to the temple, by the permission of Titus, where there was a great multitude of captive women and children, I got all those that I remembered, as among my own friends and acquaintances, to be set free, being in number about one hundred and ninety; and so I delivered them, without their paying any price of redemption, and restored them to their former fortune; and when I was sent by Titus Cæsar with Cerealius and a thousand horsemen to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, while the third recovered.
76. BUT WHEN Titus had composed the
troubles in Judea, and conjectured that the
lands which I had in Judea would bring me in no
profit, because a garrison to guard the country
was afterward to pitch there, he
Titus bestows
land on
Josephus.
gave me another country in the
plain; and, when he was going
away to Rome, he made choice of
me to sail along with him, and
paid me great respect: and when we were come
to Rome, I had great care taken of me by
Vespasian; for he gave me an apartment in his own
house, which he lived in before he came to the
empire. He also honoured me with the privilege
of a Roman citizen, and gave me an annual
pension, and continued to respect me to the end
of his life, without any abatement of his kindness
to me; which very thing made me envied, and
brought me into danger; for a certain Jew, whose
name was Jonathan, who had raised a tumult in
Cyrene, and had persuaded two thousand men of
that country to join with him, was the occasion
of their ruin. But when he was bound by the
governor of that country, and sent to the emperor,
he told him that I had sent him both weapons
and money. However, he could net conceal his
being a liar from Vespasian, who condemned him
to die; according to which sentence
Jonathan put
to death.
he was put to death. Nay, after
that, when those that envied my
good fortune did frequently bring
accusations against me, by God's providence I
escaped them all. I also received from
Vespasian no small quantity of land, as a free gift in
Judea. About which time I divorced my wife
also, as not pleased with her behaviour, though
not till she had been the mother of three children;
two of whom are dead, and one, whom I named
Hyrcanus, is alive. After this I married a wife
who had lived at Crete, but a Jew by birth; a
woman she was of eminent parents, and such as
were the most illustrious in all the country, and
whose character was beyond that of most other
women, as her future life did demonstrate. By
her I had two sons; the elder's name was Justus,
and the next Simonides, who was also named
Agrippa; and these were the circumstances of
my domestic affairs. However, the kindness of
the emperor to me continued still the same; for
when Vespasian was dead, Titus, who succeeded
him in the government, kept up the same respect
for me which I had from his father; and when I
had frequent accusations laid against me, he
would not believe them. And Domitian, who
succeeded, still augmented his
respects to me; for he punished those
Domitian
punishes the
accusers of
Josephus.
Jews that were my accusers, and
gave command that a servant of
mine, who was a eunuch, and my
accuser, should be punished. He
also made that country I had in Judea tax free,
which is a mark of the greatest honour to him
who hath it; nay, Domitia, the wife of Cæsar,
continued to do me kindnesses. And this is the
account of the actions of my whole life, and let
others judge of my character by them as they
please; but to thee, O Epaphroditus,[1] thou most
excellent of men! do I dedicate all this treatise
of our Antiquities; and so, for the present, I
here conclude the whole.
- ↑ Of this Epaphroditus, see the note on the Preface to the Antiqvities.
