inform thee of a great many things which them dost not know." So when this history was perfected, Agrippa, neither by way of flattery, which was not agreeable to him, nor by way of irony, as thou wilt say (for he was entirely a stranger to such an evil disposition of mind), but he wrote this by way of attestation to what was true, as all that read histories may do. And so much shall be said concerning Justus,[1] which I am obliged to add by way of digression.
66. NOW, WHEN I had settled the affairs
of Tiberias, and had assembled my friends as a
sanhedrim, I consulted what I
should do as to John: whereupon
Question
concerning John.
it appeared to be the opinion of all
the Galileans that I should arm
them all, and march against John, and punish
him as the author of all the disorders that had
happened. Yet was not I pleased with their
determination: as purposing to compose these
troubles without bloodshed. Upon this I
exhorted them to use the utmost care to learn the
names of all that were under John; which when
they had done, and I thereby was apprized who
the men were, I published an edict, wherein I
offered security and my right hand to such of
John's party as had a mind to repent; and I
allowed twenty days' time to such as would take
this most advantageous course for themselves. I
also threatened, that unless they threw down
their arms, I would burn their houses, and expose
their goods to public sale. When the men heard
of this, they were in no small disorder, and
deserted John, and to the number of four thousand
threw down their arms, and came to me. So that
no others staid with John but his own citizens,
and about fifteen hundred strangers that came
from the metropolis of Tyre; and when John saw
that he had been outwitted by my stratagem,
he continued afterward in his own country, and
was in great fear of me.
67. BUT ABOUT this time it was that the
people of Sepphoris grew insolent, and took up
arms, out of a confidence they had
in the strength of their walls, and
Sepphoric
revolts.
because they saw me engaged in
other affairs also. So they went
to Cestius Gallus, who was president of Syria,
and desired that he would either come quickly to
them, and take their city under his protection, or
send them a garrison. Accordingly Gallus
promised them to come, but did not send word when
he would come: and when I had learned so much,
I took the soldiers that were with me, and made
an assault upon the people of Sepphoris, and took
the city by force. The Galileans took this
opportunity, as thinking they had now a proper
time for shewing their hatred to them, since they
bore ill-will to that city also. Then they exerted
themselves, as if they would destroy them all
utterly, with those that sojourned there also. So
they ran upon them, and set their
houses on fire, as finding them
Plundered by
the Galileans.
without inhabitants; for the men,
out of fear, ran together to the
citadel. So the Galileans carried off everything,
and omitted no kind of desolation which they
could bring upon their countrymen. When I saw
this I was exceedingly troubled at it, and
commanded them to leave off, and put them in mind
that it was not agreeable to piety to do such
things to their countrymen: but since they neither
would hearken to what I exhorted, nor to what I
commanded them to do (for the hatred they bore
to the people there was too hard for my
exhortations to them), I bid those my friends who were
most faithful to me, and were about me, to give
out reports as if the Romans were falling upon the
other part of the city with a great army; and
this I did, that by such a report being spread
abroad, I might restrain the violence of the
Galileans, and preserve the city of Sepphoris.
And at length this stratagem had its effect; for,
upon hearing this report, they were in fear for
themselves, and so they left off plundering, and
ran away; and this more especially, because they
saw me, their general, do the same also; for, that
I might cause this report to be believed, I
pretended to be in fear as well as they. Thus were
the inhabitants of Sepphoris unexpectedly
preserved by this contrivance of mine.
68. NAY, INDEED, Tiberias had like to
have been plundered by the
The Galileans
about to
plunder Tiberias.
Galileans also upon the following
occasion:—The chief men of the
senate wrote to the king, and
desired that he would come to them and take
- ↑ The character of this history of Justus of Tiberias, the rival of our Josephus, which is now lost, with its only remaining fragment, are given us by a very able critic, Photius, who read that history. It is in the thirty-third code of his Bibliotheca, and runs thus:—"I have read (says Phothius) the chronology of Justus of Tiberias, whose title is this, [The chronology of] the kings of Judah, which succeeded one another. This [Justus] came out of the city of Tiberias in Galilee. He begins his history from Moses, and ends it not till the death of Agrippa, the seventh [ruler] of the family of Herod, and the last king of the Jews; who took the government under Claudius, had it augmented under Nero, and still more augmented by Vespasian. He died in the third year of Trajan, where also his history ends. He is very concise in his language, and slightly passes over those affairs that were most necessary to be insisted on; and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth, he makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did. He was the son of a certain Jew, whose name was Pistus. He was a man, as he is described by Josephus, of a most profligate character; a slave both to money and to pleasures. It public affairs he was opposite to Josephus; and it is related that he laid many plots against him; but that Josephus, though he had this his enemy frequently under his power, did only reproach him in words, and so let him go without farther punishment. He says also, that the history which this man wrote is for the main fabulous, and chiefly as to those parts where he describes the Roman war with the Jews, and the taking of Jerusalem,"
