THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
By Flavius Josephus
Translated by William Whiston
Contents
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, during 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.
1 (return)
[ 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 had before run into.]
2 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ That these calamities of
the Jews, who were our Savior’s murderers, were to be the greatest that
had ever been since 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 (return)
[ Titus.]
5 (return)
[ 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.
CHAPTER 1.
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.
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 good 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.
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 was 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 have 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.
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 Theodorus 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 Seleucidae. 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.
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. Now
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.
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 be 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
affrighted 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.
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 he 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 on 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 decollation; 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.
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 Machaerus, 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 Gabinius 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 Machaerus, 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 Machaerus. 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
Machaerus; 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.
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 Scipio 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.
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.
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 promised 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 he was suspected of 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 affrighted, 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.
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 Malichus, 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.
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.
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
afrighted 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.
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, he 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.
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 affrighted 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 Machaerus, 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 Machaerus 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
Machaerus as his enemy; but he restrained his indignation, and marched to
Antony to accuse Machaerus of maladministration. But Machaerus 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.
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 Machaerus 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 Machaerus 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
Machaerus 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 affrighted at his power, and left their fortifications
in 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
Machaerus; 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.
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.
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 affrighted 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.
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 spoke 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.
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 was betrayed by some, or the rashness of his own
soldiers procured his defeat.
CHAPTER 22.
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 Herod, 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.
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 Archelaus, 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 Archelaus 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.
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.
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 Archelaus 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 be 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.
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.
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.
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 right
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.
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 Mariamne, 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
Sylleus, 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.
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 one 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 tretament, who had been before named therein as
successor to Antipater.
CHAPTER 31.
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.
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 Archelaus 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.
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 Matthias, 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 Asphaltites, 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 Archelaus, 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 sceptre 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.
1 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This citation is now
wanting.]
12 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Phasaelus and Herod.]
18 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Mariamac here, in the
copies.]
21 (return)
[ This Brentesium or
Brundusium has coin still preserved, on which is written, as Spanheim
informs us.]
22 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This Sepphoris, the
metropolis of Galilee, so often mentioned by Josephus, has coins still
remaining, as Spanheim here informs us.]
24 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ That is, a woman, not, a
man.]
27 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ That this island Eleusa,
afterward called Sebaste, near Cilicia, had in it the royal palace of this
Archelaus, 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ See the preceding note.]
42 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This Tarentum has coins
still extant, as Reland informs us here in his note.]
47 (return)
[ A lover of his father.]
48 (return)
[ 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.
CHAPTER 1.
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 be 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 Archelaus was
affrighted, 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.
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 Archelaus 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.
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 be 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 affrighted, 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 mastered 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 was 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.
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.
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.
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 he 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.
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.
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 garments 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.
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 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.
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
be 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.
1. Now when Caius had reigned three years 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 Saturninus, and Pomponius 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.
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 Cumanus 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 Cumanus 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 in 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 Cumanus [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 Celer 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.
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.
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 pompous 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 Artemisius [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.
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 affrighted, 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, and 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.
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 are 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, great 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
an 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, [Africa,] 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.
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.
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 mine 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 Machaerus 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
Machaerus 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.
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 carried
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 20.
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
Taricheae, 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 in 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.
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 Taricheae. 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 Taricheae, 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 Tarieheae, 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 affrighted 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.
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 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.
1 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 Cumanus; 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 Cumanus, 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 (return)
[ i.e. Herod king of
Chalcis.]
18 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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” [Footnote 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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.
CHAPTER 1.
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.
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.
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 bounded 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 Machaerus 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.
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.
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 in 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 carried 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.
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 affrighted 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, because 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 came 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
Galilee, 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.
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 choose 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 than
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 others 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, till 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 advantage 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 be 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, and 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
fast, 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 the 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 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
under 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 be 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.
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 thing 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 my 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 in the honors that
were done him.
CHAPTER 9.
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, 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 Taricheae 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 Taricheae. 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.
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
Taricheae 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, Jesus 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 in 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
Asphaltites.
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 be 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 Gorpieus [Elul].
1 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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.
(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 (return)
[ 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.
CHAPTER 1.
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 over against Taricheae, 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 Seleucia. 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 Seleucia 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 affrighted 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
Hyperbereteus, [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 affrighted 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
Hyperbereteus, [Tisri,] whereas the city had first revolted on the four
and twentieth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul].
CHAPTER 2.
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 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 out 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 were 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.
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 tree; 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
affrighted 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 on 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.
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.
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 be 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.
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 plot 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.
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 Asphaltites 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 Asphaltites, 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 Machaerus.
CHAPTER 8.
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 Neapolis, [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 Asphaltites,
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 Asphaltites; 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
Asphaltites, 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 be
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 Asphaltites 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 Asphaltites 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.
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. But 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 Idumea, 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 Desius, [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 Machaerus, 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 in 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.
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, from 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.
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.
1 (return)
[ Here we have the exact
situation 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Gr. Galatia, and so
everywhere.]
13 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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.]
16 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Here we have an
authentic description of the bounds and circumstances of Egypt, in the
days of Vespasian and Titus.]
24 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ There are coins of this
Casian Jupiter still extant.]
BOOK V.
CHAPTER 1.
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 most
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.
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 them 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 flight, 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.
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 out 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 had 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.
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.
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.
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 affrighted, 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.
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 coming 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.
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 affrighted, 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 lanes, 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.
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 suffer 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, when they were used tyrannically, and were
fallen under the power of foreign kings for four hundred years 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
17 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.
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.
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 saving 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 cast 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.
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, he 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 be 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.
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 Xanthicus, [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.
1 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The Levites.]
3 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Josephus, both here and
before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4, esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of
the lake Asphaltites, 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.
CHAPTER 1.
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 as 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,
not 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 shield over his head with his left hand, and had,
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, he 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 Bithynia, 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 in
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 was 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.
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 5of
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 discontinued 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
any 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 name was Jonathan. He went out at the
high priest John’s monument, and uttered many other insolent things to the
Romans, and 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.
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 cast 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 affrighted 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.
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 be
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.
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: Perea
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.
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 had 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.
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.
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.
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, still 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.
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],
35
and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem.
However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the Canaanites, and settled
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.
1 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ See the note on p. 809.]
4 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This was a remarkable day
indeed, the seventeenth of Panemuns. [Footnote 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Our present copies of the
Old Testament want this encomium upon king Jechoniah or Jehoiachim, which
it seems was in Josephus’s copy.]
8 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Of this partition-wall
separating Jews and Gentiles, with its pillars and inscription, see the
description of the temples, ch. 15.]
11 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Court of the Gentiles.]
13 (return)
[ Court of Israel.]
14 (return)
[ Of the court of the
Gentiles.]
15 (return)
[ 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 robbers, 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Reland I think here
judges well, when he interprets these spikes [Footnote 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 (return)
[ Reland here takes
notice, that these Jews, who had despised the true Prophet, were
deservedly abused and deluded by these false ones.]
20 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This here seems to be
the court of the priests.]
23 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 2,565,000, by
Josephus’s own reasoning; whereas it is, in his present copies, no less
than 2,700,000, 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 (return)
[ 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.]
35 (return)
[ 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.]
BOOK VII.
CHAPTER 1.
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.
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 army 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 be
kept there; for the winter season hindered him then from sailing into
Italy.
CHAPTER 2.
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.
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 Antiochus
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.
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 could
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.
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 places, 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.
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 Machaerus; 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 be 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 Asphaltites; on the
same side it was also that Machaerus 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 Machaerus, 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 guard 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
name 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 were slain to the number of one thousand seven hundred, as
were the women and children made slaves. But as Bassus thought he must
perform the covenant he had made with those that surrendered the
citadel, he let them go, and restored Eleazar to them.
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 Machaerus 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.
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 Parthia, 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.
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 Asphaltites,
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 of those 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 cast 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 fail 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 down 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 be
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 profited 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 was 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
enemies, 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.
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.
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 Hellopolis, 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, Paulinus 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.
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
2 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ See Ecclesiastes 8:11.]
4 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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
Suetonius wrote about him.]
7 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Vespasian and his two
sons, Titus and Domitian.]
9 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Spanheim observes here,
that in Graceia Major and Sicily they had rue prodigiously great and
durable, like this rue at Machaerus.]
11 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Pliny and others confirm
this strange paradox, that provisions laid up against sieges will continue
good for a hundred years, as Spanheim notes upon this place.]
15 (return)
[ The speeches in this and
the next section, as introduced under the person of this Eleazar, are
exceeding remarkable, and of 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 (return)
[ See B. II. ch. 20. sect.
2, where the number of the slain is but 10,000.]
17 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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.]