Roman and anti-Roman factions; ardent spirits always disposed to rise, and spirits more sluggish and pacific, who were either indifferent or indisposed to run the risk. Further, the strife between these sometimes went to blood, and not unfrequently placed the same community on different sides at different times. This, undoubtedly, I have to prove. I will first illustrate it by various cases including even Jerusalem itself, and will afterward show that, if we wish to make sense and not nonsense out of Josephus, we must apply the same ideas to Gadara, which besides, in all likelihood, had some mixture of population, and classes possessed of wealth and influence, which were sure to take the Roman or anti-national side.
I must first, however, observe that Mr. Huxley has quoted the text of Josephus inaccurately. As he has cited it, the revolted Jews proceeded at Gadara and Hippos as they had done in the cities of Syria that he had previously mentioned. But what Josephus says[1] is that they devastated (wholesale as it were) these Syrian cities, and that then, proceeding against Gadara and Hippos (which meant territories and not mere cities), they burned some places, and reduced to submission (not the rest but) others; thus, pointing to those differences of local faction, class, or race, in the different neighborhoods, which Mr. Huxley overlooks.
Sepphoris, the chief city of Galilee, and the strongest, exhibits those anomalies of political position which belonged to a conquered, disturbed, and variously divided country. It was one of the five great Hebrew centers, which Gabinius chose to be the seats of Sanhedrims.[2] After the death of Herod, it was taken and destroyed by the Romans, and the population reduced to slavery. Subsequently it was repeopled. When Vespasian invaded Palestine, it asked and obtained from him a Roman garrison,[3] as it had also received Cestius Gallus with acclamations not long before.[4] Yet, nearly at the same period, and probably between these two occasions, when Josephus was engaged in preparing Galilee for defense, by fortifying at the proper points, he left Sepphoris to raise its own walls,[5] because while it was rich it was also zealous for the war. Later on, Sepphoris was required to give hostages to the Romans[6] at the very time when it was exposed to the jealousy and hostility of the Jews. Thus the same city, according to local fluctuations, was the partisan to-day of one side, to-morrow of the other. A clear comprehension of this shifting character in the local facts is vitally necessary for a sound judgment on the case before us.
