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 conducted himself insultingly towards the people. At this, the whole multitude had indignation, and made a clamour 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.

"Now there followed after this another calamity, which arose from a tumult made by robbers; for at the public road at Bethoron, one Stephen, a servant of Cæsar, carried some furniture, which the robbers fell upon and seized. Upon this Cumanus sent men to go round about to the neighbouring 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. 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 clamour to Cæsarea, 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 orders 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.

"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, 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 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.

"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, and by Alexander, in these their thievish and seditious attempts. These men fell upon those that were in the neighbourhood of the Acrabatene toparchy, and slew them, without sparing any age, and set the villages on fire.

"But Cumanus took one troop of horsemen out of Cæsarea, and came to the assistance of those that were spoiled; he also seized upon a great number of those who 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 the Jews ran out, clothed with sackcloth, and having ashes on their heads, 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 danger 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, 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 author of that murder.

"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 Cæsarea, 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 Ananus, the son of this Ananias, and certain others that were eminent among the Jews, to Cæsar, as he did in like manner by those of the Samaritans. He also ordered that Cumanus and Celer the tribune should sail to Rome, in order to give an account of what had been done to Cæsar. When he had finished these matters, he went up from Lydda to Jerusalem, and finding the multitude celebrating the feast of unleavened bread without any tumult, he returned to Antioch.

"Now when Cæsar at Rome had heard what Cumanus and the Samaritans had to say, 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."

The historian then tells us, that Cæsar sent Felix to be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea, and, having made other alterations in his government, that Claudius himself died, after a reign of thirteen years eight months and twenty days, leaving Nero to be his successor in the empire. He then says in chapter 13:

"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 what means he 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 theatre,—I omit to say any more about them, because there are writers enough upon those subjects everywhere; but I shall turn myself to those actions of his time in which the Jews were concerned.

"Nero therefore bestowed the kingdom of the lesser Armenia upon Aristobulus, added four cities to Agrippa's kingdom, and 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 whom were caught among them, and those he brought to punishment, they were a multitude not to be enumerated.

"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 daytime, 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 everybody 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.

"There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intentions, who laid waste the bappy state of the city no less than did these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretence of divine inspirations ["many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many"], 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 ["Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth"], as pretending that God would there show them the signal 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.

"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 is called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into