possession of their city. The king promised to come, and wrote a letter in answer to theirs, and gave it to one of his bed-chamber, whose name was Crispus, and who was by birth a Jew, to carry it to Tiberias. When the Galileans knew that this man carried such a letter, they caught him, and brought him to me; but as soon as the whole multitude heard of it, they were enraged, and betook themselves to their arms. So a great many of them got together from all quarters the next day, and came to the city Asochis, where I then lodged, and made heavy clamours, and called the city of Tiberias a traitor to them, and a friend to the king; and desired leave of me to go down and utterly destroy it; for they bore the like ill-will to the people of Tiberias as they did to those of Sepphoris.
69. WHEN I heard this, I was in doubt what
to do, and hesitated by what
Josephus by
stratagem
preserves the
city.
means I might deliver Tiberias
from the rage of the Galileans;
for I could not deny that those of
Tiberias had written to the king,
and invited him to come to them;
for his letters to them, in answer thereto, would
fully prove the truth of that. So I sat a long
while musing with myself, and then said to them,
"I know well enough that the people of Tiberias
have offended; nor shall I forbid you to plunder
the city. However, such things ought to be done
with discretion; for they of Tiberias have not
been the only betrayers of our liberty, but many
of the most eminent patriots of the Galileans, as
they pretended to be, have done the same. Tarry
therefore till I shall thoroughly find out those
authors of our danger, and then you shall have
them all at once under your power, with all such
as you shall yourself bring in also." Upon my
saying this, I pacified the multitude, and they
left off their anger, and went their ways; and I
gave orders that he who brought the king's letters
should be put into bonds: but in a few days I
pretended that I was obliged, by a necessary
affair of my own, to go out of the kingdom. I
then called Crispus privately, and ordered him to
make the soldier that kept him drunk, and to run
away to the king. So when Tiberias was in
danger of being utterly destroyed a second time,
it escaped the danger by my skilful management,
and the care that I had for its preservation.
70. ABOUT THIS time it was that Justus,
the son of Pistus, without my
knowledge, ran away to the king;
the occasion of which I will here
Justus runs to
the king.
relate. Upon the beginning of the
war between the Jews and the Romans, the people
of Tiberias resolved to submit to the king, and
not to revolt from the Romans; while Justus tried
to persuade them to betake themselves to their
arms, as being himself desirous of innovations,
and having hopes of obtaining the goverment of
Galilee, as well as of his own country [Tiberias]
also. Yet did he not obtain what he hoped for,
because the Galileans bore ill-will to those of
Tiberias, and this on account of their anger at
miseries they had suffered from them before the
war; thence it was that they would not endure
that Justus should be their governor. I myself
also, who had been intrusted by the community
of Jerusalem with the government of Galilee, did
frequently come to that degree of rage at Justus,
that I had almost resolved to kill him, as not able
to bear his mischievous disposition. He was
therefore much afraid of me, lest at length my
passion should come to extremity; so he went to
the king, as supposing that he should dwell better
and more safely with him.
71. NOW, WHEN the people of Sepphoris
had, in so surprising a manner, escaped their
first danger, they sent to Cestius Callus, and
desired him to come to them immediately and
take possession of their city, or else to send forces
sufficient to repress all their enemies' incursions
upon them; and at the last they
did prevail with Gallus to send
them a considerable army, both of
Callus sends
an army to
Sepphoris.
horse and foot, which came in the
night-time, and which they
admitted into the city. But when the country
round about it was harassed by the Roman army,
I took those soldiers that were about me, and
came to Garisme, where I cast up a bank, a good
way off the city Sepphoris; and when I was at
twenty furlongs' distance, I came upon it by
night, and made an assault upon its walls with
my forces: and when I had ordered a considerable
number of my soldiers to scale them with
ladders, I became master of the greatest part of
the city. But soon after, our
unacquaintedness with the place
forced us to retire, after we had
killed twelve of the Roman footmen,
Unsuccessful
assault of
Sepphoris.
and two horsemen, and a few
of the people of Sepphoris, with the loss of only a
single man of our own. And when it afterwards
came to a battle in the plain against the
horsemen, and we had undergone the dangers of it
courageously for a long time, we were beaten;
for upon the Romans encompassing me about,
my soldiers were afraid, and fled back. There
fell in that battle one of those that had been
entrusted to guard my body; his name was
Justus, who at this time had the same post with
the king. At the same time also there came
forces, both horsemen and footmen, from the
king, and Sylla their commander, who was the
captain of his guard; this Sylla pitched his camp
at five furlongs' distance from Julias, and set a
guard upon the roads, both that which led to
Cana, and that which led to the fortress Gamala
that he might hinder their inhabitants from getting
provisions out of Galilee.
72. AS SOON as I had gotten intelligence of
this, I sent two thousand armed men, and a
captain over them, whose name was Jeremiah,
who raised a bank a furlong off Julias, near to
the river Jordan, and did no more
A battle with
Sylla's forces.
than skirmish with the enemy;
till I took three thousand soldiers
myself, and came to them. But
on the next day, when I had laid an ambush in a
certain valley, not far from the banks, I provoked
those that belonged to the king to come to a
battle, and gave orders to my own soldiers to
turn their backs upon them until they should
