Page images
PDF
EPUB

the place called Bezetha,* 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 at tempts failed; for the people immediately turned back upon him and stopped the violence of his attempt; and as they stood upon the tops of the 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 they 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 Cæsarea.

CHAP. XVI.

Cestius sends Neopolitanus the Tribune to see in what Condition the Affairs of the
Jews were.
Agrippa makes a Speech to the people of the Jews, that he may

divert them from their Intentions of making War with the Romans

§ 1. HOWEVER, Florus contrived another way to oblige the Jews to begin the war, and sent to Cestius, and accused the Jews faisely of revolting [from the Roman government,] and imputed the beginning of the former fight to them, and pretended that they had been the authors of that disturbance, wherein they were only the sufferers. Yet were not the governors of Jerusalem silent upon this oc casion, 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 re volt, 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 tri bunes, 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,

* 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-pools 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, v. 1, &c. 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 now but three. See Maundrel, page 106. The entire buildings seem te bare been called the New City, and this part, where was the hospital, peculiarly Bezetha or Bethesda. See

h. xix. sect. 4.

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 them. selves. So these great men, as of better understanding than the rest, and desi rous 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 lamentation 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 servant only, 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 expe. rience 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 occasion of such great slaughters as had been made 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 not he 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. * 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

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 this Agrippa was, and why Josephus elsewhere calls him μLTETTS a most wonderful or admirable man, Contr. Ap. 1, 9. He is the same Agrippa who said to Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian, Acts. xxvi. 28; and of whom St. Paul said, He was expert in all the customs and questions of the Jews, ver. 3. See another intimation of the limits of the same Roman empire, Of the War, B. iii. ch. v. 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 compose the speeches which he put into others' mouths, 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 that 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 Tim. v. 21, and by the apostles, in general, in the form of the ordination of bishops, Constitut. Apost. viii. 4.

to do is 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 expecta tion of regaining their liberty, and because others hope to get by it, and are, there fore, 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 relation to those that have a mind to hear me, unless you 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 pretences that are by some connected together; for if you aim at avenging yourselves on those that have done you in jury, why do you pretend this to be a war for recovering your liberty. But if you think all servitude intolerable, to what purpose serves your complaint against your particular governors? for if they treated you with moderation, it would sull 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 pro vocation; but when you reproach men greatly for small offences, 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 bear. ing 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 they are not all the Romans who thus injure you; nor hath Cæsar, against whom you are going to 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, in deed, 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 cor rected; 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 laboured 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 that hath been once brought into subjection, and then runs away, is rather a refractory slave than a lover of liber ty; 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 generatior. to another, and who are so much inferior to those who first submitted in you

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 sea and walked upon the land, 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 as the Lesser Salamis, are yet at this time servants to the Romans; and those injunc tions which are sent from Italy become laws to the principal governing city of Greece. Those Lacedemonians also, who got the great victories of Thermo oyle 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 other 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 army do you rely upon? 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 not you carefully reflect upon the Roman empire? Will not you estimate your own weakness? Hath not your army been often beaten even by your neighbouring 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 are 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 reasons to claim their liberty than you have. What is the case of five hundred cities of Asia? do not they submit to a single governor and to the consular bundle of rods. What need I speak of the Henio chi, and Cholchi, 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 kept the sea in peace, which before was not navigable, and very tem pestuous? How strong a plea may Bythinia, and Cappadocia, and the people of Pamphilia, 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 a much more harsh constitution, and much more defensible than yours, and by the rigour 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 Illyrians, 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 Dacians. 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, and revolted, yet are they now very quiet under one Roman legion. Moreover, if great advantages might

provoke any people to revolt, the Gauls might do it best of all, as being so t 10roughly walled round by nature; on the east 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 attacks 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 effi cacy 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 captives became their servants; and the rest of the entire nation was 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, and 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 the brags of the great Hannibal, and the nobility of their Phoenician original, fell by the hand of Scipio. Nor, indeed, have the Cyreneans, derived from the Lacedemonians, nor the Marmaridæ, 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 valour. 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 an. nual 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 revenue suitable to the necessities of the government: nor do they, like you, es teem 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

« PreviousContinue »