NoteJosephus was a Jewish leader during Judaea's rebellion against Rome in the late 60's C.E. He was captured early in the fighting and composed the following history (in florid Greek) under the aegis of Vespasian. The following text jumps right in in the middle of the conflict.

CHAPTER 14

Factions in Jerusalem

Only Gischala, a little town in Galilee, was left unreduced. The inhabitants were anxious for peace - for the most part they were farmers whose only concern was the prospect of a good harvest; but a powerful gang of bandits had infiltrated into their midst and some of the townsmen had been infected. These were incited and organized for revolt by John son of Levi, an impostor expert in every wile, full of ambitions and with a knack of making them succeed.1 Anyone could see that he was bent on war as a means of becoming dictator. He was the recognized leader of the insurgent element in Gischala; thanks to them the population, who would gladly have sent envoys offering to surrender, were now preparing a warlike reception for the Romans. To crush this opposition Vespasian dispatched Titus with 1,000 horse, removing the Tenth Legion to Scythopolis. He himself returned to Caesarea with the other two, to rest them after their continuous efforts and in the belief that good living in the city would make them fit and keen in readiness for the coming struggles. It was no light task that he saw awaiting him at Jerusalem, for she was the city of kings and capital of the whole race, and into her was flowing a stream of refugees from the war. Her natural strength and formidable walls caused him no small anxiety; and he realized that the daring spirits within would, even without walls, be hard to subdue. So he trained his soldiers like athletes before a contest.

When Titus rode up to Gischala he saw it would be easy to take the town by assault; but he knew that if it was stormed, there would be a wholesale massacre of the population by the soldiery, and he was already sick of bloodshed and grieved that the whole people, without distinction, must share the fate of the guilty. He was therefore anxious to persuade the town to surrender on terms. The wall was crowded with men, mostly members of the corrupt gang; so he asked them what gave them such confidence that, when every other town had fallen, they alone opposed the Roman arms. They had seen much stronger towns overthrown by a single assault, while all who had accepted Roman terms enjoyed their own possessions in safety. The same terms he now offered them, freely forgiving their truculence: To desire freedom was natural enough: to persist when no possibility remained was inexcusable. If they refused to accept his generous proposals and sincere offers, they would experience the remorselessness of his arms, and learn the terrible lesson that to the Roman engines their wall was just a toy - the wall that gave them such confidence that they were the only Galilaeans to show themselves truculent prisoners.

To these overtures none of the townspeople could make any reply -they could not even go on to the wall; the bandits had already occupied it all, and there were sentries at the gates to see that no one slipped out to accept the offered truce or admitted any of the cavalry into the town. But John replied that he welcomed the proposals himself and would either persuade or constrain any dissidents. However, in accordance with the Jewish Law, Titus must allow them that day, the seventh, on which it was an offence either to take up arms or to make peace. It was known even to the Romans that they did no work of any kind when the seventh day came round; if they were compelled to break that rule, the man who compelled them would be as guilty as themselves. The delay would do Titus no harm; what could be attempted in one night except flight, which would be impossible if he camped round the town? It would be a great gain to them not to infringe any ancestral custom, and a gracious act in one who granted an unlooked-for peace to respect the laws of those whose lives he spared. With such pleas John beguiled Titus, being less anxious about the seventh day than about his own skin. He was afraid of being left to his fate the moment the town fell, and pinned his hopes of life on darkness and flight. But clearly God was preserving John to bring destruction on Jerusalem, and it was His doing that Titus not only accepted this pretext for delay, but even pitched his camp further from the town, at Cydassa. This is a strong inland village of the Tyrians, always engaged in bitter strife with the Galilaeans. The size of the population and the strength of the defences enabled it to maintain the struggle against the surrounding nation.

In the night John, seeing no Roman guards round the town, seized his chance, and taking with him not only his armed bodyguard but a large number of non combatants with their families, fled towards Jerusalem. For two miles or more, though driven along at top speed by fear of prison and death, he managed to carry along a mob of women and children; but as he pressed on further they dropped behind, and agonizing were the lamentations of those thus abandoned. The further each found himself from his own kith and kin, the nearer he imagined himself to the enemy. Believing that their captors were hard on their heels, they lost their heads and turned when they heard the footsteps of their fleeing companions, as if their pursuers were upon them. Many lost their way, and even on the highroad many were crushed in the fight to get to the front. Miserable was the plight of women and children; some even ventured to call their husbands or kinsmen back, shrieking and imploring them to wait. But John's commands were obeyed: 'Every man for himself,' he shouted; 'make for the place where you can avenge those left behind, if they fall into Roman hands.' So as every man made what speed his strength allowed, the column of fugitives lengthened out.

When dawn came Titus advanced to the wall to conclude the treaty. The people opened the gates to hirn, and coming forward with their families hailed him as a benefactor who had delivered the town from oppression. They told him of John's flight and begged him to spare them and to come and punish the remaining rebels. Titus, deciding that the people's requests must take second place, sent a detachment of horse to pursue John, but they failed to overtake him and he reached Jerusalem in safety. Of those who had set out with him, however, some 6,000 were killed, and neariy 3,000 women and children were rounded up and brought back. Titus was vexed at his failure to inflict immediate punishment on John for his deception; but for his baffled rage he had compensation enough in the mass of prisoners and heaps of dead. So he entered the town amid acclamations, and ordering his men to tear down a short section of the wall in token of capture, used threats rather than punishment to subdue the disturbers of the peace. For many from personal animosity and private enmity would denounce the innocent, if he tried to pick out those who deserved punishment; it was better to leave the guilty in suspense and fear than to destroy any guiltless person with them; for the guilty man would perhaps change his ways from fear of punishment, appreciating the pardon he had received for the past; but for those needlessly put to death there could be no redress. However, he made the town safe with a garrison, by which he could restrain the disaffected and leave the peaceably inclined more secure. Thus the whole of Galilee was subdued, after giving the Romans plenty of strenuous exercise in preparation for the assault on Jerusalem.

On John's arrival there the whole population turned out, and round each of his companions in flight a vast crowd collected, crying for news of events outside. Still hot and breathless the fugitives could not hide the stress they were under, but they swaggered in their sorry plight, declaring they had not run from the Romans but had come to give them battle on favourable ground. Obviously it would have been senseless and futile to risk their lives in a hopeless struggle for Gischala and other weak little towns, when they ought to save their arms and energies for the united defence of the Capital. Then they mentioned in passing the capture of Gischala, but what they euphemistically described as their withdrawal was generally seen to have been a rout. When, however, the fate of the prisoners became known, utter dismay seized the people, who saw in it an unmistakable omen of their own. John himself, quite unconcerned for those he had left behind, went round urging them one and all to war by false hopes, making out that Roman power was feeble, exaggerating Jewish strength, and ridiculing the ignorance of the inexperienced. Not even if they grew wings could the Romans ever get over the wall ofJerusalem, after being so severely mauled in their attacks on Galilaean villages and wearing out their engines against their walls.

With this nonsense he drew most of the young men into his net and whetted their appetite for war, but of the sensible, older men there was not one but saw what was coming and mourned for the City as if it had perished already. Such was the, confused state of the people, but the country population had been torn by dissension before faction reared its head in Jerusalem. (For Titus had left Gischala for Caesarea, and Vespasian had marched from Caesarea to Jamnia and Azotus. These towns he reduced and garrisoned1 returning with a mass of people who had surrendered on terms.) Every town was seething with turmoil and civil war, and as soon as the Romans gave them a breathing-space they turned their hands against each other. Between advocates of war and lovers of peace there was a fierce quarrel. First of all in the home family unity was disrupted by partisan bitterness; then the nearest kinsmen severed all ties of blood, and attaching themselves to men who thought as they did lined up on opposite sides. Faction reigned everywhere, the revolutionaries and jingoes with the boldness of youth silencing the old and sensible.

They began by one and all plundering their neighbours, then forming themselves into companies they extended their brigandage all over the country, so that in lawless brutality the Romans were no worse than the victims' own countrymen - in fact those who were robbed thought it far preferable to be captured by the Romans.

The garrisons of the towns, partly to avoid trouble and partly to spite the Jews, did little 6r nothing to protect those attacked. When at last the leaders of the various gangs of bandits had had enough of plundering the countryside, they came together and formed a single pack of rogues. Then they infiltrated into Jerusalem, a city without military command, where by age-old custom anyone ofjewish race was admitted without scrutiny, and where at this Juncture everyone thought that those who were pouring in all came out of kindness as allies. It was this very thing that, quite apart from the faction-fighting, ultimately wrecked the City; for a useless and idle mob consumed supplies adequate for the fighting-men, and in addition to war they brought on themselves faction and starvation. Other bandits from the country slipped into the City, andjoining forces with the desperadoes within gave themselves to every imaginable crime. They did not limit their insolence to theft and brigandage, but went so far as to cominit murder, not by night or secretly or against the common people, but openly by day, beginning with the most eminent. First they seized and imprisoned Antipas, a member of the royal family and one of the most influential men in the City, entrusted with all the public funds. Next came Levias, an eminent man, and Sophas, son of Raguel, both of royal blood, then all who were prominent in the country. Terror filled the people, and as if the City had been taken by storm no one thought of anything but his own safety.

The terrorists were not satisfied with imprisoning their captives; they thought it unsafe to keep men of influence in such custody for long, as their households were quite large enough to attempt their rescue, and the whole people might be sufficiently incensed by their outrageous conduct to rise in revolt. So they decided to murder the prisoners, choosing for their tool the most bloodthirsty assassin among them, one John, whose father was called in the vernacular Dorcas. He and ten others went into the prison sword in hand and ran the prisoners through. This outrageous crime they justified with a monstrous lie; they alleged that the men had approached the Romans about surrendering Jerusalem, and had perished as traitors to their country.

In fact, they boasted of their crimes as if they were benefactors and saviours of the City. The result was that the people became so cowed and abject, and the terrorists so rabid, that they actually got control of the appointment of high priests.7 Setting aside the families which provided them in succession,8 they appointed obscure persons of no family, to gain partners in crime; those who without deserving it found themselves in the highest office were inevitably the creatures of those who had put them there. Again, they sowed dissension between their rulers by various tricks and scandalous stories, turning the squabbles of those who might have restrained them to their own advantage, till, sated with their crimes against men, they transferred their insolence to the Deity and entered the Sanctuary with their polluted feet.

The populace were now seething with discontent, urged on by the oldest of the high priests, Ananus, a man of the soundest judgement who might have saved the City if he had escaped the hands of the plotters. These made the Temple of God their stronghold and refuge from popular upheavals, and the Sanctuary became the centre for their illegal operations. Through their atrodties ran a vein of ironic pretence more exasperating than the actions themselves. For to test the submissiveness of the people and prove their own strength, they attempted to appoint the high priests by lot, though as we said before the succession was by birth.10 The excuse given for this arrangement was ancient custom; they said that from time immemorial the high priesthood had been conferred by lot. In reality this was a reversal of the regular practice and a device for consolidating their power by arbitrary appointments. Assembling one of the clans from which high priests were chosen, a clan called Eniachin, they drew lots for a high priest. The luck of the draw furnished the clearest proof of the depths to which they had sunk. The office fell to one Phanias, son of Samuel, of the village of Aphtlia, a man not only not descended from high priests but too boorish to have any clear notion of what the high priesthood might be. Anyway they dragged him willy-nilly from his holding and disguised him from head to foot like an actor on the stage, robing him in the sacred vestments and teaching him his cues. To the perpetrators this shocking sacrilege was the occasion for ribald mirth, but the other priests, watching from a distance this mockery of their law, burst into tears, cut to the heart by this travesty of the sacred rites.

Such impudence was more than the people could stand: one and all determined to bring tyranny to an end. Natural leaders like Gorion, son ofJoseph, and Symeon, son of Gamaliel," by passionate appeals to public meetings and by a door-to-door canvass urged them to act now, punish the destroyers of freedom, and purge the Sanctuary of these blood-guilty men. The most respected of the high priests, Jeshua, son of Gamaliel, and Ananus, son of Ananus, held meetings at which they took the people severely to task for their indifference and incited them against thc Zealots; for 'Zealots' they called themselves, as if they were devoted to good works, not zealous for all that was vile - vile beyond belief. The populace flocked to a mass meeting where everyone denounced the invasion of the Sanctuary, the rapine and bloodshed, but no one was prepared to resist, as it was obvious that the Zealots would be very difficult to tackle. So Ananus stood up in the middle, and turning again and again to the Sanctuary with his eyes full of tears began thus:

'How wonderful it would have been if I had died before seeing the house of God full of countless abominations and its unapproachable, sacred precincts crowded with those whose hands are red with blood! Yet I who wear the vestments of a high priest and answer to the most honoured and august of names, am alive and in love with life, and cannot face a death that would be the glory of my old age! And so I'll go alone, and as if no one else existed, I'll give my one life for God. What is the use of living among people blind to calamity and no longer capable of tackling the troubles on their hands? You are plundered without a protest, beaten without a murmur, witnesses of murder without one audible groan. What unbearable tyranny! But why blame the tyrants? Don't they owe their existence to you and your lack of spirit? Wasn't it you who shut your eyes when the gang was first formed - a mere handful then - encouraged its growth by your silence, and by standing idly by while they were arming turned those arms against yourselves? The right thing would have been to nip their attacks in the bud when they were pouring abuse on your own flesh and blood; but by your utter indifference you encouraged these ruffians to plunder. When houses were ransacked, nobody cared; so they seized their owners too, and dragged them through the middle of the City without anyone raising a fmger to defend them. Next they flung into jail the men you had let down -I will not say how many or of what character. Uncharged, uncondemned, they were imprisoned without a soul coming to the rescue. The natural consequence was that these same men were seen murdered. We saw this too - they were like a herd of dumb animals from which the best victims were dragged away one by one; yet not a murmur was uttered, not a hand raised!

'Take it calmly then, take it calmly, when you watch your Sanctuary trampled underfoot. You yourselves built every one of the steps by which these sacrilegious wretches have climbed so insolently; do not grumble if they have reached the top. Why, by now they would undoubtedly have reached still dizzier heights, if there had been anything greater than the Sanctuary to destroy!

'They have seized the strongest place in the City - from now on the Temple must be spoken of as a citadel or fort; tyranny is strongly entrenched and the enemy can be seen over your heads; but what do you mean to do? how can you quieten your fears? will you really wait for the Romans to recover our holy places? have things gone so far in tbe City, are we so sunk in misery, that we are an object of pity even to our foes? Why don't you rise, you spiritless creatures, and turn to meet the blows, and, as you see beasts do, kick out at your tormentors? Why don't you remember your own personal miseries, set before your eyes what you have suffered, whet your appetite for their blood? Have you really lost the most honourable and deep-rooted of our instincts, the longing for freedom? Are we in love with slavery and devoted to our masters, as if our fathers had taught us to be doormats? Why, again and again they fought to the bitter end for independence, defying the might of both Egypt and Persia rather than take orders from anyone! But why talk about our fathers? our present struggle with Rome - never mind whether it is profitable and advantageous or the opposite - what is its object? Isn't it freedom? Then shall we refuse to yield to the masters of the world and put up with tyrants of our own race? Yet submission to a foreign power might be put down to one crushing blow of fortune; but subservience to the scum of our own nation would prove us wilful degenerates.

'Having once mentioned the Romans, I will make no secret of what occurred to me as I spoke and turned my thoughts in their direction. Even if we fall into their hands - I do not suggest we shall -we cannot suffer any worse treatment than these men have subjected us to. Could anything be more galling than first to see offerings left in the Temple by our enemies, then spoils seized by men of our own race who have robbed and massacred the nobility of our capital city, murdering men whom even the Romans would have spared in the hour of triumph? The Romans never went beyond the bounds set for unbelievers, never trampled on one of our sacred customs, but reverently gazed from a distance at the walls of the Sanctuary; and men born in this country, brought up in our customs and called Jews, stroll where they like in the Inner Sanctuary, their hands still reeking with the slaughter of their countrymen! In face of that can anyone dread a foreign war, and enemies by comparison far kinder to us than our own people? Why, if we are to call things by their right names, we might well find that the Romans are the champions of our Law, and its enemies are inside the City!

'But that these plotters against our liberty are the scum of the earth, that for what they have done no one could devise the punishment they deserve, I am sure you were all satisfied when yau left home, and before I uttered a word you were furious with them because of the things they have made you suffer. Possibly most of you are terrified by their numbers and their temerity, and also by the advantage of their position. But these are the results of your inaction, and now will grow worse still if you procrastinate. Indeed their numbers are increasing daily, since birds of a feather flock together; their temerity is inflamed by the complete lack of opposition; and they will naturally make use of their commanding position and fortify it too, if we give them the chance. But rest assured that if we go over to the oflensive, they will be defeated by their own guilty conscience, and the advantage of height will be cancelled out by anxiety. Perhaps the Deity they have offended will turn their missiles against themselves, and the ungodly wretches will die by their own weapons. We have only to show ourselves and they are finished! Even if there is some danger involved, it will be a splendid thing to die before the sacred gateways and to sacrifice our lives, if not for our wives and children, yet for God and His Temple. I will champion your cause with head and hand; I will do everything I can think of to secure your safety, and every ounce of my bodily strength is at your disposal.'

With this eloquent appeal Ananus roused the populace against the Zealots, though well aware that they would be most difficult to suppress now, numerous, young, and intrepid as they were, and with such terrible crimes on their consdences; for they would hold out to the last, having no hope of pardon for what they had done. Nevertheless he was ready to endure anything rather than look on when affairs were in such a parlous state. The people for their part clamoured for him to lead them against the enemies he had denounced, every man most anxious to be in the forefront of the fight. But while Ananus was enlisting suitable men and organizing them for battle, the Zealots got wind of what was afoot, as they were kept informed of all that the people were doing. They were furious, and charged out of the Temple en masse and in large gangs, sparing no one they encountered. The citizens' forces were quickly mustered by Ananus, superior in numbers, but in equipment and training far inferior to the Zealots. However, enthusiasm made up for the deficiencies on both sides. Those from the City fortified themselves with rage more powerful than weapons, those from the Temple with animal courage for which no numbers were a match; the former were convinced that it was impossible to stay in the City unless they rid her of the terrorists, the Zealots that unless they triumphed they would be spared no punishment. So they joined battle, with their passions in command. They started by pelting each other with stones in the streets and in front of the Temple and by hurling spears at long range. When either side retired the victors used their swords. The slaughter on both sides was frightful and the wounded could not be counted. Casualties on the people's side were carried into the houses by their relatives; if a Zealot was hit he went up into the Temple, leaving bloodstains on the sacred floor. It might indeed be said that their blood alone polluted the sacred floor.

In these encounters the sudden sorties of the bandits were always successful; but the citizens' forces, blazing with fury and constantly growing in numbers, heaped abuse on all who wanted to surrender, while those who turned tail were unable to retire because of the men pushing forward from the rear. Thus they turned their whole strength against their opponents. The latter, unable to withstand this onslaught any longer, slowly retired into the Temple, Ananus and his men charging in with them. Alarmed by the loss of the first court, they took refuge in the inner and at once locked the gates. Ananus could not bring himself to attack the sacred gateways, especially as the enemy were hurling missiles from above, and he deemed it unlawful, even if the attack succeeded, to bring in the City crowd unpurified; so he detailed 6,000 armed men to guard the colonnades.

These were relieved by others, and every man had to take his turn as sentry; but many members of the upper classes were allowed by their superiors to hire men of humbler means to take their place on guard.

The whole of this citizen army was later destroyed - thanks to John, who, as the reader knows, had ratted from Gischala.

CHAPTER 15

Atrocities in the City. Vespasian' S Intervention

John was as crafty as a fox. He was eaten up with the love of despotic power and had long been engaged in treasonable activities. In the present crisis lie pretended to be on the citizens' side and went everywhere with Ananus, whether to discuss the situation with the leading men by day or to visit the guardposts by night, afterwards betraying his secrets to the Zealots. Thus every question discussed by the citizens, even before a decision had been reached, was conimunicated by him to their mortal enemies. In his determination to avoid suspicion he showed the utmost obsequiousness to Ananus and the leaders of the citizens. But his efforts to impress produced the opposite result; for his lick-spittle attitude brought him under greater suspicion, and his habit of pushing his nose in everywhere without an invitation made it look as if lie was betraying secrets. For evidently their enemies knew all their intentions, and no one had invited the suspicion of having disclosed them more than John. To get rid of him was another matter; he had strengthened his position by his atrocious conduct, and in any case was not one who could be disregarded; and he had built up a large following among members of the Sanhedrin; so it was decided to make him take an oath of loyalty. John swore readily enough to be loyal to the citizens, to betray neither action nor mtention to their enemies, and to put his powers of body and mind at their service for the destruction of their assailants. Ananus and his friends, satisfied with these oaths, now forgot their suspicions and invited him to their discussions: they even commissioned him to arrange a truce with the Zealots; for they were anxious that no act of theirs should desecrate the Temple and that no Jew should fall in its precincts.

John, however, as if he had sworn loyalty to the Zealots and not against them, went in, and placing himself in their midst declared that he had often run into danger for their sakes, to keep them informed of all the secret measures concerted against them by Ananus and his friends; now he was face to face with the greatest possible danger, and so were they all, unless providence came to their aid.

Ananus was on the move; he had persuaded the people to send a delegation to Vespasian, requesting him to come with all speed and take over the City; and to injure the Zealots he had announced a purification ceremony for the morrow, so that his men could gain admittance either as worshippers or by force and attack them at close quarters. He did not see how they could hold out for long or stand up to such vast numbers. He added that it was by divine providence that he was the one commissioned to arrange a truce; Ananus was making these overtures in the hope of catching them off their guard. They must therefore either humbly beg their besiegers to spare their lives or obtain some help from outside. Anybody who cherished hopes of being pardoned if they suffered defeat must have forgotten -their own black record, or imagine that when the offenders expressed regret their victims were obliged to forgive them at once. In actual fact wrongdoers often caused only disgust by eating humble pie, and the wronged were all the more furious when they found they had the whip hand. Lying in wait for the Zealots were the relatives and friends of the murdered, and a mass of people enraged by the suppression of laws and lawcourts. Even if a tiny section of these was sorry for them, the furious majority would obliterate it.

Such was the fanciful story John told to frighten them all. Precisely what 'help from outside' he had in mind he did not venture to explain, but he was hinting at the Idumaeans. To rouse the Zealot leaders' to special fury he insinuated that Ananus was a savage brute whose threats were particularly meant for them. The leaders were Eleazar, son of Simon, judged the most capable of devising suitable measures and carrying them out, and one Zachariah, son of Amphical leus, both members of priestly families. When these two heard the general threats and then those directed against them personally, and were told that Ananus and his friends in their determination to make themselves dictators were calling in the Romans - another ofjohn's slanders - they were quite at a loss what to do, being so desperately short of time; for the citizens were prepared to attack them quite soon, and the speed of this design had cut off all hope of reinforcement from outside, as they would be finished entirely before any of their allies was any the wiser. All the same they decided to call in the Idumaeans, and wrote a brief letter saying that Ananus had deceived the people and was betraying the Capital to the Romans; that they themselves had' revolted in defence of their, freedom and as a result

were imprisoned in the Temple; that a few short moments would decide whether they should survive; and that unless the Idumaeans came to their aid with all speed, they would soon be in the hands of Ananus and their mortal enemies, and the City in the hands of the Romans. Further details the messengers were to communicate to the Idumaean chiefs orally. To convey the message they chose two men of great energy, fluent and convincing speakers on public affairs, and - still more important - exceptionally good runners. They knew the Idumaeans would promptly agree, as they were an excitable and undisciplined race, always on the look-out for trouble and with an appetite for revolution, ready at the least flattery from those who sought their aid to take up arms and dash into battle as if to a banquet. The message had to be delivered with all speed - this the messengers (both called Ananias) were only too eager to do, and they very soon reached the Idumaean headquarters.

The rulers, amazed by the letter and the explanations of the bearers, raced about the country like madmen, proclaiming mobilization. The muster was complete before the time appointed, and every man seized his arms to defend the freedom of the Capital. Forming an army 20,000 strong they marched to Jerusalem commanded by four generals, John andjames the sons of Sosas, Simon son of Cathla, and Phineas son of Clusoth.

Neither Ananus nor the sentries had noticed the departure of the messengers, but they could not miss the arrival of the Idumaeans. Aware of it in good time Ananus barred the gates against them and posted sentries on the walls. Anxious however not to antagonize them completely he decided to try persuasion before resorting to arms. So taking his stand on the tower facing themjeshua, the senior high priest after Ananus, made this appeal.

'Many dilierent disorders have gripped this city: no trick of fortune has astonished me so much as the way scoundrels have received sup-port from unexpected quarters. You, for instance, have come here to help these dregs of humanity against us with more alacrity than could be expected even if the Capital had called on you to resist a foreign attack. If I saw any resemblance between you and those who have fetched you here, your enthusiasm would seem natural enough; no bond is as close as similarity of character. But actually, if they were examined one by one, none of them would be found fit to live a moment longer.' The dregs, the scum of the whole country, they have squandered their own property and practised their lunacy upon the towns and villages around, and fmally have poured in a stealthy stream into the Holy City, bandits so utterly ungodly that they have desecrated even hallowed ground. They may be seen now shamelessly getting drunk in the Sanctuary and spending what they have stolen from their victims to satisfy their bottomless appetite. But your great army in its shining array is a sight that would be welcomed if the Capital had by common consent invited you to support us against a foreign enemy. What could anybody call this but one of fortune's meanest tricks, when he sees an entire nation take up arms for the sake of the most despicable scoundrels? -

'For a long time I have been asking myself what on earth made you move so suddenly. Without good cause you would never have armed yourselves from head to foot to support bandits against your kith and kin. When we heard Rome and treachery mentioned - that is what some of you were shouting a little while ago, and how you had comc here to guard the freedom of the Capital - nothing these - impudent wretches ever did surprised us as much as this lying invention. Men who are born lovers of liberty, and for liberty above all are ready to fight a foreign enemy, could in no other way be incited against us than by framing a charge that we were betraying their beloved liberty. Think who are the slanderers and who are their victims, and gather thr truth not from fairy tales but from known facts. Whatever could induce us to sell ourselves to the Romans now? We need not have revolted at the start; and when we had done so, we could quickly have made our submission, before our countryside was ravaged. Now, even if we wanted to, we could not easily obtain an armistice, when the Romans despise us for the loss of Galilee, and it would be a disgrace worse than death to cringe to them when they are on our doorsteps. For myself, I would prefer peace to death, but once war has begun and battle been joined I would rather die bravely than live as a prisoner.

'Which do they say - that we, the citizens' leaders, sent secretly to the Romans, or that the citizens voted us authority to proceed? If they blame us, let them name the friends we sent, the stooges who put the dirty business through! Was anyone spotted on his way there or caught on the way back? Are they in possession of any letters?

- How did we keep it dark from all these thousands of citizens with whom we rub shoulders all day long, while a handful of men, blockaded and unable even to leave the Temple for the City, were informed of secret goings-on in the country? Has the information 'reached them only now, when they must pay the penalty for their crimes? and while they had no fear for themselves, was none of us suspected of treachery? if on the other hand they lay the blame on the citizens, everything was discussed in public, wasn't it? There was a full attendance at the meeting, so that before your informants arrived rumour would have brought you the news quite openly. Then again, wouldn't they have sent ambassadors if they had voted for an armistice? Who was elected? Let them name him. Gentlemen, this is simply the pretence of men afraid to die and fighting to escape the punishment that is coming to them. Why, if the City had been destined to be betrayed, no one but our slanderers would have been vile enough to do it; the list of their villainies, is complete already but for this one - treason.

'But now that you are here in arms, your prime duty is to defend the Capital and help us exterminate the usurpers,who have suppressed our courts of justice, trampled on our laws, and settled all disputes with their swords. Men of mark, charged with no offence, they have dragged from the middle of the market-place fettered and humiliated, and deaf to protests and entreaties have murdered them. You are free to enter - though not by right of war - and see for yourselves the proofs of what I say: houses emptied by their rapacious hands, w'ives and children of the murdered men in black, tears and laments in every corner of the City. There is no one who hasn't felt the hand of these grasping scoundrels. Into such a frenzy of madness they have plunged that they have transferred their impudent banditry not only from the country and outlying towns to the very heart of the Jewish world, but even from the City to the Temple! This they have made their headquarters and fortress, the base for their operations against us; and the spot venerated by the whole world and honoured by foreigners from the ends of the earth is trampled on by beasts bred in our midst. Now in their despair they are deliberately setting district against district, town against town, and enlisting the nation to tear out its own vitals. Therefore the right and proper course for you, as I said before, is to help us to exterminate the ruffians, and to punish them for cheating you by daring to call you in as allies when they ought to have feared you as avengers.

'But if you can't disregard the appeals of such men, it is still

possible to lay aside your arms, come into the City by right of kinship, and serve as arbitrators holding the balance between both sides. Think what they will gain by your judgement on charges unanswerable and vety serious. They would not hear a word in defence of men charged with no offence at all: still, let them reap the benefit of your coming. But if you will neither share our indignation nor act as judges, there is a third course - to dissociate yo'urselves from both sides and neither rub salt into our wounds nor give any support to those who wish to destroy the mother-city. However much you suspect that some of us have been in contact with the Romans, you have only to watch the approaches; if any of these slanderous suggestions is found to be true, then you can come and defend the Capital and punish those whose guilt is proved. The enemy couldn't catch you off your guard while you are so near the City. If none of these proposals seems to you acceptable or reasonable, don't be surprised that the gates remain shut as long as you carry arms.

Jeshua's speech fell on deaf ears. The Idumaean rank and file were furious at not being instantly admitted, while their generals were enraged by the invitation to lay down their arms; they might as w'ell be prisoners as throw them away under compulsion. Simon, son of Cathia, one of the generals, managed at last to quieten the uproar of his men, took his stand where the high priests could hear him, and made his reply.

'It is no longer surprising that the champions ofliberty are confined in the Temple, when our people are shut out of the city that belongs to us all - shut out by men who are ready to admit the Romans, perhaps with garlands on the gates, but who converse with Idumaeans from the towers, and order them to throw away the arms they have taken up in defence of liberty - men who will not trust their kinsmen with the defence of the Capital yet expect those very people to arbitrate in their disagreements, and accuse others of putting men to death without a trial when they themselves are condenming the whole nation to ignominy. The gates of this dty have always been wide open to every foreigner for worship, and now you have walled them up against your own countryrnen! We were racing here to cut your throats, of course, and to attack our own people - we, who were only hastening to keep you free! No doubt those you are blockading have wronged you in the same way, and you have collected an equally convincing assortment of suspidons against them! Then while

confining everyone in Jerusalem who cares about the welfare of the state, after shutting your gates without distinction against the peoples who are nearest to you in blood and ordering them about in this insulting way, you complain that you are under the thumb ofusurpers and hurl a charge ofdespotism against the victims of your own usurpt ation! Who could stomach your hypocrisy when he sees your words contradicted by the facts? - unless perhaps it is you who are being shut out of the Capital by the Idumaeans, the men you are excluding from their ancestral rites! One might reasonably blame the men besieged in the Temple because, when they were brave enough to punish the traitors whom you, being equally guilty, call "men of mark,-charged with no offence", they didn't start with you and hack off first of all the most vital limbs of this treasonable plot. But if they showed foolish leniency, we Idumaeans will defend the House of God and fight for our common country, firmly resisting both the enemy from without and the traitors within. Here before the walls we shall remain in arms, till the Romans tire of paying attention to you, or you come over to the side of freedom.'

This speech was vociferously applauded by the Idumaean rank and file. Jeshua withdrew in despair, seeing them incapable of moderation and the City assailed from two sides. Not that the Idumaeans were in a happy frame of mind. They were furious and insulted at their exclusion from the City, and the failure of the Zealots, who seemed to be in a strong position, to give them any assistance so bewildered them that many were sorry they had come. But the disgrace of going home with nothing whatever accomplished outweighed their regrets, and they stayed where they were before the wall, encamped in the greatest discomfort. During the night a devastating storm broke; a hurricane raged, rain fell in torrents, lightning flashed continuously, the thunderclaps were terrifying, and the earth quaked with deafening roars. Disaster to the human race was plainly foreshadowed by this collapse of the whole framework of things, and no one could doubt that the omens portended a catastrophe without parallel.

The Idumaeans and the people in the City drew the same conclusion. The former felt that God was angry about the expedition and that they would not escape punishment for bearing arms against the Capital; Ananus and his friends were sure that they had gained a victory without a battle and that God was championing their cause. But this guess was wide of the mark - they were predicting for their enemies the fate that' awaited their friends. For the Idumaeans pressing close together kept each other warm, and by making a roof overhead with their long shields were little the worse for the downpour; and the Zealots, more anxious about them than about the danger to them-selves, met to discuss the possibility of helping them. The hotheads favoured using their weapons to force a way through the lines of guards, and then charging into the middle of the City and defiantly opening the gates to their allies. The guards would fall back confused by their unexpected move, especially as most of them were unarmed and had seen no fighting, while the citizen army could not easily be mustered, as they were confined to their own houses by the storm. If this meant danger, it was their duty to put up with anything rather than stand by while such a huge army perished miserably because of them. The more sensible people on the other hand opposed the use of force, seeing not only that the guards encircling them were at full strength, but that because of the Idumaeans the City wall was care fully guarded. They assumed also that Ananus was everywhere, visiting the guards at all hours. On other nights such was indeed the case, but on this rnght it was omitted, not through neglect on Ananus' part, but because Fate was determined that he should perish and all his guards with him. It was she who as the night advanced and the storm reached its height put to sleep the sentries guarding the colonnade, and gave the Zealots the idea of borrowing some of the Temple saws and cutting through the bars of the gates. The noise was not heard, thanks to the roar of the wind and the continuous crash of thunder.

They stole out of the Temple and made for the wall; then plying the same saws they opened the gate in front of the Idumaeans. The latter panicked at first, thinking that Ananus and his men were making an attack, and every man grasped his sword to defend himself; but they soon realized who had come, and passed through the gateway. If they had flung themselves on the City, nothing could have prevented the citizens from perishing to a man, such was their fury; but they were anxious to free the Zealots from their confinement first, as the 'men who had admitted them implored them not to forget that those they had come to assist were in dire peril, or involve them in greater danger. When they had overwhelmed the guards, they could easily attack the City; but if they once roused the City, they would never overcome the guards; for as soon as they realized the situation, the citizens would form up and block every way to the Temple.

Convinced by this reasoning, the Idumaeans passed through the City and up the slope to the Temple. When they appeared inside, the Zealots, who had been on tenterhooks till they arrived, emerged flill of confidence from the inner courts, and mingling with the Idumaeans attacked the pickets, knifing some of the advanced sentries in their sleep. The shouts of those who were awake roused the wh6le force. Completely taken aback they snatched their weapons and rallied to the defence. As long as they thought that only the Zealots were attacking them they fought confidently, hoping to win by weight of numbers, but when they saw others streaming in from outside, they: grasped the fact of the Idumaean irruption. Most of them lost hope, flung away their arms, and gave themselves up to lamentation; but some of the younger men, putting up a wall of shields, fought the Idumaeans tooth and nail and for a long time sheltered the feebler folk. Their cries informed the people in the City of the disastrous situation; but none of these ventured to help them when they learnt that the !dumaeans had broken in; they merely replied with futile shouts and groans, and loud shrieks went up from the women who all had relations in danger among the guards. The Zealots echoed the war cry of the Idumaeans, and the din from every side was made more terrifying by the tempest. No' one was spared by the Idumaeans, by nature most barbarous and bloodthirsty, and so knocked about by the storm that they vented their rage on the men who had shut them out, making no distinction between those who cried for mercy and those who fought. Many who reminded them of the ties of blood and begged them to reverence the Temple they shared were run through with swords. There was no room for flight, no hope of safety; they were crushed together and cut down until most of them, driven back, with no way of retreat left, relentlessly assailed by their murderous foes and, in a hopeless position, flung themselves headlong into the City, choosing for themselves a fate more pitiable, it seems to me, than the one they were fleeing from. The entire outer court of the Temple was deluged with blood, and 8,500 corpses greeted the rising sun.

This holocaust did not satisfy the Idumaean appetite for blood. Turning to the City they plundered every house and killed anyone they met. Then thinking the common people not worth bothering about they went afier the high priests. It was against them that the main rush was made, and they were soon caught and killed. The murderers, standing on their dead bodies, ridiculed Ananus for his devotion to the people and Jeshua for his speech from the wall. So devoid of decency were they that they threw out the dead bodies without burial, though the Jews pay so much regard to obsequies that even those found guilty and crucified are taken down and buried before sunset. I should not be far wrong if I said that the fall of the City began with Ananus' death, and that the overthrow of the wall and the destruction of the Jewish state dated from the day when they saw the high priest, the' champion of their cause, assassinated in the middle of the City. For he was a man looked up to on every account and entirely honest, and although so distinguished by birth, position, and reputation, he loved to treat even the humblest as equals. Utterly devoted to liberty and with a passion for democracy, he always made his own interests take second-place to the public advantage and made peace the aim of his life; for he knew that Rome was invincible. But when he had no option he made careful preparations for war, in order that, if the Jews would not end hostilities, they might carry on the fight efficiently. In short, had Ananus lived, hostilities would indeed have ended; for he was an eloquent speaker who could mould public opinion and had already silenced his opponents: if war it was to be, the Jews would have held up the Roman advance a very long time under such a general.

His yoke-fellow was Jeshua, not on his level perhaps, but far above the rest. But I think God had sentenced this polluted city to destruction and willed that the Sanctuary should be purged by fire, and so cut off those who clung to them and loved them so dearly. Thus men -who a little while before had been clad in the sacred vestments, had conducted the worship renowned through the world and had been revered by visitors from every land on earth, were thrown out naked, to be devoured by dogs and wild beasts before all eyes. Virtue herself wept for these splendid men, I believe, lamenting her total defeat at the hands of Vice. Yet such was the end of Ananus and Jeshua.

With these two out of the way, the Zealots and a solid mass of Idumaeans fell upon the population and butchered them like a herd of unclean animals. Ordinary people were killed where they were caught; the young nobles were arrested, fettered, and locked up in prison,: m the hope that some would join the rebels, their execution was delayed. But not a man did so - rather than align themselves with scoundrels against their own country they all chose death. For this refusal they paid a terrible price; they were flogged and racked, and only when their bodies could endure no more torture were they allowed to die by the sword. Those arrested in the morning were finished off at night, and the bodies brought up and thrown out to make room for the next batch. The people were so petrified with fear that no one dared either to be seen weeping for a dead kinsman or to bury him, but they kept their tears secret behind locked doors, and made sure that none of their enemies could hear them before they uttered a groan; for the mourner promptly received the same treatment as the mourned. By night they took up' a little dust in their hands and sprinkled it on the bodies - or by day, if a man was exceptionally bold. 12,000 of the young nobles died in' this way.

Disgusted now with haphazard slaughter, the Zealots set up sham courts and faked trials. They had decided to liquidate one of the most distinguished citizens, Zachariah, son ofBaruch, as they were annoyed by his burning hatred of wrong and love of free4om, and his wealth made them hope not only to plunder his property but also to get rid of a man capable of destroying them. They therefore issued a categorical order, summoning seventy men in public positions to the Temple, where they turned them into a stage jury with no authority. Then they charged Zachariah with trying to betray their country to Rome and sending an offer of treason to Vespasian. There was no proof of the charges, no evidence at all, but they said that they themselves were quite convinced of his guilt and claimed that that should satisfy anyone. Zachariah realized that his fate was sealed: he had been treacherously summoned to a prison, not a court. But certain death was not going to deprive him of free speech - he stood up, scoffed at the incredibility of the charges, and in a few words disposed of the whole indictment. Then, turning the tables on his accusers, he methodically detailed all their illegalities and mercilessly exposed their mismanagement of affairs. The Zealots howled with rage and could hardly keep their hands off their swords, determined as they were to play out this farce, this sham trial to the end, and eager also to find out whether the jurors would risk their own lives in 'the' cause of justice. But the seventy brought in a unanimous verdict of Not Guilty, choosing to die with the defendant rather than bear the responsibility for his destruction. The - Zealots' greeted his acquittal with shouts of indignation, and were all enraged with the jury for not realizing that the authority bestowed on them was a mere sham. Two of the most unscrupulous fell tipon Zachariah, murdered him in the middle of the Temple, and jested over his dead body: 'Now you have got our verdict too, and your trials are over.' With that they threw him out of the Temple and into the valley beneath. Then they showed their contempt for the jurors by belabouring them with the backs of their swords and driving them from the precincts. For one purpose only they refrained from murdering them - that they might go into every part of the City and let all the citizens know that they were slaves.

The Idumaeans now felt sorry they had come and were disgusted with the goings-on. One of the Zealots came to them privately and held a meeting at 'which he denounced the excesses they had committed jointly with those who had called them in, and listed the damage done to the Capital. They had taken up arms on the ground that the high priests were betraying the Capital to the Romans, yet they had found no evidence of treason whatever. But her defenders so-called were all out for war and personal domination. The right time to stop all this had been at the outset; but having once formed a partnership to shed their country's blood, they ought at least to set a limit to their misdeeds and not go on assisting the destroyers of all they held dear. If some of them were vexed at the closing of the gates and the refusal to let them enter at once with their weapons, those responsible had certainly paid for their opposition. Ananus was dead, and in a single night the population had been almost wiped out. This had produced an unmistakable revulsion of feeling in many of their own people, but those who had called them in displayed unparalleled savagery and not a trace of respect for their deliverers. Before the very eyes of their allies they perpetrated the vilest atrocities, and their excesses would be laid at the Idumaeans' door until someone either ended or repudiated what was going on. And so, as the allegation of treason had been exploded and there was no Roman invasion on the horizon, while the City was at the mercy of a caucus that could not be dislodged, their right course was to go back home and have nothing more to do with these contemptible people, and so blot out the memory of all the crimes in which they had been tricked into playing a part.

Accepting his advice the Idumaeans first released from prison about

2,000 dtizens who at once left the City and fled to Simon, of whom we shall speak by and by; then turning their backs on Jerusalem they went home.8 Their departure had a paradoxical effect on both sides: the citizens, unaware of the revulsion of feeling, recovered their spirits for a time as if rid of an enemy, while the Zealots became more arrogant still, not as if they were deserted by allies, but as if relieved of men who frowned upon and interfered with their excesses. No longer was there any hesitation or circumspection about their outrages: they reached all their decisions with the utmost speed and executed them more quickly still. Chief objects of their lust for blood were the brave and the nobly born, the former being victims of their fear, the latter of their envy: they felt that their whole safety depended on their leaving no one who counted alive. Along with many others they murdered Gurion, a man with a reputation and of good family, but democratic and passionately devoted to liberty, if ever a Jew was. He owed his ruin mainly to his plain speaking, as well as the advantages he enjoyed. Niger the Peraean did not escape their clutches. He had shown amazing courage in the campaigns against the Romansto; but now, protesting loudly and displaying his scars, he was dragged through the middle of the City. When pulled outside the gates he despaired of life and pleaded for burial; but they made it brutally clear that the grave he so desired would never be his, and then did the foul deed. As he died, Niger called down o'n their heads the vengeance of Rome, famine and pestilence, battle and slaughter, and as a final disaster, a death grapple with their fellow citizens. All these things heaven visited on the godless wretches; and the retribution was most just, for through their party-strife they were to taste before long the niad fury of their fellow citizens.

Niger's death lessened their fear of being overthrown, but there was no section of the people for whose destruction they did not invent an excuse. Those with whom any of them had quarrelled had long ago been put away; those who had not collided with them in peacetime were subjected to carefully chosen accusations: if a man never came near them at all, he was suspected of arrogance; if he approached them boldly, of contempt; if he was obsequious, of conspiracy. The most serious accusations and the most trifling were alike punished with death and no one could escape unless he was quite insignificant owing to humble birth or poverty.

In the Roman camp all the generals treated the enemy's internal divisions as a godsend, and in their eagerness to march on the City begged Vespasian, as commander-in-chief, to lose no time. Divine providence, they said, had upheld their cause by setting their enemies at each other's throats; but the pendulum would soon swing back, and at any moment the Jews might be reunited through weariness of mutual injury or some revulsion of feeling. Vespasian replied that they were wide of the mark and were hankering after a theatrical display of armed warriors - a dangerous pose - oblivious to safety and commonsense. If he did march on the City at once, he 'would only reunite the enemy and turn their full strength against himself; if he waited, he would find their numbers reduced by their internal divisions. He might safely leave the generMship to God, who was handing over the Jews to the Romans without their lifting a finger, and making them a present of victory with no danger to the army. Very well then; while their opponents, torn by calamitous internal divisions, perished by their own hands, the right thing for them to do was to watch the dangerous conflict from a safe distance, not to ge,t mixed up with suicidal maniacs locked in a death struggle. If anyone thinks', he went on, 'that victory without a fight won't taste so sweet, he had better realize that to win success by biding your time is a sounder policy than courting disaster by plunging into battle. And again, those who shine in physical combat are no more entitled to fame than those who accomplish just as much by self-discipline and brains.' Furthermore, while the enemy were growing weaker, his own army would recover from its continuous toil and be stronger than at present. Finally, this was not the time to set their hearts on a dazzling victory. TheJews were not busy making weapons, building walls or recruiting auxiliaries, in which case postponement would injure those who granted it, but were being bled to death by dissension and civil war, and suffering daily greater miseries than they would themselves inflict on them if they attacked and overwhelmed them. If then safety was to be the criterion, those who were destroying each other should be left to continue the good work; if they asked what kind of success would win the most fame, they would be fools to attack a sick community; for there would be no denying that the victory was due, not to them, but to Jewish divisions.

Vespasian's arguments were accepted by the officers, and any doubt as to the soundness of his judgements was soon dispelled; a steady stream of deserters eluded the Zealots. But flight was difficult as every exit was guarded and anyone caught going out, whatever the reason, was assumed to be on his way to the Romans and dispatched forthwith. However, if he paid enough they let him go, and only if he failed to pay was he a traitor, so that the rich purchased their escape and only the poor were slaughtered. Dead bodies along all the main roads were heaped up high, and many who were anxious to desert decided instead to perish in Jerusalem,' for hope of burial made death in their own city seem the lesser evil. But their enemies reached such a pitch of barbarity that they would allow no one, whether killed in the City or on the roads, so much as a hole in the ground. As if they were pledged to destroy the laws of their country and of Nature too, and along with their crimes against mankind to pollute the Deity Himself, they left the dead bodies rotting under the open sky. For those who buried a kinsman, as for deserters, the penalty was death, and anyone who gave burial to another soon needed it himself. In short, no other lofty emotion disappeared so completely amid the horrors of the tin~e as pity; things that deserved compassion were the things that provoked these wretches, who -switched their venom from the living to those they had murdered, and from the dead back to the living'. Paralysed with fear the survivors envied those already dead - they were at peace - and the tortured occupants of the jails declared that compared with them even the unburied were fortunate. Their persecutors trampled on every ordinance of man, scoffed at the laws of God, and ridiculed the oracles of the prophets as the inventions of tricksters. Yet those prophets clearly discerned the laws of right and wrong, by breaking which the Zealots caused the prophecies against their country to be fulfilled. -For there was an age-old saying of inspired men that the City would be taken and the most Holy Temple burnt to the ground by right of war, if ever the citizens strove with each other andjewish hands were the first to pollute the house of God. The truth of this the Zealots did not question; but they made themselves the means of its fulfilment.

By now, John had set his heart on one-man rule and, not content to be on an equality with his fellows, gradually built up a following of the worst types and cut adrift from the rebel organization. He paid no heed whatever to the decisions of the rest and issued his own orders like a lord, obviously aiming at sole sovereignty. Some gaye way to him through fear, some were genuine adherents; for he was very clever at winning support by the orator's tricks. Many thought their own skins would be safer if the crimes already committed were laid at one door, not many; and his activity with both hand and brain won him henchmen in plenty. However, a large number of dissidents left him, to some extent prompted by envy and unwillingness to submit to a fornier equal, but in the main put off by dread of a sovereign ruler; for they could not hope to pull him down easily once he was master, and jie would have a handle against them as they had opposed him at the start. Every man chose to face war with all its miseries rather than throw away his liberty and die like a slave. This, then, was the explanation of the rift in the insurgent ranks, and John faced his opponents like a rival monarch. However, they did little more than watch each other's movements, and there was little or no actual fighting: their only rivalry was at the expense of the people -who would bring home the most loot was the point at issue. Now that the storm-tossed city was at the mercy of the three greatest calamities, war, tyranny, and party-strife, by comparison the citizens felt that war was almost endurable. Anyway they fled from their own people and sought sanctuary with foreigners, finding in the Roman camp the safety they had no hope of finding in their own city.

And now a fourth calamity was coming on the doomed nation. Not far from Jerusalem was a well-nigh impregnable fortress built by the kings of long ago for the safe keeping of their treasures and their personal security in the hazards of war. It was called Masada, and was in the hands of the so~alled Sicarii. Hitherto they had merely raided the districts near by to procure supplies: fear prevented any further ravages; but when they heard that the Roman army was making no move, while the Jews in Jerusalem were torn by party-strife and domestic tyranny, they launched out on more ambitious schemes. During the Feast of Unleavened Bread (kept by the Jews in memory of their escape, ever since they were freed from slavery in Egypt and returned to their ancestral home) they eluded those who lay in their path and made a night raid on a little town called Engedi. Those who might have put up a resistance were scattered before they could seize their weapons and form up, and thrown out of the town; those who could not fly, women and children more than 700 in number, were butchered. Then they stripped the houses bare, seized the ripest of the crops, and brought the loot to Masada. They proceeded to plunder all the villages round the fortress and ravage the whole area, their numbers being daily swelled by a flow of ruffians like themselves from every side.

In all districts of judaea there was a similar upsurge of terrorism, dormant hitherto; and as in the body if the chief member is inflan~d all the others are infected, so when strife and disorder broke out in the capital the scoundrels in the country could plunder with impunity, and each group after plundering their own village vanished into the wilderness. There they joined forces and organized themselves in companies, smaller than an army but bigger than a gang of bandits, which swooped on sanctuaries19 and cities. Those they attacked suffered as severely as if they had lost a war, and were unable to retaliate as the raiders, like all bandits, made off as soon as they had got what they wanted. In fact, every corner of Judaea was going the way of the capital.

All this was reported to Vespasian by deserters; for though the insurgents guarded all the outlets and killed those who went near them, whatever the reason, there were some, nevertheless, who eluded them and fled to the Roman camp, where they begged the commander-in-chief to protect - the City and save the remnant of the people - it was because of their loyalty to Rome that so many had lost their lives and danger threatened the survivors. Vespasian, already moved by their misfortunes, set out as if to besiege Jerusalem, but really to end the existing siege. But he was obliged first to reduce the places that were left, so as to leave nothing outside the City to interfere with the siege. He therefore proceeded to Gadara, the strongly fortified capital of Peraea, entering the city on the 4th of Dystros.20 --The authorities, unseen by the insurgents, had sent a deputation to him with an offer of surrender, partly from a longing for peace and partly to safeguard their possessions, many Gadarenes being very rich. Of this deputation their opponents knew nothing; Vespasian was nearly there before they discovered it. They despaired of holding the town themselves, as their enemies within outnumbered them and the Romans could be seen not far away. So they decided to flee, but could not bear to do so without spilling blood and wreaking vengeance on those who had brought things to this pass. They seized Dolesus, by birth and reputation the first citizen, but believed to be responsible for the deputation, killed him, and in their uncontrollable rage mutilated his dead body before fleeing from the town. The Roman force now arrived, and the people of Gadara welcomed Vespasian with acclamation and received from him guarantees of protection, and also a garrison of horse and foot to deal with sudden attacks by the fugitives. They had pulled down their walls without orders from the Romans, so as to prove their devotion to peace by their inability to m;ike war even if they wanted to.

To deal with those who had fled from Gadara Vespasian sent Placidus with 500 horse and 3,000 foot, while he himself with the rest of the army went back to Caesarea. When the fugitives suddenly caught sight of the pursuing horsemen, they crowded into a village named Bethennabrisz1 before contact was made. Here they found a large number of young men and armed them willy-nilly. Then with utter recklessness they rushed out to attack Placidus. At the first onset his men gave a little ground, scheming to draw the enemy away from the walls; then, when they had got them where they wanted them, they endrcled them and shot them down. Those who fled the cavalry cut off, those who were pinned down the infantry destroyed without mc.rcy. In their death-struggle the Jews could do no more than display their fearlessness; for as they hurled themselves on the massed Romans behind their impenetrable barrier of steel, they could find no chink for their missiles to enter or means of breaking the enemy ranks, while they themselves were easy targets for Roman missiles and like the' wildest of wild beasts charged the opposing steel and perished, some struck w'ith the sword as they faced the enemy, some scattered by the cavalry.

Placidus was determined to block their dashes for the village, so he kept his cavalry moving past them on that side, and then wheeled round and instantly discharged a well-aimed volley, killing those who were near and scaring away the rest, till the bravest of them forced their ~ay through and sought the protection of the walls. The sentries found themselves in a quandary: they could not bear to shut out the men from Gadara and with them their own friends; and if they let them in they would perish with them. This was exactly what happened; for when the Jews forced their way inside the ramparts, the Roman cavalry almost managed to burst in with them, and though the gates were shut in the nick of time, Placidus launched an attack, and after battling fiercely till evening captured the wall and the entire village. The non-combatants were exterminated, the able-bodied fled, the houses were ransacked by the soldiery, and the village set on fire. Those who escaped raised all the countryfolk, and by exaggerating their own calamities and saying that the entire Roman army was coming against them drove them all out on every side in terror, and with the whole mass fled towards Jericho; this was the only city left strong enough, at least in the size of its population, to nourish the hope of survival. Placidus, relying on his,cavalry and encouraged by his earlier successes, pursued them to the Jordan, killing all he could catch; and when he had penned the whole mass on the bank of the river, where they were stopped by the current, which was swollen by rain and unfordable, he deployed his forces opposite them. Necessity compelled them to fight, having no way of escape; so they extended their line along the bank as far as they could and faced the missiles and the charges of the horsemen, who wounded many of them and threw them into the swirling waters below. Those who perished by Roman hands numbered 15,000; those who were forced to leap into the Jordan of their own accord could not be counted at all. Some 2,200 wer,e taken prisoner,. and there was a rich haul of asses, sheep, camels, and oxen.

The Jews had never suffered a heavier blow than this, and it seemed even heavier than it was; for not only was the whole path of their flight one long trail of slaughter and the Jordan rendered impassable by dead bodies, but the Dead Sea too was filled with' corpses which the river carried down into it by the thousand. Placidus, seizing his advantage, launched attacks against the little towns and villages round about, captured Abila, Julias, Besimoth, and all the rest as far as the Dead Sea, and drafted into each the most suitable of the deserters. Then putting the soldiers on board ship he rounded up those who had 'sought safety on the lake. Thus all Peraea submitted or was crushed

as as Machaerus.