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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 stayed 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 sieze upon them. He then made his army

march on as far as Beth-horon. 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 hindmost down in 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 were neither place for their flight, nor any contrivance could be thought of for their defence; 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 once rejoiced, and were in a rage. Indeed, things were come to such a pass, that the Jews had almost taken Cestius' entire army prisoners, had not the night come on, when the Romans fled to Beth-horon, 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 they 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 for war. So the Jews went 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 gathering their prey together which the Romans had left be hind them, and came back running and singing to their me tropolis. When 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, [Mar hesvan,] in the twelfth year of the reign of Nero.

CHAP. XX.

Cestius sends abassadors to Nero. The people of Damascus slay those Jews that lived with them. The people of Jerusalem, after they had [left off] pursuing Cestius, return to the city, and get things ready for its defence, and make a great many generals for their armies, and particularly Josephus, the writer of these books. Some account of his administration.

1. AFTER this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink. Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were brethren, together with Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was the commander of king Agrippa's forces, ran away from the city, and went to Cestius. But then how Antipas, who had been besieged with them in the king's palace, he 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 provokin 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 barrow 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 favoured the Romans by violence, and some they persuaded [by entreaties] 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, 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 behaviour, like guards about him. However, the want they were in of Eleazar's money, and the subtile tricks used by him, brought all so about that the people were circumvented, and submitted themselves to his authority in all public affairs.

*From this name of Joseph the son of Gorion, or Gorion the son of Joseph, as B iv. chap. iii. § 9. vol. v. one of the governors of Jeru salem, who was slain at the beginning of the tumults by the zealots, B. iv. chap. vi. § 1. the much later Jewish author of an history of that nation takes his title, and yet personates our true Josephus, the son of Matthias: but the cheat is too gross to put upon the learned world.

118

THE JEWISH WAR.

Book I

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, who was of a family that belong ed to Perea, beyond Jordan, and was thence called the Peraite, that he should be obedient to those forenamed 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 Essene, to the toparchy of Thamna; Lydda was also called to his portion, and Joppa, and Emmaus. But John the son of Matthias, was made governor of the toparchies of Gophuitica, 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 ge neral 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 favour from the multitude, if he executed his commands by persons of their own country, and with whom they were well acquainted; he chose out fseventy of the most prudent men, and those elders

• We may observe here, that the Idumeans, as having been proselytes of justice since the days of John Hyrcanus, during about 195 years, were now esteemed as part of a Jewish nation, and here provided of a Jewish commander accordingly. See the note upon Antiq. B. xiii. ch. ix. § 1. vol. iii.

We see here, and in Josephus account of his own life, § 14. vol. iv. 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 great 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. viii § 14. vol. i. and of his life, § 14. See also Of the War, B. iv. ch. v. § 4 vol. v. Moreover we find, § 7. that he imitated Moses, as well as the Romans, in the number and distribution of the subaltern officers of his army, as Exod xviii. 25. Deut. i. 15 and in his charge against the offences common among soldiers, as Deut. xxiii. 9 in all which he

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 was concerned, he enjoined they should be brought to him, and the seventy 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 provision 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 Barsabee, and Salamis; and besides these about Caphareccho, and Japha, and Sigo, and what they call mount Tabor, and Tarichea, 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 to the rock called the rock of the Achabari, and to Seph, and Jamneh, and Meroth; and in Gaulanitis he fortified Seleucia, and Sogane, and Gamala; but as to those of Sepphoris, they were the only peo ple 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 at 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 laboured 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 an hundred thousand young men, all of which he armed with the old weapons, which he had collected together and prepared for them.

affairs. Yet may we discern in his very high character of Ananus the high-priest, B. iv. ch. v. § 2 who seems to have been the same who conducted 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 immediate ly have spoken so movingly of the causes of the destruction of Jerusalem, without one word of either the condemnation of James or crucifiction of Christ, as he did when he was become a Christian afterward.

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