came thus to destroy the Jews at any of their
solemn festivals, from the days of Moses till this time, but came
now upon their apostasy from God, and from obedience to him. Nor
is it possible, in the nature of things, that in any other nation
such vast numbers should be gotten together, and perish in the
siege of any one city whatsoever, as now happened in Jerusalem.

(34) This is the proper place for such as have closely attended
to these latter books of the War to peruse, and that with equal
attention, those distinct and plain predictions of Jesus of
Nazareth, in the Gospels thereto relating, as compared with their
exact completions in Josephus's history; upon which completions,
as Dr: Whitby well observes, Annot. on Matthew 24:2, no small
part of the evidence for the truth of the Christian religion does
depend; and as I have step by step compared them together in my
Literal Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies. The reader is to
observe further, that the true reason why I have so seldom taken
notice of those completions in the course of these notes,
notwithstanding their being so very remarkable, and frequently so
very obvious, is this, that I had entirely prevented myself in
that treatise beforehand; to which therefore I must here, once
for all, seriously refer every inquisitive reader. Besides these
five here enumerated, who had taken Jerusalem of old, Josephus,
upon further recollection, reckons a sixth, Antiq. B. XII. ch. 1.
sect. 1, who should have been here inserted in the second place;
I mean Ptolemy, the son of Lagus.

BOOK VII.
  
  
Containing The Interval Of About Three Years.
  
  
From The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus To The Sedition At Cyrene
  
  
CHAPTER 1.
  
  
How The Entire City Of Jerusalem Was Demolished,
Excepting Three Towers; And How Titus Commended His
Soldiers In A Speech Made To Them, And Distributed
Rewards To Them And Then Dismissed Many Of Them.
  
1. Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to
plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their
fury, (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any
other work to be done,) Caesar gave orders that they should now
demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of
the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency; that is,
Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall as
enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in
order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison, as
were the towers also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity
what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman
valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall, it was so
thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to
the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that
came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end
which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for
innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of
mighty fame among all mankind. (1)
  
2. But Caesar resolved to leave there, as a guard, the tenth
legion, with certain troops of horsemen, and companies of
footmen. So, having entirely completed this war, he was desirous
to commend his whole army, on account of the great exploits they
had performed, and to bestow proper rewards on such as had
signalized themselves therein. He had therefore a great tribunal
made for him in the midst of the place where he had formerly
encamped, and stood upon it with his principal commanders about
him, and spake so as to be heard by the whole arrmy in the manner
following: That he returned them abundance of thanks for their
good-will which they had showed to him: he commended them for
that ready obedience they had exhibited in this whole war, which
obedience had appeared in the many and great dangers which they
had courageously undergone; as also for that courage they had
shown, and had thereby augmented of themselves their country's
power, and had made it evident to all men, that neither the
multitude of their enemies, nor the strength of their places, nor
the largeness of their cities, nor the rash boldness and brutish
rage of their antagonists, were sufficient at any time to get
clear of the Roman valor, although some of them may have fortune
in many respects on their side. He said further, that it was but
reasonable for them to put an end to this war, now it had lasted
so long, for that they had nothing better to wish for when they
entered into it; and that this happened more favorably for them,
and more for their glory, that all the Romans had willingly
accepted of those for their governors, and the curators of their
dominions, whom they had chosen for them, and had sent into their
own country for that purpose, which still continued under the
management of those whom they had pitched on, and were thankful
to them for pitching upon them. That accordingly, although he did
both admire and tenderly regard them all, because he knew that
every one of them had gone as cheerfully about their work as 
their abilities and opportunities would give them leave; yet, he
said, that he would immediately bestow rewards and dignities on
those that had fought the most bravely, and with greater force,
and had signalized their conduct in the most glorious manner, and
had made his army more famous by their noble exploits; and that
no one who had been willing to take more pains than another
should miss of a just retribution for the same; for that he had
been exceeding careful about this matter, and that the more, 
because he had much rather reward the virtues of his fellow
soldiers than punish such as had offended.
  
3. Hereupon Titus ordered those whose business it was to read the
list of all that had performed great exploits in this war, whom
he called to him by their names, and commended them before the
company, and rejoiced in them in the same manner as a man would
have rejoiced in his own exploits. He also put on their heads
crowns of gold, and golden ornaments about their necks, and gave
them long spears of gold,. and ensigns that were made of silver,
and removed every one of them to a higher rank; and  besides
this, he plentifully distributed among them, out of the spoils,
and the other prey they had taken, silver, and gold, and
garments. So when they had all these honors bestowed on them,
according to his own appointment made to every one, and he had
wished all sorts of happiness to the whole army, he came down,
among the great acclamations which were made to him, and then
betook himself to offer thank-offerings [to the gods], and at
once sacrificed a vast number of oxen, that stood ready at the
altars, and distributed them among the army to feast on. And when
he had staid three days among the principal commanders, and so
long feasted with them, he sent away the rest of his army to the
several places where they would be every one best situated; but
permitted the tenth legion to stay, as a guard at Jerusalem, and
did not send them away beyond Euphrates, where they had been
before. And as he remembered that the twelfth legion had given
way to the Jews, under Cestius their general, he expelled them
out of all Syria, for they had lain formerly at Raphanea, and
sent them away to a place called Meletine, near Euphrates, which
is in the limits of Armenia and Cappadocia; he also thought fit
that two of the legions should stay with him till he should go to
Egypt. He then went down with his army to that Cesarea which lay
by the sea-side, and there laid up the rest of his spoils in
great quantities, and gave order that the captives should he kept
there; for the winter season hindered him then from sailing into
Italy.
  
CHAPTER 2.
  
  
  
How Titus Exhibited All Sorts Of Shows At Cesarea Philippi.
Concerning Simon The Tyrant How He Was Taken, And
Reserved For The Triumph.
  
1. Now at the same time that Titus Caesar lay at the siege of
Jerusalem, did Vespasian go on board a merchantship and sailed
from Alexandria to Rhodes; whence he sailed away ,in ships with
three rows of oars; and as he touched at several cities that lay
in his road, he was joyfully received by them all, and so passed
over from Ionia into Greece; whence he set sail from Corcyra to
the promontory of Iapyx, whence he took his journey by land. But
as for Titus, he marched from that Cesarea which lay by the
sea-side, and came to that which is named Cesarea Philippi, and
staid there a considerable time, and exhibited all sorts of shows
there. And here a great number of the captives were destroyed,
some being thrown to wild beasts, and others in multitudes forced
to kill one another, as if they were their enemies. And here it
was that Titus was informed of the seizure of Simon the son of
Gioras, which was made after the manner following: This Simon,
during the siege of Jerusalem, was in the upper city; but when
the Roman army was gotten within the walls, and were laying the
city waste, he then took the most faithful of his friends with
him, and among them some that were stone-cutters, with those iron
tools which belonged to their occupation, and as great a quantity
of provisions as would suffice them for a long time, and let
himself and all them down into a certain subterraneous cavern
that was not visible above ground. Now, so far as had been digged
of old, they went onward along it without disturbance; but where
they met with solid earth, they dug a mine under ground, and this
in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise
from under ground in a safe place, and by that means escape. But 
when they came to make the experiment, they were disappointed of
their hope; for the miners could make but small progress, and
that with difficulty also; insomuch that their provisions, though
they distributed them by measure, began to fail them. And now
Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and elude the
Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple
cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the
temple had formerly been. At the first, indeed, those that saw
him were greatly astonished, and stood still where they were; but
afterward they came nearer to him, and asked him who he was. Now
Simon would not tell them, but bid them call for their captain;
and when they ran to call him, Terentius Rufus (2) who was left
to command the army there, came to Simon, and learned of him the
whole truth, and kept him in bonds, and let Caesar know that he
was taken. Thus did God bring this man to be punished for what
bitter and savage tyranny he had exercised against his countrymen
by those who were his worst enemies; and this while he was not
subdued by violence, but voluntarily delivered himself up to them
to be punished, and that on the very same account that he had
laid false accusations against many Jews, as if they were falling
away to the Romans,  and had barbarously slain them for wicked
actions do not escape the Divine anger, nor is justice too weak
to punish offenders, but in time overtakes those that transgress
its laws, and inflicts its punishments upon the wicked in a
manner, so much more severe, as they expected to escape it on
account of their not being punished immediately. (3) Simon was
made sensible of this by falling under the indignation of the
Romans. This rise of his out of the ground did also occasion the
discovery of a great number of others Of the seditious at that
time, who had hidden  themselves under ground. But for Simon, he
was brought to Caesar in bonds, when he was come back to that
Cesarea which was on the seaside, who gave orders that he should
be kept against that triumph which he was to celebrate at Rome
upon this occasion.
  
CHAPTER 3.
  
  
  
How Titus Upon The Celebration Of His Brothers And
Fathers Birthdays Had Many Of The Jews Slain.
Concerning The Danger The Jews Were In At Antioch, By
Means Of The Transgression And Impiety Of One
Antiochus, A Jew.
  
1. While Titus was at Cesarea, he solemnized the birthday of his
brother Domitian] after a splendid manner, and inflicted a great
deal of the punishment intended for the Jews in honor of him; for
the number of those that were now slain in fighting with the
beasts, and were burnt, and fought with one another, exceeded two
thousand five hundred. Yet did all this seem to the Romans, when
they were thus destroyed ten thousand several ways, to be a 
punishment beneath their deserts. After this Caesar came to
Berytus, (4) which is a city of Phoenicia, and a Roman colony,
and staid there a longer time, and exhibited a still more pompous
solemnity about his father's birthday, both in the magnificence
of the shows, and in the other vast expenses he was at in his
devices thereto belonging; so that a great multitude of the
captives were here destroyed after the same manner as before.
  
2. It happened also about this time, that the Jews who remained
at Antioch were under accusations, and in danger of perishing,
from the disturbances that were raised against them by the
Antiochians; and this both on account of the slanders spread
abroad at this time against them, and on account of what pranks
they had played not long before; which I am obliged to describe
without fail, though briefly, that I may the better connect my
narration of future actions with those that went before.
  
3. For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the
habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much
intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighborhood, and had
the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of
the city, wherein the kings, after Antiochus, had afforded them a
habitation with the most undisturbed tranquillity; for though
Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, laid Jerusalem waste, and
spoiled the temple, yet did those that succeeded him in the
kingdom restore all the donations that were made of brass to the
Jews of Antioch, and dedicated them to their synagogue, and 
granted them the enjoyment of equal privileges of citizens with
the Greeks themselves; and as the succeeding kings treated them
after the same manner, they both multiplied to a great number,
and adorned their temple gloriously by fine ornaments, and with
great magnificence, in the use of what had been given them. They
also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually,
and thereby after a sort brought them to be a portion of their
own body. But about this time when the present war began, and
Vespasian was newly sailed to Syria, and all men had taken up a
great hatred against the Jews, then it was that a certain person,
whose name was Antiochus, being one of the Jewish  nation, and
greatly respected on account of his father, who was governor of
the Jews at Antioch (5) came upon the theater at a time when the
people of Antioch were assembled together, and became an informer
against his father, and accused both him and others that they had
resolved to burn the whole city in one night; he also delivered
up to them some Jews that were foreigners, as partners in their
resolutions. When the people heard this, they could not refrain
their passion, but commanded that those who were delivered up to
them should have fire  brought to burn them, who were accordingly
all burnt upon the theater immediately. They did also fall
violently upon the multitude of the Jews, as supposing that by
punishing them suddenly they should save their own city. As for
Antiochus, he aggravated the rage they were in, and thought to
give them a demonstration of his own conversion, arm of his
hatred of the Jewish customs, by sacrificing after the manner of
the Greeks; he persuaded the rest also to compel them to do the
same, because they would by that means discover who they were
that had plotted against them, since they would not do so; and
when the people of Antioch tried the experiment, some few
complied, but those that would not do so were slain. As for
Ailtiochus himself, he obtained soldiers from the Roman
commander, and became a severe master over his own citizens, not
permitting them to rest on the seventh day, but forcing them to
do all that they usually did on other days; and to that degree of
distress did he reduce them in this matter, that the rest of the
seventh day was dissolved not only at Antioch, but the same thing
which took thence its rise was done in other cities also, in like
manner, for some small time.
  
4. Now, after these misfortunes had happened to the Jews at
Antioch, a second calamity befell them, the description of which
when we were going about we premised the account foregoing; for
upon this accident, whereby the four-square market-place was
burnt down, as well as the archives, and the place where the
public records were preserved, and the royal palaces, (and it was
not without difficulty that the fire was then put a stop to,
which was likely, by the fury wherewith it was carried along, to
have gone over the whole city,) Antiochus accused the Jews as the
occasion of all the mischief that was done. Now this induced the
people of Antioch, who were now under the immediate persuasion,
by reason of the disorder they were in, that this calumny was
true, and would have been under the same persuasion, even though
they had not borne an ill-will at the Jews before, to believe
this man's accusation, especially when they considered what had
been done before, and this to such a degree, that they all fell
violently upon those that were accused, and this, like madmen, in
a very furious rage also, even as if they had seen the Jews in a
manner setting fire themselves to the city; nor was it without
difficulty that one Cneius Collegas, the legate, could prevail
with them to permit the affairs to be laid before Caesar; for as
to Cesennius Petus, the president of Syria, Vespasian had already
sent him away; and so it happened that he was not yet come back
thither. But when Collegas had made a careful inquiry into the
matter, he found out the truth, and that not one of those Jews
that were accused by Antiochus had any hand in it, but that all
was done by some vile  persons greatly in debt, who supposed that
if they could once set fire to the market-place, and burn the
public records, they should have no further demands made upon
them. So the Jews were under great disorder and terror, in the
uncertain expectations of what would be the upshot of these
accusations against them.

CHAPTER 4.
  
  
  
How Vespasian Was Received At Rome; As Also How The
Germans Revolted From The Romans, But Were Subdued.
That The Sarmatians Overran Mysia, But Were Compelled
To Retire To Their Own Country Again.
  
1. And now Titus Caesar, upon the news that was brought him
concerning his father, that his coming was much desired by all
the Italian cities, and that Rome especially received him with
great alacrity and splendor, betook himself to rejoicing and
pleasures to a great degree, as now freed from the solicitude he
had been under, after the most agreeable manner. For all men that
were in Italy showed their respects to him in their minds before
he came thither, as if he were already come, as esteeming the
very expectation they had of him to be his real presence, on
account of the great desires they had to see him, and because the
good-will they bore him was entirely free and unconstrained; for
it was, desirable thing to the senate, who well remembered the
calamities they had undergone in the late changes of their
governors, to receive a governor who was adorned with the gravity
of old age, and with the highest skill in the actions of war,
whose advancement would be, as they knew, for nothing else but
for the preservation of those that were to be governed. Moreover,
the people had been so harassed by their civil miseries, that
they were still more earnest for his coming immediately, as
supposing they should then be firmly  delivered from their
calamities, and believed they should then recover their secure
tranquillity and prosperity; and for the soldiery, they had the
principal regard to him, for they were chiefly apprized of his
great exploits in war; and since they had experienced the want of
skill and want of courage in other commanders, they were very
desirous to be free from that great shame they had undergone by
their means, and heartily wished to receive such a prince as
might be a security and an ornament to them. And as this
good-will to Vespasian was universal, those that enjoyed any
remarkable dignities could not have patience enough to stay in
Rome, but made haste to meet him at a very great distance from
it; nay, indeed, none of the rest could endure the delay of
seeing him, but did all pour out of the city in such crowds, and
were so universally possessed with the  opinion that it was
easier and better for them to go out than to stay there, that
this was the very first time that the city joyfully perceived
itself almost empty of its citizens; for those that staid within
were fewer than those that went out. But as soon as the news was
come that he was hard by, and those that had met him at first
related with what good humor he received every one that came to
him, then it was that the whole multitude that had remained in
the city, with their wives and children, came into the road, and
waited for him there; and for those whom he passed by, they made
all sorts of acclamations, on account of the joy they had to see
him, and the pleasantness of his countenance, and styled him
their Benefactor and Savior, and the only person who was worthy
to be ruler of the city of Rome. And now the city was like a
temple, full of garlands and sweet odors; nor was it easy for him
to come to the royal palace, for the multitude of the people that
stood about him, where yet at last he performed his sacrifices of
thanksgiving to his household gods for his safe return to the
city. The multitude did also betake themselves to feasting; which
feasts and drink-offerings they celebrated by their tribes, and
their families, and their neighborhoods, and still prayed God to
grant that Vespasian, his sons, and all their posterity, might
continue in the Roman government for a very long time, and that
his dominion might be preserved from all opposition. And this was
the manner in which Rome so joyfully received Vespasian, and
thence grew immediately into a state of great prosperity.
  
2. But before this time, and while Vespasian was about
Alexandria, and Titus was lying at the siege of Jerusalem, a
great multitude of the Germans were in commotion, and tended to
rebellion; and as the Gauls in their neighborhood joined with
them, they conspired together, and had thereby great hopes of
success, and that they should free themselves from the dominion
of the Romans. The motives that induced the Germans to this
attempt for a revolt, and for beginning the war, were these: In
the first place, the nature [of the people], which was destitute
of just reasonings, and ready to throw themselves rashly into
danger, upon small hopes; in the next place, the hatred they bore
to those that were their governors, while their nation had never
been conscious of subjection to any but to the Romans, and that
by compulsion only. Besides these motives, it was the opportunity
that now offered itself, which above all the rest prevailed with
them so to do; for when they saw the Roman government in a great
internal disorder, by the continual changes of its rulers, and
understood that every part of the habitable earth under them was
in an unsettled and tottering condition, they thought this was
the best opportunity that couldd afford itself for themselves to
make a sedition, when the state of the Romans was so ill.
Classicus (6) also, and Vitellius, two of their commanders,
puffed them up with such hopes. These had for a long time been
openly desirous of such an innovation, and were induced by the
present opportunity to venture upon the declaration of their
sentiments; the multitude was also ready; and when these men told
them of what they intended to attempt, that news was gladly
received by them. So when a great part of the Germans
had agreed to rebel, and the rest were no better disposed,
Vespasian, as guided by Divine Providence, sent letters to
Petilius Cerealis, who had formerly had the command of Germany,
whereby he declared him to have the dignity of consul, and
commanded him to take upon him the government of Britain; so he
went whither he was ordered to go, and when he was informed of
the revolt of the Germans, he fell upon them as soon as they were
gotten together, and put his army in battle-array, and slew a
great number of them in the fight, and forced them to leave off
their madness, and to grow wiser; nay, had he not fallen thus
suddenly upon them on the place, it had not been long ere they
would however have been brought to punishment; for as soon as
ever the news of their revolt was come to Rome, and Caesar
Domitian was made acquainted with it, he made no delay, even at
that his age, when he was exceeding young, but undertook this
weighty affair. He had a courageous mind from his father, and had
made greater  improvements than belonged to such an age:
accordingly he marched against the barbarians immediately;
whereupon their hearts failed them at the very rumor of his
approach, and they submitted themselves to him with fear, and
thought it a happy thing that they were brought under their old
yoke again without suffering any further mischiefs.  When
therefore Domitian had settled all the affairs of Gaul in such
good order, that it would not be easily put into disorder any
more, he returned to Rome with honor and glory, as having
performed such exploits as were above his own age, but worthy of
so great a father.

3. At the very same time with the forementioned revolt of the
Germans did the bold attempt of the Scythians against the Romans
occur; for those Scythians who are called Sarmatians, being a
very numerous people, transported themselves over the Danube into
Mysia, without being perceived; after which, by their violence,
and entirely unexpected assault, they slew a great many of the
Romans that guarded the frontiers; and as the consular legate
Fonteius Agrippa came to meet them, and fought courageously
against them, he was slain by them. They then overran all the
region that had been subject to him, tearing and rending every
thing that fell in their way. But when Vespasian was informed of
what had happened, and how Mysia was laid waste, he sent away
Rubrius Gallus to punish these Sarmatians; by whose means many of
them perished in the battles he fought against them, and that
part which escaped fled with fear to their own country. So when
this general had put an end to the war, he provided for the
future security of the country also; for he placed more and more
numerous garrisons in the place, till he made it altogether
impossible for the barbarians to pass over the river any more.
And thus had this war in Mysia a sudden conclusion.
  
CHAPTER V.
  
  
Concerning The Sabbatic River Which Titus Saw As He
Was Journeying Through Syria; And How The People Of
Antioch Came With A Petition To Titus Against The Jews
But Were Rejected By Him; As Also Concerning Titus's And
Vespasian's Triumph.
  
1. Now Titus Caesar tarried some time at Berytus, as we told you
before. He thence removed, and exhibited magnificent shows in all
those cities of Syria through which he went, and made use of the
captive Jews as public instances of the destruction of that
nation. He then saw a river as he went along, of such a nature as
deserves to be recorded in history; it runs in the middle between
Arcea, belonging to Agrippa's kingdom, and Raphanea. It hath
somewhat very peculiar in it; for when it runs, its current is
strong, and has plenty of water; after which its springs fail for
six days together, and leave its channel dry, as any one may see;
after which days it runs on the seventh day as it did before, and
as though it had undergone no change at all; it hath also been
observed to keep this order perpetually and exactly; whence it is
that they call it the Sabbatic River (7) that name being taken
from the sacred seventh day among the Jews.
  
2. But when the people of Antioch were informed that Titus was
approaching, they were so glad at it, that they could not keep
within their walls, but hasted away to give him the meeting; nay,
they proceeded as far as thirty furlongs, and more, with that
intention. These were not the men only, but a multitude of women
also with their children did the same; and when they saw him
coming up to them, they stood on both sides of the way, and
stretched out their right hands, saluting him, and making all
sorts of acclamations to him, and turned back together with him.
They also, among all the acclamations they made to him, besought
him all the way they went to eject the Jews out of their city;
yet did not Titus at all yield to this their petition, but gave
them the bare hearing of it quietly. However, the Jews were in a
great deal of terrible fear, under the uncertainty they were in
what his opinion was, and what he would do to them. For Titus did
not stay at Antioch, but continued his progress immediately to
Zeugma, which lies upon the Euphrates, whither came to him
messengers from Vologeses king of Parthia, and brought him a
crown of gold upon the victory he had gained over the Jews; which
he accepted of, and feasted the king's messengers, and then came
back to Antioch. And when the senate and people of Antioch
earnestly entreated him to come upon their theater, where their
whole multitude was assembled, and expected him, he complied with
great humanity; but when they pressed him with much earnestness,
and continually begged of him that he would eject the Jews out of
their city, he gave them this very pertinent answer: How can this
be done, since that country of theirs, whither the Jews must be
obliged then to retire, is destroyed, and no place will receive
them besides?" Whereupon the people of Antioch, when they had
failed of success in this their first request, made him a second;
for they desired that he would order those tables of brass to be
removed on which the Jews' privileges were engraven. However,
Titus would not grant that neither, but permitted the Jews of
Antioch to continue to enjoy the very same privileges in that
city which they had before, and then departed for Egypt; and as
he came to Jerusalem in his progress, and compared the melancholy
condition he saw it then in, with the ancient glory of the city,
and called to mind the greatness of its present ruins, as well as
its ancient splendor, he could not but pity the destruction of
the city, so far was he from boasting that so great and goodly a
city as that was had been by him taken by force; nay, he
frequently cursed those that had been the authors of their
revolt, and had brought such a punishment upon the city; insomuch
that it openly appeared that he did not desire that such a
calamity as this punishment of theirs amounted to should be a
demonstration of his courage. Yet was there no small quantity of
the riches that had been in that city still found among its
ruins, a great deal of which the Romans dug up; but the greatest
part was discovered by those who were captives, and so they
carried it away; I mean the gold and the silver, and the rest of
that most precious furniture which the Jews had, and which the
owners had treasured up under ground, against the uncertain
fortunes of war.
  
3. So Titus took the journey he intended into Egypt, and passed
over the desert very suddenly, and came to Alexandria, and took
up a resolution to go to Rome by sea. And as he was accompanied
by two legions, he sent each of them again to the places whence
they had before come; the fifth he sent to Mysia, and the
fifteenth to Pannonia: as for the leaders of the captives, Simon
and John, with the other seven hundred men, whom he had selected
out of the rest as being eminently tall and handsome of body, he
gave order that they should be soon carried to Italy, as
resolving to produce them in his triumph. So when he had had a
prosperous voyage to his mind, the city of Rome behaved itself in
his reception, and their meeting him at a distance, as it did in
the case of his father. But what made the most splendid
appearance in Titus's opinion was, when his father met him, and
received him; but still the multitude of the citizens conceived
the greatest joy when they saw them all three together, (8) as
they did at this time; nor were many days overpast when they
determined to have but one triumph, that should be common to both
of them, on account of the glorious exploits they had performed,
although the senate had decreed each of them a separate triumph
by himself. So when notice had been given  beforehand of the day
appointed for this pompous solemnity to be made, on account of
their victories, not one of the immense multitude was left in the
city, but every body went out so far as to gain only a station
where they might stand, and left only such a passage as was
necessary for those that were to be seen to go along it. 

4. Now all the soldiery marched out beforehand by companies, and
in their several ranks, under their several commanders, in the
night time, and were about the gates, not of the upper palaces,
but those near the temple of Isis; for there it was that the
emperors had rested the foregoing night. And as soon as ever it
was day, Vespasian and Titus came out crowned with laurel, and
clothed in those ancient purple habits which were proper to their
family, and then went as far as Octavian's Walks; for there it
was that the senate, and the principal rulers, and those that had
been recorded as of the equestrian order, waited for them. Now a
tribunal had been erected before the cloisters, and ivory chairs
had been set upon it, when they came and sat down upon them.
Whereupon the soldiery made an acclamation of joy to them
immediately, and all gave them attestations of their valor; while
they were themselves without their arms, and only in their silken
garments, and crowned with laurel: then Vespasian accepted of
these shouts of theirs; but while they were still disposed to go
on in such acclamations, he gave them a signal of silence. And
when every body entirely held their peace, he stood up, and
covering the greatest part of his head with his cloak, he put up
the accustomed solemn prayers; the like prayers did Titus put up
also; after which prayers Vespasian made a short speech to all
the people, and then sent away the
soldiers to a dinner prepared for them by the emperors. Then did
he retire to that gate which was called the Gate of the Pomp,
because pompous shows do always go through that gate; there it
was that they tasted some food, and when they had put on their
triumphal garments, and had offered sacrifices to the gods that
were placed at the gate, they sent the triumph forward, and
marched through the theatres, that they might be the more easily
seen by the multitudes.
  
5. Now it is impossible to describe the multitude of the shows as
they deserve, and the magnificence of them all; such indeed as a
man could not easily think of as performed, either by the labor
of workmen, or the variety of riches, or the rarities of nature;
for almost all such curiosities as the most happy men ever get by
piece-meal were here one heaped on another, and those both
admirable and costly in their nature; and all brought together on
that day demonstrated the vastness of the dominions of the
Romans; for there was here to be seen a mighty quantity of
silver, and gold, and ivory, contrived into all sorts of things,
and did not appear as carried along in pompous show only, but, as
a man may say, running along like a river. Some parts were
composed of the rarest purple hangings, and so carried along; and
others accurately represented to the life what was embroidered by
the arts of the Babylonians. There were also precious stones that
were transparent, some set in crowns of gold, and some in other
ouches, as the workmen pleased; and of these such a vast number
were brought, that we could not but thence learn how vainly we
imagined any of them to be rarities. The images of the gods were
also carried, being as well wonderful for their largeness, as
made very artificially, and with great skill of the workmen; nor
were any of these  images of any other than very costly
materials; and many species of animals were brought, every one in
their own natural ornaments. The men also who brought every one
of these shows were great multitudes, and adorned with purple
garments, all over interwoven with gold; those that were chosen
for carrying these pompous shows having also about them such
magnificent ornaments as were both extraordinary and surprising.
Besides these, one might see that even the great number of the
captives was not
unadorned, while the variety that was in their garments, and
their fine texture, concealed from the sight the deformity of
their bodies. But what afforded the greatest surprise of all was
the structure of the pageants that were borne along; for indeed
he that met them could not but be afraid that the bearers would
not be able firmly enough to support them, such was their
magnitude; for many of them were so made, that they were on three
or even four stories, one above another. The magnificence also of
their structure afforded one both pleasure and surprise; for upon
many of them were laid carpets of gold. There was also wrought
gold and ivory fastened about them all; and many resemblances of
the war, and those in several ways, and variety of contrivances,
affording a most lively portraiture of itself. For there was to
be seen a happy country laid waste, and entire squadrons of
enemies slain; while some of them ran away, and some were carried
into captivity; with walls of great altitude and magnitude
overthrown and ruined by machines; with the strongest
fortifications taken, and the walls of most populous cities upon
the tops of hills seized on, and an army pouring itself within
the walls; as also every place full of slaughter, and
supplications of the enemies, when they were no longer able to
lift up their hands in way of opposition. Fire also sent upon
temples was here represented, and houses overthrown, and falling
upon their owners: rivers also, after they came out of a large
and melancholy desert, ran down, not into a land cultivated, nor
as drink for men, or for cattle, but through a land still on fire
upon every side; for the Jews related that such a thing they had
undergone during this war. Now the workmanship of these
representations was so magnificent and lively in the construction
of the things, that it exhibited what had been done to such as
did not see it, as if they had been there really present. On the
top of every one of these pageants was placed the commander of
the city that was taken, and the manner wherein he was taken.
Moreover, there followed those pageants a great number of ships;
and for the other spoils, they were carried in great plenty. But
for those that were taken in the temple of Jerusalem, (9) they
made the greatest figure of them all; that is, the golden table,
of the weight of many talents; the candlestick also, that was
made of gold, though its
construction were now changed from that which we made use of; for
its middle shaft was fixed upon a basis, and the small branches
were produced out of it to a great length, having the likeness of
a trident in their position, and had every one a socket made of
brass for a lamp at the tops of them. These lamps were in number
seven, and represented the dignity of the number seven among the
Jews; and the last of all the spoils, was carried the Law of the
Jews. After these spoils passed by a great many men, carrying the
images of Victory, whose structure was entirely either of ivory
or of gold. After which Vespasian marched in the first place, and
Titus followed him; Domitian also rode along with them, and made
a glorious appearance, and rode on a horse that was worthy of
admiration.
  
6. Now the last part of this pompous show was at the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus, whither when they were come, they stood
still; for it was the Romans' ancient custom to stay till
somebody brought the news that the general of the enemy was
slain. This general was Simon, the son of Gioras, who had then
been led in this triumph among the captives; a rope had also been
put upon his head, and he had been drawn into a proper place in
the forum, and had withal been tormented by those that drew him
along; and the law of the Romans required that malefactors
condemned to die should be slain there.  Accordingly, when it was
related that there was an end of him, and all the people had set
up a shout for joy, they then began to offer those sacrifices
which they had consecrated, in the prayers used in such
solemnities; which when they had finished, they went away to the
palace. And as for some of the spectators, the emperors
entertained them at their own feast; and for all the rest there
were noble preparations made for feasting at home; for this was a
festival day to the city of Rome, as celebrated for the victory
obtained by their army over their enemies, for the end that was
now put to their civil miseries, and for the commencement of
their hopes of future prosperity and happiness.
  
7. After these triumphs were over, and after the affairs of the
Romans were settled on the surest foundations, Vespasian resolved
to build a temple to Peace, which was finished in so short a
time, and in so glorious a manner, as was beyond all human
expectation and opinion: for he having now by Providence a vast
quantity of wealth, besides what he had formerly gained in his
other exploits, he had this temple adorned with pictures and
statues; for in this temple were collected and deposited all such
rarities as men aforetime used to wander all over the habitable
world to see, when they had a desire to see one of them after
another; he also laid up therein those golden vessels and
instruments that were taken out of the Jewish temple, as ensigns
of his glory. But still he gave order that they should lay up
their Law, and the purple veils of the holy place, in the royal
palace itself, and keep them there.
  
CHAPTER 6.
  
  
  
Concerning Macherus, And How Lucilius Bassus Took That
Citadel, And Other Places.
  
1. Now Lucilius Bassus was sent as legate into Judea, and there
he received the army from Cerealis Vitellianus, and took that
citadel which was in Herodium, together with the garrison that
was in it; after which he got together all the soldiery that was
there, (which was a large body, but dispersed into several
parties,) with the tenth legion, and resolved to make war upon
Macherus; for it was highly necessary that this citadel should be
demolished, lest it might be a means of drawing away many into a
rebellion, by reason of its strength; for the nature of the place
was very capable of affording the surest hopes of safety to 
those that possessed it, as well as delay and fear to those that
should attack it; for what was walled in was itself a very rocky
hill, elevated to a very great height; which circumstance alone
made it very hard to he subdued. It was also so contrived by
nature, that it could not be easily ascended; for it is, as it
were, ditched about with such valleys on all sides, and to such a
depth, that the eye cannot reach their bottoms, and such as are
not easily to be passed over, and even such as it is impossible
to fill up with earth. For that valley which cuts it on the west
extends to threescore furlongs, and did not end till it came to
the lake Asphaltitis; on the same side it was also that Macherus
had the tallest top of its hill elevated above the rest. But then
for the valleys that lay on the north and south sides, although
they be not so large as that already described, yet it is in like
manner an impracticable thing to think of getting over them; and
for the valley that lies on the east side, its depth is found to
be no less than a hundred cubits. It extends as far as a mountain
that lies over against Macherus, with which it is bounded.
  
2. Now when Alexander [Janneus], the king of the Jews, observed
the nature of this place, he was the first who built a citadel
here, which afterwards was demolished by Gabinius, when he made
war against Aristobulus. But when Herod came to be king, he
thought the place to be worthy of the utmost regard, and of being
built upon in the firmest manner, and this especially because it
lay so near to Arabia; for it is seated in a convenient place on
that account, and hath a prospect toward that country; he  
therefore surrounded a large space of ground with walls
and towers, and built a city there, out of which city there was a
way that led up to the very citadel itself on the top of the
mountain; nay, more than this, he built a wall round that top of
the hill, and erected towers at the corners, of a hundred and
sixty cubits high; in the middle of which place he built a
palace, after a magnificent manner, wherein were large and
beautiful edifices. He also made a great many reservoirs for the
reception of water, that there might be plenty of it ready for
all uses, and those in the properest places that were afforded
him there. Thus did he, as it were, contend with the nature of
the place, that he might exceed its natural strength and security
(which yet itself rendered it hard to be taken) by those
fortifications which were made by the hands of men. Moreover, he
put a large quantity of darts and other machines of war into it,
and contrived to get every thing thither that might any way
contribute to its inhabitants' security, under the longest siege
possible.
  
3. Now within this place there grew a sort of rue (10) that
deserves our wonder on account of its largeness, for it was no
way inferior to any fig tree whatsoever, either in height or in
thickness; and the report is, that it had lasted ever since the
times of Herod, and would probably have lasted much longer, had
it not been cut down by those Jews who took possession of the
place afterward. But still in that valley which encompasses the
city on the north side there is a certain place called Baaras,
which produces a root of the same name with itself (11) its color
is like to that of flame, and towards the evenings it sends out a
certain ray like lightning. It is not easily taken by such as
would do it, but recedes from their hands, nor will yield itself
to be taken quietly, until either the urine of a woman, or her
menstrual blood, be poured upon it; nay, even then it is certain
death to those that touch it, unless any one take and hang the
root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away. It may also
be taken another way, without danger, which is this: they dig a
trench quite round about it, till the hidden part of the root be
very small, they then tie a dog to it, and when the dog tries
hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily plucked up,
but the dog dies immediately, as if it were instead of the man
that would take the plant away; nor after this need any one be
afraid of taking it into their hands. Yet, after all this pains
in getting, it is only valuable on account of one virtue it hath,
that if it be only brought to sick persons, it quickly drives
away those called demons, which are no other than the spirits of
the wicked, that enter into men that are alive and kill them,
unless they can obtain some help against them. Here are also
fountains of hot
water, that flow out of this place, which have a very different
taste one from the other; for some of them are bitter, and others
of them are plainly sweet. Here are also many eruptions of cold
waters, and this not only in the places that lie lower, and have
their fountains near one another, but, what is still more
wonderful, here is to be seen a certain cave hard by, whose
cavity is not deep, but it is covered over by a rock that is
prominent; above this rock there stand up two [hills or] breasts,
as it were, but a little distant one from another, the one of
which sends out a fountain that is very cold, and the other sends
out one that is very hot; which waters, when they are mingled
together, compose a most pleasant bath; they are medicinal indeed
for other maladies, but especially good for strengthening the
nerves. This place has in it also mines of sulfur and alum.
  
4. Now when Bassus had taken a full view of this place, he
resolved to besiege it, by filling up the valley that lay on the
east side; so he fell hard to work, and took great pains to raise
his banks as soon as possible, and by that means to render the
siege easy. As for the Jews that were caught in this place, they
separated themselves from the strangers that were with them, and
they forced those strangers, as an otherwise useless multitude,
to stay in the lower part of the city, and undergo the principal
dangers, while they themselves seized on the upper citadel, and
held it, and this both on account of its strength, and to provide
for their own safety. They also supposed they might obtain their
pardon, in case they should [at last] surrender the citadel.
However, they were willing to make trial, in the first place,
whether the hopes they had of avoiding a siege would come to any
thing; with which intention they made sallies every day, and
fought with those that met them; in which conflicts they were
many of them slain, as they therein slew many of the Romans. But
still it was the opportunities that presented themselves which
chiefly gained both sides their victories; these were gained by
the Jews, when they fell upon the Romans as they were off their
guard; but by the Romans, when, upon the others' sallies against
their banks, they foresaw their coming, and were upon their lard
when they received them. But the conclusion of this siege did not
depend upon these bickerings; but a certain surprising accident,
relating to what was done in this siege, forced the Jews to
surrender the citadel. There was a certain young man among the
besieged, of great boldness, and very active of his hand, his
name was Eleazar; he greatly signalized himself in those sallies,
and encouraged the Jews to go out in great numbers, in order to
hinder the raising of the banks, and did the Romans a vast deal
of mischief when they came to fighting; he so managed matters,
that those who sallied out made their attacks
easily, and returned back without danger, and this by still
bringing up the rear himself. Now it happened that, on a certain
time, when the fight was over, and both sides were parted, and
retired home, he, in way of contempt of the enemy, and thinking
that none of them would begin the fight again at that time, staid
without the gates, and talked with those that were upon the wall,
and his mind was wholly intent upon what they said. Now a certain
person belonging to the Roman camp, whose lame was Rufus, by
birth an Egyptian, ran upon him suddenly, when nobody expected
such a thing, and carried him off, with his armor itself; while,
in the mean time, those that saw it from the wall were under such
an amazement, that Rufus prevented their assistance, and carried
Eleazar to the Roman camp. So the general of the Romans ordered
that he should be taken up naked, set before the city to be seen,
and sorely whipped before their eyes. Upon this sad accident that
befell the young man, the Jews were terribly confounded, and the
city, with one voice, sorely lamented him, and the mourning
proved greater than could well be supposed upon the calamity of a
single person. When Bassus perceived that, he began to think of
using a stratagem against the enemy, and was desirous to
aggravate their grief, in order to prevail with them to surrender
the city for the preservation of that man. Nor did he fail of his
hope; for he commanded them to set up a cross, as if he were just
going to hang Eleazar upon it immediately; the sight of this
occasioned a sore grief among those that were in the citadel, and
they groaned vehemently, and cried out that they could not bear
to see him thus destroyed. Whereupon Eleazar besought them not to
disregard him, now he was going to suffer a
most miserable death, and exhorted them to save themselves, by
yielding to the Roman power and good fortune, since all other
people were now conquered by them. These men were greatly moved
with what he said, there being also many within the city that
interceded for him, because he was of an eminent and very
numerous family; so they now yielded to their passion of
commiseration, contrary to their usual custom. Accordingly, they
sent out immediately certain messengers, and treated with the
Romans, in order to a surrender of the citadel to them, and
desired that they might be permitted to go away, and take Eleazar
along with them. Then did the Romans and their general accept of
these terms; while the multitude of strangers that were in the
lower part of the city, hearing of the agreement that was made by
the Jews for themselves alone, were resolved to fly away
privately in the night time; but as soon as they had opened their
gates, those that had come to terms with Bassus told him of it;
whether it were that they envied the others' deliverance, or
whether it were done out of fear, lest an occasion should be
taken against them upon their escape, is uncertain. The most
courageous, therefore, of those men that went out prevented the
enemy, and got away, and fled for it; but for those men that were
caught within they
  
5. When Bassus had settled these affairs, he marched hastily to
the forest of Jarden, as it is called; for he had heard that a
great many of those that had fled from Jerusalem and Macherus
formerly were there gotten together. When he was therefore come
to the place, and understood that the former news was no mistake,
he, in the first place, surrounded the whole place with his
horsemen, that such of the Jews as had boldness enough to try to
break through might have no way possible for escaping, by reason
of the situation of these horsemen; and for the footmen, he
ordered them to cut down the trees that were in the wood whither
they were fled. So the Jews were under a necessity of performing
some glorious exploit, and of greatly exposing themselves in a
battle, since they might perhaps thereby escape. So they made a
general attack, and with a great shout fell upon those that
surrounded them, who received them with great courage; and so
while the one side fought desperately, and the others would not
yield, the fight was prolonged on that account. But the event of
the battle did not answer the expectation of the assailants; for
so it happened, that no more than twelve fell on the Roman side,
with a few that were wounded; but not one of the Jews escaped out
of this battle, but they were all killed, being in the whole not
fewer in number than three thousand, together with Judas, the son
of Jairus, their general, concerning whom we have before spoken,
that he had been a captain of a certain band at the siege of
Jerusalem, and by going down into a certain vault under ground,
had privately made his escape.
  
6. About the same time it was that Caesar sent a letter to
Bassus, and to Liberius Maximus, who was the procurator [of
Judea], and gave order that all Judea should be exposed to sale
(12) for he did not found any city there, but reserved the
country for himself. However, he assigned a place for eight
hundred men only, whom he had dismissed from his army, which he
gave them for their habitation; it is called Emmaus, (13) and is
distant from Jerusalem threescore furlongs. He also laid a
tribute upon the Jews wheresoever they were, and enjoined every
one of them to bring two drachmae every year into the Capitol, as
they used to pay the same to the temple at Jerusalem. And this
was the state of the Jewish affairs at this time.
  
CHAPTER 7.
  
  
  
Concerning The Calamity That Befell Antiochus, King Of
Commagene. As Also Concerning The Alans And What
Great Mischiefs They Did To The Medes And Armenians.
  
1. And now, in the fourth year of the reign of Vespasian, it came
to pass that Antiochus, the king of Commagene, with all his
family, fell into very great calamities. The occasion was this:
Cesennius Petus, who was president of Syria at this time, whether
it were done out of regard to truth, or whether out of hatred to
Antiochus, (for which was the real motive was never thoroughly
discovered,) sent an epistle to Caesar, and therein told him that
Antiochus, with his son Epiphanes, had resolved to rebel against
the Romans, and had made a league with the king of Parthia to
that purpose; that it was therefore fit to prevent them, lest
they prevent us, and begin such a war as may cause a general
disturbance in the Roman empire. Now Caesar was disposed to take
some care about the matter, since this discovery was made; for
the neighborhood of the kingdoms made this affair worthy of
greater regard; for Samoseta, the capital of Commagene, lies upon
Euphrates, and upon any such design could afford an easy passage
over it to the Parthians, and could also afford them a secure
reception. Petus was accordingly believed, and had authority
given him of doing what he should think proper in the case; so he
set about it without delay, and fell upon Commagene before
Antiochus and his people had the least expectation of his coming:
he had with him the tenth legion, as also some cohorts and troops
of horsemen. These kings also came to his assistance:
Aristobulus, king of the country called Chalcidene, and Sohemus,
who was called king of Emesa. Nor was there any opposition made
to his forces when they entered the kingdom; for no one of that
country would so much as lift up his hand against them. When
Antiochus
heard this unexpected news, he could not think in the least of
making war with the Romans, but determined to leave his whole
kingdom in the state wherein it now was, and to retire privately,
with his wife and children, as thinking thereby to demonstrate
himself to the Romans to be innocent as to the accusation laid
against him. So he went away from that city as far as a hundred
and twenty furlongs, into a plain, and there pitched his tents.
  
2. Petus then sent some of his men to seize upon Samosate, and by
their means took possession of that city, while he went himself
to attack Antiochus with the rest of his army. However, the king
was not prevailed upon by the distress he was in to do any thing
in the way of war against the Romans, but bemoaned his own hard
fate, and endured with patience what he was not able to prevent.
But his sons, who were young, and unexperienced in war, but of
strong bodies, were not easily induced to bear this calamity
without fighting. Epiphanes, therefore, and Callinicus, betook
themselves to military force; and as the battle was a sore one,
and lasted all the day long, they showed their own valor in a
remarkable manner, and nothing but the approach of night put a
period thereto, and that without any diminution of their forces;
yet would not Antiochus, upon this conclusion of the fight,
continue there by any means, but took his wife and his daughters,
and fled away with them to Cilicia, and by so doing quite
discouraged the minds of his own soldiers. Accordingly, they
revolted, and went over to the Romans, out of the despair they
were in of his keeping the kingdom; and his case was looked upon
by all as quite desperate. It was therefore necessary that
Epiphanes and his soldiers should get clear of their enemies
before they became entirely destitute of any confederates; nor
were there any more than ten horsemen with him, who passed with
him over Euphrates, whence they went undisturbed to Vologeses,
the king of Parthie, where they were not disregarded as
fugitives, but had the same respect paid them as if they had
retained their ancient prosperity.
  
3. Now when Antiochus was come to Tarsus in Cilicia, Petus
ordered a centurion to go to him, and send him in bonds to Rome.
However, Vespasian could not endure to have a king brought to him
in that manner, but thought it fit rather to have a regard to the
ancient friendship that had been between them, than to preserve
an inexorable anger upon pretense of this war. Accordingly, he
gave orders that they should take off his bonds, while he was
still upon the road, and that he should not come to Rome, but
should now go and live at Lacedemon; he also gave him large
revenues, that he might not only live in plenty, but like a king
also. When Epiphanes, who before was in great fear for his
father, was informed of this, their minds were freed from that
great and almost incurable concern they had been under. He also
hoped that Caesar would be reconciled to them, upon the
intercession of Vologeses; for although he lived in plenty, he
knew not how to bear living out of the Roman empire. So Caesar
gave him leave, after an obliging manner, and he came to Rome;
and as his father came quickly to him from Lacedemon, he had all
sorts of respect paid him there, and there he remained.
  
4. Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have  formerly
mentioned some where as being Scythians and inhabiting at the
lake Meotis. This nation about this time laid a design of falling
upon Media, and the parts beyond it, in order to plunder them;
with which intention they treated with the king of Hyrcania; for
he was master of that passage which king Alexander [the Great]
shut up with iron gates. This king gave them leave to come
through them; so they came in great multitudes, and fell upon the
Medes unexpectedly, and plundered their country, which they found
full of people, and replenished with abundance of cattle, while
nobody durst make any resistance against them; for Paeorus, the
king of the country, had fled away for fear into places where
they could not easily come at him, and had yielded up every thing
he had to them, and had only saved his wife and his concubines
from them, and that with difficulty also, after they had been
made captives, by giving them a hundred talents for their ransom.
These Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition,
and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying all
waste before them. Now Tiridates was king of that country, who
met them, and fought them, but had like to have been taken alive
in the battle; for a certain man threw a net over him from a
great distance, and had soon drawn him to him, unless he had
immediately cut the cord with his sword, and ran away, and
prevented it. So the Alans, being still more provoked by this
sight, laid waste the country, and drove a great multitude of the
men, and a great quantity of the other prey they had gotten out
of both kingdoms, along with them, and then retreated back to
their own country. 

CHAPTER 8.
  
  
  
Concerning Masada And Those Sicarii Who Kept It; And
How Silva Betook Himself To Form The Siege Of That
Citadel. Eleazar's Speeches To The Besieged.
  
1. When Bassus was dead in Judea, Flavius Silva succeeded him as
procurator there; who, when he saw that all the rest of the
country was subdued in this war, and that there was but one only
strong hold that was still in rebellion, he got all his army
together that lay in different places, and made an expedition
against it. This fortress was called Masada. It was one Eleazar,
a potent man, and the commander of these Sicarii, that had seized
upon it. He was a descendant from that Judas who had persuaded
abundance of the Jews, as we have formerly related, not to submit
to the taxation when Cyrenius was sent into Judea to make one;
for then it was that the Sicarii got together against those that
were willing to submit to the Romans, and treated them in all
respects as if they had been their enemies, both by plundering
them of what they had, by driving away their cattle, and by
setting fire to their houses; for they said that they differed
not at all from foreigners, by betraying, in so cowardly a
manner, that freedom which Jews thought worthy to be contended
for to the utmost, and by owning that they preferred slavery
under the Romans before such a contention. Now this was in
reality no better than a pretense and a cloak for the barbarity
which was made use of by them, and to color over their own
avarice, which they afterwards made evident by their own actions;
for those that were partners with them in their rebellion joined
also with them in the war against the Romans, and went further
lengths with them in their impudent undertakings against them;
and when they were again convicted of dissembling in such their
pretenses, they still more abused those that justly reproached
them for their  wickedness. And indeed that was a time most
fertile in all manner of wicked practices, insomuch that no kind
of evil deeds were then left undone; nor could any one so much as
devise any bad thing that was new, so deeply were they all
infected, and strove with one another in their single capacity,
and in their communities, who should run the greatest lengths in
impiety towards God, and in unjust actions towards their
neighbors; the men of power oppressing the multitude, and the
multitude earnestly laboring to destroy the men of power. The one
part were
desirous of tyrannizing over others, and the rest of offering
violence to others, and of plundering such as were richer than
themselves. They were the Sicarii who first began these
transgressions, and first became barbarous towards those allied
to them, and left no words of reproach unsaid, and no works of
perdition untried, in order to destroy those whom their
contrivances affected. Yet did John demonstrate by his actions
that these Sicarii were more moderate than he was himself, for he
not only slew all such as gave him good counsel to do what was
right, but treated them worst of all, as the most bitter enemies
that he had among all the Citizens; nay, he filled his entire
country with ten thousand instances of wickedness, such as a man
who was already hardened sufficiently in his impiety towards God
would naturally do; for the food was unlawful that was set upon
his table, and he rejected those purifications that the law of
his country had ordained; so that it was no longer a wonder if
he, who was so mad in his impiety towards God, did not observe
any rules of gentleness and common affection towards men. Again,
therefore, what mischief was there which Simon the son of Gioras
did not do? or what kind of abuses did he abstain from as to
those very free-men who had set him up for a tyrant? What
friendship or kindred were there that did not make him more bold
in his daily murders? for they looked upon the doing of mischief
to strangers only as a work beneath their courage, but thought
their barbarity towards their nearest relations would be a
glorious demonstration thereof. The Idumeans also strove with
these men who should be guilty of the greatest madness! for they
[all], vile wretches as they were, cut the throats of the high
priests, that so no part of a religious regard to God. might be
preserved; they thence proceeded to destroy utterly the least
remains of a political government, and introduced the most
complete scene of iniquity in all instances that were
practicable; under which scene that sort of people that were
called zealots grew up, and who indeed corresponded to the name;
for they imitated every wicked work; nor, if their memory
suggested any evil thing that had formerly been done, did they
avoid zealously to pursue the same; and although they gave
themselves that name from their zeal for what was good, yet did
it agree to them only by way of irony, on account of those they
had unjustly treated by their wild and brutish disposition, or as
thinking the greatest mischiefs to be the greatest good.
Accordingly, they all met with such ends as God deservedly
brought upon them in way of punishment; for all such miseries
have been sent upon them as man's nature is capable of
undergoing, till the utmost period of their lives, and till death
came upon them in various ways of torment; yet might one say
justly that they suffered less than they had done, because it was
impossible they could be punished according to their deserving.
But to make a lamentation according to the deserts of those who
fell under these men's barbarity, this is not a proper place for
it; - I therefore now return again to the remaining part of the
present narration.
  
2. For now it was that the Roman general came, and led  his army
against Eleazar and those Sicarii who held the fortress Masada
together with him; and for the whole country adjoining, he
presently gained it, and put garrisons into the most proper
places of it; he also built a wall quite round the entire
fortress, that none of the besieged might easily escape; he also
set his men to guard the several parts of it; he also pitched his
camp in such an agreeable place as he had chosen for the siege,
and at which place the rock belonging to the fortress did make
the nearest approach to the neighboring mountain, which yet was a
place of difficulty for getting plenty of provisions; for it was
not only food that was to be brought from a great distance [to
the army], and this with a great deal of pain to those Jews who
were appointed for that purpose, but water was
also to be brought to the camp, because the place afforded no
fountain that was near it. When therefore Silva had ordered these
affairs beforehand, he fell to besieging the place; which siege
was likely to stand in need of a great deal of skill and pains,
by reason of the strength of the fortress, the nature of which I
will now describe.
  
3. There was a rock, not small in circumference, and very high.
It was encompassed with valleys of such vast depth downward, that
the eye could not reach their bottoms; they were abrupt, and such
as no animal could walk upon, excepting at two places of the
rock, where it subsides, in order to afford a passage for ascent,
though not without difficulty. Now, of the ways that lead to it,
one is that from the lake Asphaltiris, towards the sun-rising,
and another on the west, where the ascent is easier: the one of
these ways is called the Serpent, as resembling that animal in
its narrowness and its perpetual windings; for it is broken off
at the prominent precipices of the rock, and returns frequently
into itself, and lengthening again by little and little, hath
much ado to proceed forward; and he that would walk along it must
first go on one leg, and then on the other; there is also nothing
but destruction, in case your feet slip; for on each side there
is a vastly deep chasm and precipice, sufficient to quell the
courage of every body by the terror it infuses into the mind.
When, therefore, a man hath gone along this way for thirty
furlongs, the rest is the top of the hill - not ending at a small
point, but is no other than a plain upon the highest part of the
mountain. Upon this top of the hill, Jonathan the high priest
first of all built a fortress, and called it Masada: after which
the rebuilding of this place employed the care of king Herod to a
great degree; he also built a wall round about the entire top of
the hill, seven furlongs long; it was composed of white stone;
its height was twelve, and its breadth eight cubits; there were
also erected upon that wall thirty-eight towers, each of them
fifty cubits high; out of which you might pass into lesser
edifices, which were built on the inside, round the entire wall;
for the king reserved the top of the hill, which was of a fat
soil, and better mould than any valley for agriculture, that such
as committed themselves to this fortress for their preservation
might not even there be quite destitute of food, in case they
should ever be in want of it from abroad. Moreover, he built a
palace therein at the western ascent; it was within and beneath
the walls of the citadel, but inclined to its north side. Now the
wall of this palace was very high and strong, and had at its four
corners towers sixty cubits high. The furniture also of the
edifices, and of the cloisters, and of the baths, was of great
variety, and very costly; and these buildings were supported by
pillars of single stones on every side; the walls and also the
floors of the edifices were paved with stones of several colors.
He also had cut many and great pits, as reservoirs for water, out
of the rocks, at every one of the places that were inhabited,
both above and round about the palace, and before the wall; and
by this contrivance he endeavored to have water for several uses,
as if there had been fountains there. Here was also a road digged
from the palace, and leading to the very top of the mountain,
which yet could not be seen by such as were without [the walls];
nor indeed could enemies easily make use of the plain roads; for
the road on the east side, as we have already taken notice, could
not be walked upon, by reason of its nature; and for the western
road, he built a large tower at its narrowest place, at no less a
distance from the top of the hill than a thousand cubits; which
tower could not possibly be passed by, nor could it be easily
taken; nor indeed could those that walked along it without any
fear (such was its contrivance) easily get to the end of it; and
after such a manner was this citadel fortified, both by nature
and by the hands of men, in order to frustrate the attacks of
enemies.
  
4. As for the furniture that was within this fortress, it was
still more wonderful on account of its splendor and long
continuance; for here was laid up corn in large quantities, and
such as would subsist men for a long time; here was also wine and
oil in abundance, with all kinds of pulse and dates heaped up
together; all which Eleazar found there, when he and his Sicarii
got possession of the fortress by treachery. These fruits were
also fresh and full ripe, and no way inferior to such fruits
newly laid in, although they were little short of a hundred years
(14) from the laying in these provisions [by Herod], till the
place was taken by the Romans; nay, indeed, when the Romans got
possession ofthose fruits that were left, they found them not
corrupted all that while; nor should we be mistaken, if we
supposed that the air was here the cause of their enduring so
long; this fortress being so high, and so free from the mixture
of all terrain and muddy particles of matter. There was also
found here a large quantity of all sorts of weapons of war, which
had been treasured up by that king, and were sufficient for ten
thousand men; there was east iron, and brass, and tin, which show
that he had taken much pains to have all things here ready for
the greatest occasions; for the report goes how Herod thus
prepared this fortress on his own account, as a refuge against
two kinds of danger; the one for fear of the multitude of the
Jews, lest they should depose him, and restore their former kings
to the government; the other danger was greater and more
terrible, which arose from Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who did not
conceal her intentions, but spoke often to Antony, and desired
him to cut off Herod, and entreated him to bestow the kingdom of
Judea upon her. And certainly it is a great wonder that Antony
did never comply with her commands in this point, as he was so
miserably enslaved to his passion for her; nor should any one
have been surprised if she had been gratified in such her
request. So the fear of these dangers made Herod rebuild Masada,
and thereby leave it for the finishing stroke of the Romans in
this Jewish war.
  
5. Since therefore the Roman commander Silva had now built a wall
on the outside, round about this whole place, as we have said
already, and had thereby made a most accurate provision to
prevent any one of the besieged running away, he undertook the
siege itself, though he found but one single place that would
admit of the banks he was to raise; for behind that tower which
secured the road that led to the palace, and to the top of the
hill from the west; there was a certain eminency of the rock,
very broad and very prominent, but three hundred cubits beneath
the highest part of Masada; it was called the White Promontory.
Accordingly, he got upon that part of the rock, and ordered the
army to bring earth; and when they fell to that work with
alacrity, and abundance of them together, the bank was raised,
and became solid for two hundred cubits in height. Yet was not
this bank thought sufficiently high for the use of the engines
that were to be set upon it; but still another elevated work of
great stones compacted together was raised upon that bank; this
was fifty cubits, both in breadth and height. The other machines
that were now got ready were like to those that had been first
devised by Vespasian, and afterwards by Titus, for sieges. There
was also a tower made of the height of sixty cubits, and all over
plated with iron, out of which the Romans threw darts and stones
from the engines, and soon made those that fought from the walls
of the place to retire, and would not let them lift up their
heads above the works. At the same time Silva ordered that great
battering ram which he had made to be brought thither, and to be
set against the wall, and to make frequent batteries against it,
which with some difficulty broke down a part of the wall, and
quite overthrew it.  However, the Sicarii made haste, and
presently built another wall within that, which should not be
liable to the same misfortune from the machines with the other;
it was made soft and yielding, and so was capable of avoiding the
terrible blows that affected the other. It was framed after the
following manner: They laid together great beams of wood
lengthways, one close to the end of another, and the same way in
which they were cut: there were two of these rows parallel to one
another, and laid at such a distance from each other as the
breadth of the wall required, and earth was put into the space
between those rows. Now, that the earth might not fall away upon
the elevation of this bank to a greater height, they further laid
other beams over cross them, and thereby bound those beams
together that lay lengthways. This work of theirs was like a real
edifice; and when the machines were applied, the blows were
weakened by its yielding; and as the materials by such concussion
were shaken closer together, the pile by that means became firmer
than before. When Silva saw this, he thought it best to endeavor
the taking of this wall by setting fire to it; so he gave order
that the soldiers should throw a great number of burning torches
upon it: accordingly, as it was chiefly made of wood, it soon
took fire; and when it was once set on fire, its hollowness made
that fire spread to a mighty flame. Now, at the very beginning of
this fire, a north wind that then blew proved terrible to the
Romans; for by bringing the flame downward, it drove it upon
them, and they were almost in despair of success, as fearing
their machines would be burnt: but after this, on a sudden the
wind changed into the south, as if it were done by Divine
Providence, and blew strongly the contrary way, and carried the
flame, and drove it against the wall, which was now on fire
through its entire thickness. So the Romans, having now
assistance from God, returned to their camp with joy, and
resolved to attack their enemies the very next day; on which
occasion they set their watch more carefully that night, lest any
of the Jews should run away from them without being discovered.
  
6. However, neither did Eleazar once think of flying away, nor
would he permit any one else to do so; but when he saw their wall
burned down by the fire, and could devise no other way of
escaping, or room for their further courage, and setting before
their eyes what the Romans would do to them, their children, and
their wives, if they got them into their power, he consulted
about having them all slain. Now as he judged this to be the best
thing they could do in their present circumstances, he gathered
the most courageous of his companions together, and encouraged
them to take that course by a speech (15) which he made to them
in the manner following: "Since we, long ago, my generous 
friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any
other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of
mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that
resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a
reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly
would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger,
but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also
as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the
Romans once reduce us under their power while we are alive. We
were the very first that revolted from them, and we are the last
that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor
that God hath granted us, that it is still in our power to die
bravely, and in a state of freedom, which hath not been the case
of others, who were conquered unexpectedly. It is very plain that
we shall be taken within a day's time; but it is still an
eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our
dearest friends. This is what our enemies themselves cannot by
any means hinder, although they be very desirous to take us
alive. Nor can we propose to ourselves any more to fight them,
and beat them. It had been proper indeed for us to have
conjectured at the purpose of God much sooner, and at the very
first, when we were so desirous of defending our liberty, and
when we received such sore treatment from one another, and worse
treatment from our enemies, and to have been sensible that the
same God, who had of old taken the Jewish nation into his favor,
had now condemned them to destruction; for had he either
continued favorable, or been but in a lesser degree displeased
with us, he had not overlooked the destruction of so many men, or
delivered his most holy city to be burnt and demolished by our
enemies. To be sure we weakly hoped to have
preserved ourselves, and ourselves alone, still in a state of
freedom, as if we had been guilty of no sins ourselves against
God, nor been partners with those of others; we also taught other
men to preserve their liberty. Wherefore, consider how God hath
convinced us that our hopes were in vain, by bringing such
distress upon us in the desperate state we are now in, and which
is beyond all our expectations; for the nature of this fortress
which was in itself unconquerable, hath not proved a means of our
deliverance; and even while we have still great abundance of
food, and a great quantity of arms, and other necessaries more
than we want, we are openly deprived by God himself of all hope
of deliverance; for that fire which was driven upon our enemies
did not of its own accord turn back upon the wall which we had
built; this was the effect of God's anger against us for our
manifold sins, which we have been guilty of in a most insolent
and extravagant manner with regard to our own countrymen; the
punishments of which let us not receive from the Romans, but from
God himself, as executed by our own hands; for these will be more
moderate than the other. Let our wives die before they are
abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery; and
after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit
upon one another mutually, and preserve ourselves in freedom, as
an excellent funeral monument for us. But first let us destroy
our money and the fortress by fire; for I am well assured that
this will be a great grief to the Romans, that they shall not be
able to seize upon our bodies, and shall fall of our wealth also;
and let us spare nothing but our provisions; for they will be a
testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of
necessaries, but that, according to our original resolution, we
have preferred death before slavery."
  
7. This was Eleazar's speech to them. Yet did not the opinions of
all the auditors acquiesce therein; but although some of them
were very zealous to put his advice in practice, and were in a
manner filled with pleasure at it, and thought death to be a good
thing, yet had those that were most effeminate a commiseration
for their wives and families; and when these men were especially
moved by the prospect of their own certain death, they looked
wistfully at one another, and by the tears that were in their
eyes declared their dissent from his opinion. When Eleazar saw
these people in such fear, and that their souls were dejected at
so prodigious a proposal, he was afraid lest perhaps these
effeminate persons should, by their lamentations and tears,
enfeeble those that heard what he had said courageously; so he
did not leave off exhorting them, but stirred up himself, and
recollecting proper arguments for raising their courage, he
undertook to speak more briskly and fully to them, and that
concerning the immortality of the soul. So he made a lamentable
groan, and fixing his eyes intently on those that wept, he spake
thus: "Truly, I was greatly mistaken when I thought to be
assisting to brave men who struggled hard for their liberty, and
to such as were resolved either to live with honor, or else to
die; but I find that you are such people as are no better than
others, either in virtue or in courage, and are afraid of dying,
though you be delivered thereby from the greatest miseries, while
you ought to make no delay in this matter, nor to await any one
to give you good advice; for the laws of our country, and of God
himself, have from ancient times, and as soon as ever we could
use our reason, continually taught us, and our forefathers have
corroborated the same doctrine by their actions, and by their
bravery of mind, that it is life that is a calamity to men, and
not death; for this last affords our souls their liberty, and
sends them by a removal into their own place of purity, where
they are to be insensible of all sorts of misery; for while souls
are tied clown to a mortal body, they are partakers of its
miseries; and really, to speak the truth, they are themselves
dead; for the union of what is divine to what is mortal is
disagreeable. It is true, the power of the soul is great, even
when it is imprisoned in a mortal body; for by moving it after a
way that is invisible, it makes the body a sensible instrument,
and causes it to advance further in its actions than mortal
nature could otherwise do. However, when it is freed from that
weight which draws it down to the earth and is connected with it,
it obtains its own proper place, and does then become a partaker
of that blessed power, and those abilities, which are then every
way incapable of being hindered in their operations. It continues
invisible, indeed, to the eyes of men, as does God himself; for
certainly it is not itself seen while it is in the body; for it
is there after an invisible manner, and when it is freed from it,
it is still not seen. It is this soul which hath one nature, and
that an incorruptible one also; but yet it is the cause of the
change that is made in the body; for whatsoever it be which the
soul touches, that lives and flourishes; and from whatsoever it
is removed, that withers away and dies; such a degree is there in
it of immortality. Let me produce the state of sleep as a most
evident demonstration of the truth of what I say; wherein souls,
when the body does not distract them, have the sweetest rest
depending on themselves, and conversing with God, by their
alliance to him; they then go every where, and foretell many
futurities beforehand. And why are we afraid of death, while we
are pleased with the rest that we have in sleep? And how absurd a
thing is it to pursue after liberty while we are alive, and yet
to envy it to ourselves where it will be eternal! We, therefore,
who have been brought up in a discipline of our own, ought to
become an example to others of our readiness to die. Yet, if we
do stand in need of foreigners to support us in this matter, let
us regard those Indians who profess the exercise of philosophy;
for these good men do but unwillingly undergo the time of life,
and look upon it as a necessary servitude, and make haste to let
their souls loose from their bodies; nay, when no misfortune
presses them to it, nor drives them upon it, these have such a
desire of a life of immortality, that they tell other men
beforehand that they are about to depart; and nobody hinders
them, but every one thinks them happy men, and gives them letters
to be carried to their familiar friends [that are dead], so
firmly and certainly do they believe that souls converse with one
another [in the other world]. So when these men have heard all
such commands that were to be given them, they deliver their body
to the fire; and, in order to their getting their soul a
separation from the body in the greatest purity, they die in the
midst of hymns of commendations made to them; for their dearest
friends conduct them to their death more readily than do any of
the rest of mankind conduct their fellow-citizens when they are
going a very long journey, who at the same time weep on their own
account, but look upon the others as happy persons, as so soon to
be made partakers of the immortal order of beings. Are not we,
therefore, ashamed to have lower notions than the Indians? and by
our own cowardice to lay a base reproach upon the laws of our
country, which are so much desired and imitated by all mankind?
But put the case that we had been brought up under another
persuasion, and taught that life is the greatest good which men
are capable of, and that death is a calamity; however, the
circumstances we are now in ought to he an inducement to us to
bear such calamity courageously, since it is by the will of God,
and by necessity, that we are to die; for it now appears that God
hath made such a decree against the whole Jewish nation, that we
are to be deprived of this life which [he knew] we would not make
a due use of. For do not you ascribe the occasion of our present
condition to yourselves, nor think the Romans are the true
occasion that this war we have had with them is become so
destructive to us all: these things have not come to pass by
their power, but a more powerful cause hath intervened,  and made
us afford them an occasion of their appearing to be conquerors
over us. What Roman weapons, I pray you, were those by which the
Jews at Cesarea were slain? On the contrary, when they were no
way disposed to rebel, but were all the while keeping their
seventh day festival, and did not so much as lift up their hands
against the citizens of Cesarea, yet did those citizens run upon
them in great crowds, and cut their throats, and the throats of
their wives and children, and this without any regard to the
Romans themselves, who never took us for their enemies till we
revolted from them. But some may be ready to say, that truly the
people of Cesarea had always a quarrel against those that lived
among them, and that when an opportunity offered itself, they
only satisfied the old rancor they had against them. What then
shall we say to those of Scythopolis, who ventured to wage war
with us on account of the Greeks? Nor did they do it by way of
revenge upon the Romans, when they acted in concert with our
countrymen. Wherefore you see how little our good-will and 
fidelity to them profiled us, while they were slain, they and
their whole families, after the most inhuman manner, which was
all the requital that was made them for the assistance they had
afforded the others; for that very same destruction which they
had prevented from falling upon the others did they suffer
themselves from them, as if they had been ready to be the actors
against them. It would be too long for me to speak at this time
of every destruction brought upon us; for you cannot but know
that there was not any one Syrian city which did not slay their
Jewish inhabitants, and were not more bitter enemies to us than
were the Romans themselves; nay, even those of Damascus, (16)
when they were able to allege no tolerable pretense against us,
filled their city with the most barbarous slaughters of our
people, and cut the throats of eighteen thousand Jews, with their
wives and children. And as to the multitude of those that were
slain in Egypt, and that with torments also, we have been
informed they were more than sixty thousand; those indeed being
in a foreign country, and so naturally meeting with nothing to
oppose against their enemies, were killed in the manner
forementioned. As for all those of us who have waged war against
the Romans in our own country, had we not sufficient reason to
have sure hopes of victory? For we had arms, and walls, and
fortresses so prepared as not to be easily taken, and courage not
to be moved by any dangers in the cause of liberty, which
encouraged us all to revolt from the Romans. But then these
advantages sufficed us but for a short time, and only raised our
hopes, while they really appeared to be the origin of our
miseries; for all we had hath been taken from us, and all hath
fallen under our enemies, as if these advantages were only to
render their victory over us the more glorious, and were not
disposed for the preservation of those by whom these preparations
were made. And as for those that are already dead in the war, it
is reasonable we should esteem them blessed, for they are dead in
defending, and not in betraying their liberty; but as to the
multitude of those that are now under the Romans, who would not
pity their condition? and who would not make haste to die, before
he would suffer the same miseries with them? Some of them have
been put upon the rack, and tortured with fire and whippings, and
so died. Some have been half devoured by wild beasts, and yet
have been reserved alive to be devoured by them a second time, in
order to afford laughter and sport to our enemies; and such of
those as are alive still are to be looked on as the most 
miserable, who, being so desirous of death, could not come at it.
And where is now that great city, the metropolis of the Jewish
nation, which vas fortified by so many walls round about, which
had so many fortresses and large towers to defend it, which could
hardly contain the instruments prepared for the war, and which
had so many ten thousands of men to fight for it? Where is this
city that was believed to have God himself inhabiting therein? It
is now demolished to the very foundations, and hath nothing but
that monument of it preserved, I mean the camp of those that hath
destroyed it, which still dwells upon its ruins; some unfortunate
old men also lie upon the ashes of the temple, and a few women
are there preserved alive by the enemy, for our bitter shame and
reproach. Now who is there that revolves these things in his
mind, and yet is able to bear the sight of the sun, though he
might live out of danger? Who is there so much his country's
enemy, or so unmanly, and so desirous of living, as not to repent
that he is still alive? And I cannot but wish that we had all
died before we had seen that holy city demolished by the hands of
our enemies, or the foundations of our holy temple dug up after
so profane a manner. But since we had a generous hope that
deluded us, as if we might perhaps have been able to avenge
ourselves on our enemies on that account, though it be now become
vanity, and hath left us alone in this distress, let us make
haste to die bravely. Let us pity ourselves, our children, and
our wives while it is in our own power to show pity to them; for
we were born to die, (17) as well as those were whom we have
begotten; nor is it in the power of the most happy of our race to
avoid it. But for abuses, and slavery, and the sight of our wives
led away after an ignominious manner, with their children, these
are not such evils as are natural and necessary among men;
although such as do not prefer death before those miseries, when
it is in their power so to do, must undergo even them, on account
of their own cowardice. We revolted from the Romans with great
pretensions to courage; and when, at the very last, they invited
us to preserve ourselves, we would not comply with them. Who will
not, therefore, believe that they will certainly be in a rage at
us, in case they can take us alive? Miserable will then be the
young men who will be strong enough in their bodies to sustain
many torments! miserable also will be those of elder years, who
will not be able to bear those calamities which young men might
sustain! One man will be obliged to hear the voice of his son
implore help of his father, when his hands are bound. But
certainly our hands are still at liberty, and have a sword in
them; let them then be subservient to us in our glorious design;
let us die before we become slaves under our eneimies, and let us
go out of the world, together with our children and our wives, in
a state of freedom. This it is that our laws command us to do
this it is that our wives and children crave at our hands; nay,
God himself hath brought this necessity upon us; while the Romans
desire the contrary, and are afraid lest any of us should die
before we are taken. Let us therefore make haste, and instead of
affording them so much pleasure, as they hope for in getting us
under their power, let us leave them an example which shall at
once cause their astonishment at our death, and their admiration
of our hardiness therein."
  
CHAPTER 9.
  
  
  
How The People That Were In The Fortress Were Prevailed
On By The Words Of Eleazar, Two Women And Five
Children Only Excepted And All Submitted To Be Killed By One
Another.
  
1. Now as Eleazar was proceeding on in this exhortation, they all
cut him off short, and made haste to do the work, as full of an
unconquerable ardor of mind, and moved with a demoniacal fury. So
they went their ways, as one still endeavoring to be before
another, and as thinking that this eagerness would be a 
demonstration of their courage and good conduct, if they could
avoid appearing in the last class; so great was the zeal they
were in to slay their wives and children, and themselves also!
Nor indeed, when they came to the work itself, did their courage
fail them, as one might imagine it would have done, but they then
held fast the same resolution, without wavering, which they had
upon the hearing of Eleazar's speech, while yet every one of them
still retained the natural passion of love to themselves and
their families, because the reasoning they went upon appeared to
them to be very just, even with regard to those that were dearest
to them; for the husbands tenderly embraced their wives, and took
their children into their arms, and gave the longest parting
kisses to them, with tears in their eyes. Yet at the same time
did they complete what they had resolved on, as if they had been
executed by the hands of strangers; and they had nothing else for
their comfort but the necessity they were in of doing this 
execution, to avoid that prospect they had of the miseries they
were to suffer from their enemies. Nor was there at length any
one of these men found that scrupled to act their part in this
terrible execution, but every one of them despatched his dearest
relations. Miserable men indeed were they! whose distress forced
them to slay their own wives and children with their own hands,
as the lightest of those evils that were before them. So they
being not able to bear the grief they were under for what they
had done any longer, and esteeming it an injury to those they had
slain, to live even the shortest space of time after them, they
presently laid all they had upon a heap, and set fire to it. They
then chose ten men by lot out of them to slay all the rest; every
one of whom laid himself down by his wife and children on the
ground, and threw his arms about them, and they offered their
necks to the stroke of those who by lot executed that melancholy
office; and when these ten had, without fear, slain them all,
they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves, that he
whose lot it was should first kill the other nine, and after all
should kill himself. Accordingly, all these had courage
sufficient to be no way behind one another in doing or suffering;
so, for a conclusion, the nine offered their necks to the
executioner, and he who was the last of all took a view of all
the other bodies, lest perchance some or other among so many that
were slain should want his assistance to be quite despatched, and
when he perceived that they were all slain, he set fire to the
palace, and with the great force of his hand ran his sword
entirely through himself, and fell down dead near to his own
relations. So these people died with this intention, that they
would not leave so much as one soul among them all alive to be
subject to the Romans. Yet was there an ancient woman, and
another who was of kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in
prudence and learning, with five children, who had concealed
themselves in caverns under ground, and had carried water thither
for their drink, and were hidden there when the rest were intent
upon the slaughter of one another. Those others were nine hundred
and sixty in number, the women and children being withal included
in that computation. This calamitous slaughter was made on the
fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan].
  
2. Now for the Romans, they expected that they should be fought
in the morning, when, accordingly, they put on their armor, and
laid bridges of planks upon their ladders from their banks, to
make an assault upon the fortress, which they did; but saw nobody
as an enemy, but a terrible solitude on every side, with a fire
within the place, as well as a perfect silence. So they were at a
loss to guess at what had happened. At length they made a shout,
as if it had been at a blow given by the battering ram, to try
whether they could bring any one out that was within; the women
heard this noise, and came out of their under-ground cavern, and
informed the Romans what had been done, as it was done; and the
second of them clearly described all both what was said and what
was done, and this manner of it; yet did they not easily give
their attention to such a desperate undertaking, and did not
believe it could be as they said; they also attempted to put the
fire out, and quickly cutting themselves a way through it, they
came within the palace, and so met with the multitude of the
slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were
done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the
courage of their resolution, and the immovable contempt of death
which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through
with such an action as that was.
  
CHAPTER 10.
  
  
  
That Many Of The Sicarii Fled To Alexandria Also And
What Dangers They Were In There; On Which Account
That Temple Which Had Formerly Been Built By Onias The
High Priest Was Destroyed.
  
1. When Masada was thus taken, the general left a garrison in the
fortress to keep it, and he himself went away to Cesarea; for
there were now no enemies left in the country, but it was all
overthrown by so long a war. Yet did this war afford disturbances
and dangerous disorders even in places very far remote from
Judea; for still it came to pass that many Jews were slain at
Alexandria in Egypt; for as many of the Sicarii as were able to
fly thither, out of the seditious wars in Judea, were not content
to have saved themselves, but must needs be undertaking to make
new disturbances, and persuaded many of those that entertained
them to assert their liberty, to esteem the Romans to be no
better than themselves, and to look upon God as their only Lord
and Master. But when part of the Jews of reputation opposed them,
they slew some of them, and with the others they were very 
pressing in their exhortations to revolt from the Romans; but
when the principal men of the senate saw what madness they were
come to, they thought it no longer safe for themselves to
overlook them. So they got all the Jews together to an assembly,
and accused the madness of the Sicarii, and demonstrated that
they had been the authors of all the evils that had come upon
them. They said also that "these men, now they were run away from
Judea, having no sure hope of escaping, because as soon as ever
they shall be known, they will be soon destroyed by the Romans,
they come hither and fill us full of those calamities which
belong to them, while we have not been partakers with them in any
of their sins." Accordingly, they exhorted the multitude to have
a care, lest they should be brought to destruction by their
means, and to make their apology to the Romans for what had been
done, by delivering these men up to them; who being thus apprized
of the greatness of the danger they were in, complied with what
was proposed, and ran with great violence upon the Sicarii, and
seized upon them; and indeed six hundred of them were caught
immediately: but as to all those that fled into Egypt (18) and to
the Egyptian Thebes, it was not long ere they were caught also,
and brought back, whose courage, or whether we ought to call it
madness, or hardiness in their opinions, every body was amazed
at. For when all sorts of torments and vexations of their bodies
that could be devised were made use of to them, they could not
get any one of them to comply so far as to confess, or seem to
confess, that Caesar was their lord; but they preserved their own
opinion, in spite of all the distress they were brought to, as if
they received these torments and the fire itself with bodies
insensible of pain, and with a soul that in a manner rejoiced
under them. But what was most of all astonishing to the beholders
was the courage of the children; for not one of these children
was so far overcome by these torments, as to name Caesar for
their lord. So far does the strength of the courage [of the soul]
prevail over the weakness of the body.
  
2. Now Lupus did then govern Alexandria, who presently sent
Caesar word of this commotion; who having in suspicion the
restless temper of the Jews for innovation, and being afraid lest
they should get together again, and persuade some others to join
with them, gave orders to Lupus to demolish that Jewish temple
which was in the region called Onion, (19) and was in Egypt,
which was built and had its denomination from the occasion
following: Onias, the son of Simon, one of the Jewish high
priests fled from Antiochus the king of Syria, when he made war
with the Jews, and came to Alexandria; and as Ptolemy received
him very kindly, on account of hatred to Antiochus, he assured
him, that if he would comply with his proposal, he would bring
all the Jews to his assistance; and when the king agreed to do it
so far as he was able, he desired him to give him leave to build
a temple some where in Egypt, and to worship God according to the
customs of his own
  country; for that the Jews would then be so much readier to
fight against Antiochus who had laid waste the temple at
Jerusalem, and that they would then come to him with
  greater good-will; and that, by granting them liberty of
conscience, very many of them would come over to him.
  
3. So Ptolemy complied with his proposals, and gave him a place
one hundred and eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. (20) That
Nomos was called the Nomos of Hellopolls, where Onias built a
fortress and a temple, not like to that at Jerusalem, but such as
resembled a tower. He built it of large stones to the height of
sixty cubits; he made the structure of the altar in imitation of
that in our own country, and in like manner adorned with gifts,
excepting the make of the candlestick, for he did not make a
candlestick, but had a [single] lamp hammered out of a piece of
gold, which illuminated the place with its rays, and which he
hung by a chain of gold; but the entire temple was encompassed
with a wall of burnt brick, though it had gates of stone. The
king also gave him a large country for a revenue in money, that
both the priests might have a plentiful provision made for them,
and that God might have great abundance of what things were
necessary for his worship. Yet did not Onias do this out of a
sober disposition, but he had a mind to contend with the Jews at
Jerusalem, and could not forget the indignation he had for being
banished thence. Accordingly, he thought that by building this
temple he should draw away a great number from them to himself.
There had been also a certain ancient prediction made by [a 
prophet] whose name was Isaiah, about six hundred years before,
that this temple should be built by a man that was a Jew in
Egypt. And this is the history of the building of that temple.
  
4. And now Lupus, the governor of Alexandria, upon the receipt of
Caesar's letter, came to the temple, and carried out of it some
of the donations dedicated thereto, and shut up the temple
itself. And as Lupus died a little afterward, Paulinns succeeded
him. This man left none of those donations there, and threatened
the priests severely if they did not bring them all out; nor did
he permit any who were desirous of worshipping God there so much
as to come near the whole sacred place; but when he had shut up
the gates, he made it entirely inaccessible, insomuch that there
remained no longer the least footsteps of any Divine worship that
had been in that place. Now the duration of the time from the
building of this temple till it was shut up again was three
hundred and forty-three years.
  
CHAPTER 11.

  
Concerning Jonathan, One Of The Sicarii, That Stirred Up A
Sedition In Cyrene, And Was A False Accuser [Of The Innocent].
  
1. And now did the madness of the Sicarii, like a disease, reach
as far as the cities of Cyrene; for one Jonathan, a vile person,
and by trade a weaver, came thither and prevailed with no small
number of the poorer sort to give ear to him; he also led them
into the desert, upon promising them that he would show them
signs and apparitions. And as for the other Jews of Cyrene, he
concealed his knavery from them, and put tricks upon them; but
those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus, the
governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, of his march into the desert,
and of the preparations he had made for it. So he sent out after
him both horsemen and footmen, and easily overcame them, because
they were unarmed men; of these many were slain in the fight, but
some were taken alive, and brought to Catullus. As for Jonathan,
the head of this plot, he fled away at that time; but upon a
great and very diligent search, which was made all the country
over for him, he was at last taken. And when he was brought to
Catullus, he devised a way whereby he both escaped punishment
himself, and afforded an occasion to Catullus of doing much
mischief; for he falsely accused the richest men among the Jews,
and said that they had put him upon what he did.
  
2. Now Catullus easily admitted of these his calumnies, and
aggravated matters greatly, and made tragical exclamations, that
he might also be supposed to have had a hand in the finishing of
the Jewish war. But what was still harder, he did not only give a
too easy belief to his stories, but he taught the Sicarii to
accuse men falsely. He bid this Jonathan, therefore, to name one
Alexander, a Jew (with whom he had formerly had a quarrel, and
openly professed that he hated him); he also got him to name his
wife Bernice, as concerned with him. These two Catullus ordered
to be slain in the first place; nay, after them he caused all the
rich and wealthy Jews to be slain, being no fewer in all than
three thousand. This he thought he might do safely, because he
confiscated their effects, and added them to Caesar's revenues.
  
3. Nay, indeed, lest any Jews that lived elsewhere should convict
him of his villainy, he extended his false accusations further,
and persuaded Jonathan, and certain others that were caught with
him, to bring an accusation of attempts for innovation against
the Jews that were of the best character both at Alexandria and
at Rome. One of these, against whom this treacherous accusation
was laid, was Josephus, the writer of these books. However, this
plot, thus contrived by Catullus, did not succeed according to
his hopes; for though he came himself to Rome, and brought
Jonathan and his companions along with him in bonds, and thought
he should have had no further inquisition made as to those lies
that were forged under his government, or by his means; yet did
Vespasian suspect the matter and made an inquiry how far it was
true. And when he understood that the accusation laid against the
Jews was an unjust one, he cleared them of the crimes charged
upon them, and this on account of Titus's concern about the
matter, and brought a deserved punishment upon Jonathan; for he
was first tormented, and then burnt alive.
  
4. But as to Catullus, the emperors Were so gentle to him, that
he underwent no severe condemnation at this time; yet was it not
long before he fell into a complicated and almost incurable
distemper, and died miserably. He was not only afflicted in body,
but the distemper in his mind was more heavy upon him than the
other; for he was terribly disturbed, and continually cried out
that he saw the ghosts of those whom he had slain standing before
him. Where upon he was not able to contain himself, but leaped
out of his bed, as if both torments and fire were brought to him.
This his distemper grew still a great deal worse and worse
continually, and his very entrails were so corroded, that they
fell out of his body, and in that condition he died. Thus he
became as great an instance of Divine Providence as ever was, and
demonstrated that God punishes wicked men.
  
5. And here we shall put an end to this our history; wherein we
formerly promised to deliver the same with all accuracy, to such
as should be desirous of understanding after what manner this war
of the Romans with the Jews was managed. Of which history, how
good the style is, must be left to the determination of the
readers; but as for its agreement with the facts, I shall not
scruple to say, and that boldly, that truth hath been what I have
alone aimed at through its entire composition.

WAR BOOK 7 FOOTNOTES

(1) Why the great Bochart should say, (De Phoenic. Colon. B. II.
ch. iv.,) that" there are in this clause of Josephus as many
mistakes as words," I do by no means understand. Josephus thought
Melchisedek first built, or rather rebuilt and adorned, this
city, and that it was then called Salem, as Psalm 76:2;
afterwards came to be called Jerusalem; and that Melchisedek,
being a priest as well as a king, built to the true God therein a
temple, or place for public Divine worship and sacrifice; all
which things may be very true for aught we know to the contrary.
And for the word, or temple, as if it must needs belong to the
great temple built by Solomon long afterward, Josephus himself
uses, for the small tabernacle of Moses, Antiq. B. III. ch. 6.
sect. 4; see also Antiq. B. lit. ch. 6. sect. 1; as he here
presently uses, for a large and splendid synagogue of the Jews at
Antioch, B. VII. ch. 3. sect. 3.

(2) This Tereutius Rufus, as Reland in part observes here, is the
same person whom the Talmudists call Turnus Rufus; of whom they
relate, that "he ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem
become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high Idaces
of a forest;" which was long before foretold by the prophet
Micah, ch. 3:12, and quoted from him in the prophecies of
Jeremiah, ch. 26:18.

(3) See Ecclesiastes 8:11.

(4) This Berytus was certainly a Roman colony, and has coins
extant that witness the same, as Hudson and Spanheim inform us.
See the note on Antiq. B. XVI: ch. 11. sect. 1.

(5) The Jews at Antioch and Alexandria, the two principal cities
in all the East, had allowed them, both by the Macedonians, and
afterwards by the Romans, a governor of their own, who was exempt
from the jurisdiction of the other civil governors. He was called
sometimes barely "governor," sometimes "ethnarch," and [at
Alexandria] "alabarch," as Dr. Hudson takes notice on this place
out of Fuller's Miscellanies. They had the like governor or
governors allowed them at Babylon under their captivity there, as
the history of Susanna implies.

(6) This Classicus, and Civilis, and Cerealis are names well
known in Tacitus; the two former as moving sedition against the
Romans, and the last as sent to repress them by Vespasian, just
as they are here described in Josephus; which is the case also of
Fontellis Agrippa and Rubrius Gallup, i, sect. 3. But as to the
very favorable account presently given of Domitian, particularly
as to his designs in this his Gallic and German expedition, it is
not a little contrary to that in Suetonius, Vesp. sect. 7. Nor
are the reasons unobvious that might occasion this great
diversity: Domitian was one of Josephus's patrons, and when he
published these books of the Jewish war, was very young, and had
hardly begun those wicked practices which rendered him so
infamous afterward; while Suetonius seems to have been too young,
and too low in life, to receive any remarkable favors from him;
as Domitian was certainly very lewd and cruel, and generally
hated, when Puetonius wrote about him.

(7) Since in these latter ages this Sabbatic River, once so
famous, which, by Josephus's account here, ran every seventh day,
and rested on six, but according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. 31. II, ran
perpetually on six days, and rested every seventh, (though it no
way appears by either of their accounts that the seventh day of
this river was the Jewish seventh day or sabbath,) is quite
vanished, I shall add no more about it: only see Dr. Hudson's
note. In Varenius's Geography, i, 17, the reader will find
several instances of such periodical fountains and. rivers,
though none of their periods were that of a just week as of old
this appears to have been.

(8) Vespasian and his two sons, Titus and Domitian.

(9) See the representations of these Jewish vessels as they still
stand on Titus's triumphal arch at Rome, in Reland's very curious
book de Spoliis Ternpli, throughout. But what, things are chiefly
to be noted are these: (1.) That Josephus says the candlestick
here carried in this triumph was not thoroughly like that which
was used in the temple, which appears in the number of the little
knobs and flowers in that on the triumphal arch not well agreeing
with Moses's description, Exodus 25:31-36. (2.) The smallness of
the branches in Josephus compared with the thickness of those on
that arch. (3.) That the Law or Pentateuch does not appear on
that arch at all, though Josephus, an eye-witness, assures us
that it was carried in this procession. All which things deserve
the consideration of the inquisitive reader.

(10) Spanheim observes here, that in Graceia Major and Sicily
they had rue prodigiously great and durable, like this rue at
Macherus,

(11) This strange account of the place and root Baaras seems to
have been taken from the magicians, and the root to have been
made use of in the days of Josephus, in that superstitious way of
casting out demons, supposed by him to have been derived from
king Solomon; of which we have already seen he had a great
opinion, Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 2. sect. 5. We also may hence learn
the true notion Josephus had of demons and demoniacs, exactly
like that of the Jews and Christians in the New Testament, and
the first four centuries. See Antiq. B. I. ch. 8. sect. 2; B. XI,
ch. 2. sect. 3.

(12) It is very remarkable that Titus did not people this now
desolate country of Judea, but ordered it to be all sold; nor
indeed is it properly peopled at this day, but lies ready for its
old inhabitants the Jews, at their future restoration. See
Literal Accomplishment of Prophecies, p. 77.

(13) That the city Emmaus, or Areindus, in Josephus and others
which was the place of the government of Julius Africanus were
slain, to the number of one thousand seven hundred, as were the
women and the children made slaves. But as Bassus thought he must
perform the covenant he had made with those that had surrendered
the citadel, he let them go, and restored Eleazar to them, in the
beginning of the third century, and which he then procured to be
rebuilt, and after which rebuilding it was called Nicopolis, is
entirely different from that Emmaus which is mentioned by St.
Luke 24;13; see Reland's Paleestina, lib. II. p. 429, and under
the name Ammaus also. But he justly thinks that that in St. Luke
may well be the same with his Ammaus before us, especially since
the Greek copies here usually make it sixty furlongs distant from
Jerusalem, as does St. Luke, though the Latin copies say only
thirty. The place also allotted for these eight hundred soldiers,
as for a Roman garrison, in this place, would most naturally be
not so remote from Jerusalem as was the other Emmaus, or
Nicopolis.

(14) Pliny and others confirm this strange paradox, that
provisions laid up against sieges will continue good for a
hundred ears, as Spanheim notes upon this place.

(15) The speeches in this and the next section, as introduced
under the person of this Eleazar, are exceeding remarkable, and
oil the noblest subjects, the contempt of death, and the dignity
and immortality of the soul; and that not only among the Jews,
but among the Indians themselves also; and are highly worthy the
perusal of all the curious. It seems as if that philosophic lady
who survived, ch. 9. sect. 1, 2, remembered the substance of
these discourses, as spoken by Eleazar, and so Josephus clothed
them in his own words: at the lowest they contain the Jewish
notions on these heads, as understood then by our Josephus, and
cannot but deserve a suitable regard from us.

(16) See B. II. ch. 20. sect. 2, where the number of the slain is
but 10,000.

(17) Reland here sets down a parallel aphorism of one of the
Jewish Rabbins, "We are born that we may die, and die that we may
live.'

(18) Since Josephus here informs us that some of these Sicarii,
or ruffians, went from Alexandria (which was itself in Egypt, in
a large sense) into Egypt, and Thebes there situated, Reland well
observes, from Vossius, that Egypt sometimes denotes Proper or
Upper Egypt, as distinct from the Delta, and the lower parts near
Palestine. Accordingly, as he adds, those that say it never rains
in Egypt must mean the Proper or Upper Egypt, because it does
sometimes rain in the other parts. See the note on Antiq. B. II.
ch. 7. sect. 7, and B. III. ch. 1. sect. 6.

(19) Of this temple of Onias's building in Egypt, see the notes
on Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 3. sect. 1. But whereas it is elsewhere,
both of the War, B. I. ch. 1. sect. 1, and in the Antiquities as
now quoted, said that this temple was like to that at Jerusalem,
and here that it was not like it, but like a tower, sect. 3,
there is some reason to suspect the reading here, and that either
the negative particle is here to be blotted out, or the word
entirely added.

(20) We must observe, that Josephus here speaks of Antiochus who
profaned the temple as now alive, when Onias had leave given them
by Philometer to build his temple; whereas it seems not to have
been actually built till about fifteen years afterwards. Yet,
because it is said in the Antiquities that Onias went to
Philometer, B. XII. ch. 9. sect. 7, during the lifetime of that
Antiochus, it is probable he petitioned, and perhaps obtained his
leave then, though it were not actually built or finished till
fifteen years afterward.





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