Jewish War — Book 7

Josephus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

Since the army could find no more people to kill and no more property to plunder—their fury had run out of targets, for they would certainly not have held back from any deed out of consideration for anyone had the means still existed—Caesar now ordered the demolition of the whole city and the temple, leaving standing only the towers that rose highest above the rest, Phasael, Hippicus, and Mariamme, and the section of wall enclosing the city on the west. This he preserved so that it might serve as a camp for the garrison to be left behind, and he preserved the towers so that they might show later generations what kind of city it had been and by what strength the valor of the Romans had captured a stronghold so formidable. All the rest of the circuit of the city the demolition crews leveled so completely that anyone who came upon the site afterward would find no reason to believe it had ever been inhabited. Such was the end to which the folly of the revolutionaries brought Jerusalem, a city celebrated far and wide and famous among all mankind.

Caesar decided to leave behind as a garrison there the Tenth Legion, along with some cavalry squadrons and companies of infantry. Since he had now settled all the business of the war, he wished to commend the whole army for its successes and to give out the rewards due to those who had distinguished themselves. A great platform was accordingly built for him in the middle of what had been the camp, and he took his stand on it with his officers, in the hearing of the entire army, and declared that he owed them great thanks for the goodwill they had continually shown him. He praised, too, the discipline they had maintained through every stage of the war, which, together with their personal courage, they had displayed amid many great dangers, thereby increasing the power of their country through their own efforts and making it plain to all mankind that neither superior numbers of enemies, nor the strength or extent of fortified positions, nor the reckless daring and savage ferocity of opponents, could ever succeed in escaping Roman valor, even when fortune sometimes seemed to fight on their side in various ways.

It was a fine thing, he said, that they had themselves brought to an end a war that had lasted so long; for when they first took it up, they could not have prayed for a better outcome than this, and it was finer and more glorious still that the men they had chosen to lead them and to administer the government of Rome, and had sent home again, were welcomed gladly by all and their judgments accepted, so that everyone remained grateful to those who had made the choice. He said he marveled at them all and loved them all, knowing that none had shown less eagerness than what was possible for him. Still, to those who had fought with particular distinction, showing greater strength, adorning their own record with acts of valor and making his own command more illustrious through their achievements, he said he would grant rewards and honors at once, and that none of those willing to labor harder than others would fail of a just reward. This, he said, would be his chief concern, since he preferred to honor the merits of his fellow soldiers rather than to punish wrongdoers.

He then immediately ordered the officers assigned to the task to read out the names of all who had accomplished some brilliant feat in the war. Calling each by name as they came forward, he praised them as if he himself were overjoyed at their individual achievements, and set golden crowns on their heads, gave golden neck-chains, small golden spears, and standards made of silver, and advanced each man's rank to a higher grade. He also distributed to them generously, out of the spoils, silver and gold, garments, and other plunder. When all had been honored as he judged each deserved, he offered prayers on behalf of the whole army, came down amid loud acclamation, and turned to sacrifices of victory. A great number of oxen stood ready at the altars; these he sacrificed, all of them, and distributed the meat to the army for a feast. He himself spent three days feasting with the officers, after which he dismissed the rest of the army, each man to go wherever it seemed best for him, but assigned to the Tenth Legion the guarding of Jerusalem, no longer sending them back to the Euphrates, where they had previously been stationed.

Remembering that the Twelfth Legion had, under the command of Cestius, given ground before the Jews, he drove it out of Syria altogether—it had formerly been stationed at Raphanea—and sent it instead to the place called Melitene, on the Euphrates, on the borders of Armenia and Cappadocia. Two legions, the Fifth and the Fifteenth, he decided should remain with him until his arrival in Egypt. Then, going down with the army to Caesarea on the coast, he deposited there the mass of the spoils and gave orders that the prisoners be kept under guard in that city, since the winter storms prevented the crossing to Italy.

At the very time when Titus Caesar was pressing the siege of Jerusalem, Vespasian had boarded a merchant ship and crossed from Alexandria to Rhodes. From there he sailed on triremes, visiting every city along the coast, all of which received him with eager welcome, and crossed from Ionia to Greece; from there, by way of Corcyra, he came to the Iapygian promontory, from which point he continued his journey by land.

Titus, meanwhile, moved on from Caesarea on the coast to the city called Caesarea Philippi, where he stayed for a considerable time, presenting spectacles of every kind. Many of the captives perished there, some thrown to wild beasts, others forced in great numbers to fight one another as though they were enemies. It was there too that he learned of the capture of Simon son of Gioras, which had come about in the following manner.

This Simon, while Jerusalem was under siege, had been in the upper city; but once the Roman army had gotten inside the walls and was sacking the whole city, he took along the most trustworthy of his friends, together with stonecutters equipped with the iron tools needed for the work, and food enough to last many days, and with all of them he let himself down into one of the hidden underground passages. As long as the old tunnel continued, they made their way through it; but when they came up against solid ground, they began to dig their own tunnel through it, hoping that by pressing on further they might come up in a place of safety and so make their escape.

But the attempt proved the hope false, for the diggers advanced only a little and with great difficulty, and the food, carefully rationed though it was, was bound to run out. Then Simon, thinking he might astonish the Romans into being deceived, put on white tunics and fastened over them a purple cloak, and rose up out of the ground on that very spot where the temple had formerly stood.

At first those who saw him were struck with amazement and stood rooted where they were; then they came nearer and asked who he was. Simon would not tell them, but ordered them to summon their commander. When they had run and fetched him, Terentius Rufus arrived—for he had been left in command of the army—and having learned the whole truth from Simon, he kept him bound in custody and reported to Caesar that he had been captured.

Thus God brought Simon to justice for the cruelty he had inflicted on his fellow citizens, whom he had ruled with such bitter tyranny, delivering him into the hands of the very enemies who hated him most—not overpowered against his will, but casting himself of his own accord into their punishment, on account of the very charge under which he himself had savagely put many to death, falsely accusing them of going over to the Romans. For wickedness does not escape the anger of God, nor is justice weak; in time it pursues those who transgress against it, and it inflicts a heavier punishment on the wicked precisely because they had supposed themselves free of it by not being punished at once. Simon learned this when he fell into the hands of the enraged Romans; and his emergence from the ground likewise caused a great many of the other rebels to be discovered in the tunnels during those same days.

When Caesar returned to Caesarea on the coast, Simon was brought before him in chains, and Caesar ordered that he be kept for the triumph he was preparing to celebrate in Rome.

While staying there, Titus celebrated his brother's birthday with great magnificence, devoting a large part of the punishment of the Jews to that celebration in his honor: the number of those who died fighting wild beasts, or burned to death, or forced to kill one another in mass combats, exceeded two thousand five hundred. Yet all this seemed to the Romans, though countless thousands of the Jews perished by these various means, still too light a punishment.

After this Caesar came to Berytus, a city of Phoenicia and a Roman colony, and there he made an even longer stay, displaying still greater magnificence in honor of his father's birthday, both in the lavishness of the spectacles and in every other kind of expenditure. The multitude of captives continued to perish in the same way as before.

About this same time it happened that the Jews remaining at Antioch faced accusations and were in danger of destruction of the entire community, as the people of Antioch were thrown into an uproar against them, both because of slanders currently being brought against them and because of things that had occurred not long before—matters I must briefly explain first, so that my account of what followed may be easily understood.

The Jewish people are scattered in great numbers among the native populations throughout the whole inhabited world, but they are mingled most of all with Syria, because of its proximity, and especially in great numbers at Antioch, on account of the size of that city. It was above all the kings who succeeded Antiochus who allowed them to settle there without fear. For Antiochus, called Epiphanes, had sacked Jerusalem and plundered the temple, but those who took over the kingdom after him restored to the Jews of Antioch all the bronze dedications, dedicating them in their synagogue, and granted them equal rights of citizenship with the Greeks.

The kings who came after continued to treat them in the same way, and the Jews grew in numbers and enriched the temple with the costliness and splendor of their votive offerings, and by constantly drawing in a great many Greeks through their religious practices, they made these too, in a certain sense, part of their own community.

At the time when the war had just been proclaimed and Vespasian had recently sailed to Syria, and hatred of the Jews was at its height everywhere, a certain Antiochus, one of the Jews of Antioch, held in particular honor on account of his father—who was in fact the leader of the Jews there—came forward while the people of Antioch were holding an assembly in the theater, and denounced his own father and the others, accusing them of having planned to burn down the whole city in a single night, and handing over as accomplices some foreign Jews he claimed had shared in the plot.

When the people heard this, they could not contain their rage; they at once ordered fire to be brought against those handed over, and all of them were instantly burned alive in the theater. The crowd then rushed against the general body of the Jews, thinking that by destroying them as quickly as possible they would be saving their own city.

Antiochus only inflamed their anger further, offering as proof of his own conversion and of his hatred for Jewish customs the act of sacrificing in the manner prescribed by Greek law; he urged that the others be compelled to do likewise, since anyone who refused would thereby be exposed as one of the conspirators. When the people of Antioch put this to the test, a few submitted, but those who refused were killed.

Antiochus then obtained soldiers from the Roman commander and dealt harshly with his own fellow citizens, forbidding them to rest on the seventh day and forcing them to carry out all the same activities as on other days. He made this compulsion so severe that not only at Antioch was the observance of the Sabbath abolished, but the practice, beginning there, spread for a short time in similar fashion to other cities as well.

Such were the troubles that had already befallen the Jews of Antioch at that time; but a second disaster followed upon these, which I have undertaken to relate here as well. It happened that the great market square, along with the public archives and record office and the royal buildings, caught fire, and the blaze was only with great difficulty prevented from spreading over the whole city. Antiochus laid this act at the door of the Jews.

The people of Antioch, even if they had not previously felt hostility toward the Jews, were, in the panic caused by this disaster, quickly led by the slander—and far more so because of what had gone before—to believe what Antiochus told them, as though they had all but seen with their own eyes the Jews setting the fire. Behaving like men possessed, and in a great frenzy, they all rushed together against those who had been accused.

Only with difficulty were they restrained from this onslaught by a certain legate, Gnaeus Collega, who urged that they leave it to Caesar to be informed of what had happened; for Vespasian had already dispatched Caesennius Paetus to govern Syria, though he had not yet arrived. Collega, conducting a careful investigation, discovered the truth.

None of the Jews accused by Antiochus had had any part whatsoever in the deed; the whole thing had been carried out by certain worthless men who, hard-pressed by debts, calculated that if they burned the market and the public records, they would be rid of the demands made on them. The Jews, then, remained tossed about in cruel fear, still under the threat of an accusation left hanging over them, awaiting what would come.

Meanwhile Titus Caesar received news about his father: that he had been eagerly awaited by all the cities of Italy as he passed through them, and that Rome above all had received him with great eagerness and splendor. At this Titus turned to great joy and gladness, now most happily rid of his anxieties on his father's account. For even while Vespasian was still far off, all the people throughout Italy already regarded him in their minds as though he had arrived, so strong was their longing, which made his coming seem near, and their goodwill toward him was free of any compulsion.

The Senate, remembering the disasters that had befallen them amid the changes of rulers, longed to receive as their leader a man adorned with the dignity of age and the prime achievements of a military career, one whose preeminence they knew would be directed toward nothing but the safety of his subjects. And indeed the people, worn down by the evils of civil strife, were all the more eager for his arrival, believing that then at last they would be securely freed from their misfortunes, and confident that they would recover peace and prosperity together. But it was the soldiers above all who looked to him, for they, more than anyone, knew the magnitude of the wars he had brought to a successful conclusion, and blamed the inexperience of the others—

leaders who had experience of the previous emperors and their cowardice, they longed to be rid of their deep shame, and prayed to receive back the one man who could both save and honor them. Since this goodwill was universal, the men of highest rank could no longer bear to wait, but hurried to meet him far outside Rome. Nor could anyone else endure delay in greeting him, but all poured out together in a body, and it seemed easier and more comfortable for everyone to leave the city than to stay in it — so much so that the city itself, for the first time, became aware of its own emptiness, since those who stayed behind were fewer than those who went out. When word came that he was approaching, and those who had already met him described the graciousness of his reception of each man, all the remaining crowd, together with their wives and children, waited for him along the roads, and as he passed by, each group broke into every kind of shout for the pleasure of the sight and the mildness of his expression, hailing him as benefactor, savior, and the only man worthy to rule Rome. The whole city was as full of garlands and incense as a temple.

With difficulty, forcing his way through the crowd pressing around him, he managed to reach the palace, where he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving to the household gods for his safe return, and urged the people to feast. Gathering by tribe, clan, and neighborhood, they held banquets and poured libations to God, praying that Vespasian might remain at the head of Rome's government as long as possible, and that his power might pass unopposed to his sons and to their descendants after them. So the city of Rome received Vespasian with this eagerness, and at once began to flourish in great prosperity.

Before this time, while Vespasian was still near Alexandria and Titus was pressing the siege of Jerusalem, a large part of the Germans had risen in revolt, and most of the Gauls had joined them, together forming great hopes of shaking off Roman rule. What roused the Germans to take up the revolt and carry the war forward was, first, their nature, which is empty of sound judgment and, on the slightest hope, ready to take reckless risks; and then their hatred of their rulers, since they alone of nations knew themselves forced to serve Rome. Yet it was, above all, the moment itself that gave them courage: seeing the Roman empire thrown into disorder by the constant succession of emperors, and hearing that every part of the world under Roman rule was unsettled and shaking, they thought this the best opportunity that the misfortune and discord of the Romans could have handed them. The men who fed this scheme and inflamed them with such hopes were Classicus and Vitellus, both leaders among them, who had clearly wanted this revolution for a long time, but were emboldened by the moment to reveal their intention; and they were about to put the attempt to a people already eager for it.

When a large part of the Germans had already declared their revolt openly, and the rest were of like mind, as if by divine providence Vespasian sent a letter to Petilius Cerialis, formerly governor of Germany, granting him the consular honor and ordering him to go and take command in Britain. On his way to his assignment, learning of the German revolt, he fell upon them while they were still gathering, gave battle, killed a great number of them, and forced the survivors to abandon their folly and come to their senses. And that man himself, had he not soon after gone to the region, was destined not long afterward to pay the penalty; for as soon as news of the revolt reached Rome, Domitian Caesar, on hearing it, did not hesitate — unlike another man of his age, for he was still altogether young — to take on so great a task, but having inherited his father's courage by nature, and having already made his training more complete than his years suggested, he marched at once against the barbarians. They, at the mere report of his approach, lost heart and surrendered themselves to him, counting it great gain, given their fear, to be brought back under the same yoke without further disaster. So Domitian, having set all Gaul in proper order so that it should never again be easily disturbed, returned to Rome, brilliant and admired for achievements beyond his years yet fitting for his father's son.

In the same days as the German revolt just described, a bold venture by the Scythians also broke out against Rome. The people called the Sarmatians, a Scythian tribe of great numbers, crossed the Danube unnoticed into the land on this side, and with great force and savagery, falling on the Romans while the attack was wholly unexpected, killed many of the soldiers on garrison duty, and slew the consular legate Fonteius Agrippa, who met them and fought bravely; they then overran the whole surrounding country, plundering and carrying off whatever they came upon. When Vespasian learned of these events and the ravaging of Moesia, he sent out Rubrius Gallus to inflict punishment on the Sarmatians. Under him many of them died in battle, and the survivors fled home in terror. Having brought the war to this end, the general also took care for future security, garrisoning the region with more numerous and stronger guards, so that crossing became entirely impossible for the barbarians. Thus the war in Moesia reached so quick a resolution.

Titus Caesar spent some time at Berytus, as we have said before, and then, moving on from there, held lavish spectacles in every city of Syria he passed through, using the Jewish captives to display their own destruction. On his journey he observed a river of a nature worth recording. It flows between Arcea, in the kingdom of Agrippa, and Raphanea, and has a remarkable peculiarity: while it flows, it runs full and swift, but then, for a span of six days, it fails entirely from its source and leaves the place dry to see; then, as though no change had occurred, it flows again as before on the seventh day, and it has always kept exactly to this pattern without fail. For this reason they have called it the Sabbatical river, naming it after the Jews' sacred seventh day.

When the people of Antioch learned that Titus was near, they could not bear, for joy, to remain within the walls, but hurried out to meet him, advancing more than thirty stadia — not only men, but a crowd of women with their children as well, pouring out of the city. And when they saw him approaching, they lined the road on either side, stretched out their right hands in greeting, and turned back with him while calling out every kind of acclamation; but running through all their cheers alike was a constant plea to expel the Jews from the city. To this plea Titus gave no ground at all, but listened to what was said in silence; and since it remained unclear what he thought and what he would do, the Jews were left in great and painful fear. For Titus did not stay in Antioch, but pressed his march at once to Zeugma on the Euphrates, where envoys came to him from Vologeses, king of the Parthians, bringing a golden crown in honor of his victory over the Jews. Having accepted it, he entertained the royal envoys, and from there returned to Antioch.

When the council and people of Antioch made repeated pleas that he come to the theater, where the whole crowd had gathered and was waiting for him, he graciously agreed. But when they again pressed him urgently and begged without ceasing that he expel the Jews from the city, he made a fitting reply:

"Their homeland, to which the Jews ought properly to be banished if they were to be expelled, has been destroyed, and no place would now take them in."

So the Antiochenes turned to a second request, abandoning the first: they asked him to remove the bronze tablets on which the Jews' legal privileges were inscribed. This too Titus refused to grant them, but leaving everything as it stood, he left the Jews of Antioch in possession of their former rights, and set out for Egypt.

On the way, he approached Jerusalem, and setting the wretched desolation now visible against the city's former splendor, calling to mind the scale of the buildings now shattered and their beauty of old, he grieved over the city's ruin — not like a man boasting that he had taken so great and so mighty a city by force, but rather calling down curses again and again on those responsible for the revolt, who had brought this punishment on the city. So plainly did he show that he had no wish that the glory of his own achievement should come at the cost of the punished city's disaster. Even among the ruins, no small part of the city's great wealth was still being found: much of it the Romans dug up themselves, and more still was seized on information given by the captives — gold, silver, and the most valuable of the other furnishings, which their owners had buried in the ground against the uncertain fortunes of war.

Titus, continuing the journey he had set out on toward Egypt, crossed the desert as quickly as possible and reached Alexandria; and having decided to sail for Italy, he sent back, each to where it had come from, the two legions that had accompanied him, the fifth to Moesia and the fifteenth to Pannonia. Of the captives, he selected the leaders Simon and John, along with seven hundred other men chosen for their outstanding height and beauty, and ordered them conveyed to Italy at once, wishing to display them in his triumph.

His voyage went as he wished, and Rome, in receiving him, showed the same eagerness in welcome and greeting as it had for his father; but it was an even more splendid moment for Titus that his own father came out to meet and receive him. The mass of citizens felt an almost divine joy at seeing the three of them now together in one place. Not many days later, they decided to hold one single, joint triumph for their victories, though the Senate had voted each of them his own separately. Once the day appointed for the triumphal procession had been announced, not a soul was left at home out of the countless multitude in the city; everyone had come out and taken up whatever place allowed even standing room, leaving only enough space for the marchers to pass through.

While the entire army was still moving through the night, company by company and unit by unit under their commanders, and gathering by the gate — not the gate of the upper palace, but the one near the temple of Isis, for there the emperors had rested that night — at the very break of dawn Vespasian and Titus came forward, crowned with laurel and wearing the purple robes of their ancestors, and entered the Colonnade of Octavia; for there the Senate, the magistrates of every rank, and the equestrian order awaited their arrival. A platform had been built before the colonnade, with ivory chairs set upon it; they came forward and took their seats, and at once the army acclaimed them, all bearing witness together to their many acts of valor. The emperors themselves were without weapons, dressed in silk garments and crowned with laurel.

Vespasian received their acclamation, and though they still wished to go on, he gave the signal for silence; and when a deep hush had fallen over all, he rose, covered the greater part of his head with his mantle, and offered the customary prayers; Titus prayed in the same way. After the prayers, Vespasian spoke briefly to the whole assembly, then dismissed the soldiers to the breakfast customarily prepared for them by the emperors, while he himself withdrew to the gate that had earned its name from the fact that triumphal processions always passed through it. There they first tasted food, and then, having put on the triumphal robes and sacrificed to the gods stationed by the gate, they sent the triumph on its way through the theaters, so that the crowds might have an easier view.

It is impossible to describe adequately the multitude of those spectacles and their magnificence in everything one might imagine, whether works of art, riches, or rarities of nature; for almost everything that fortunate men throughout history had ever acquired, piece by piece, wonderful and costly items scattered among many owners, all of it was gathered together on that one day and displayed the greatness of Roman power. One could see silver, gold, and ivory in every kind of crafted form, carried not as though in a procession but, one might say, flowing like a river; some of it woven fabrics of the rarest purple, some worked with fine precision into pictures by Babylonian craft; and translucent gems, some set in golden crowns, others fashioned in different ways, were carried past in such numbers that one learned how mistaken it had been to think any of them rare. Statues of their gods were also carried, remarkable in size and no ordinary work of art, and none of them made of any but the most precious material; many kinds of animals were led along as well, each adorned in trappings suited to it.

The crowds of people who carried each of these things were themselves dressed in purple and gold-embroidered garments, and those chosen to march in the procession itself wore ornaments of extraordinary and dazzling costliness. Nor, in addition to this, could one see even the captive throng as an unadorned mass, for the variety and beauty of their clothing stole from the eye the unpleasantness that would otherwise come from their battered bodies. But what caused the greatest wonder of all was the construction of the moving platforms that were carried along; indeed, their size was enough to make one fear for the reliability of their motion, for many of them were built three or four stories high, and the sheer costliness of their construction gave pleasure mixed with astonishment. Many were draped in fabrics interwoven with gold, and wrought gold and ivory

had been fixed on every one of them. Through many tableaux the war, broken up and distributed piece by piece, presented a most vivid picture of itself: one could see a prosperous land being ravaged, whole battle lines of the enemy being cut down, men fleeing and men being led off into captivity, walls of extraordinary size being battered down by siege engines, strongholds of fortresses being taken, the crowded circuits of cities being overrun to their very foundations, an army pouring in behind the walls, every place filled with slaughter, the hands of those too weak to resist raised in supplication, fire being thrown into temples, houses being pulled down over the heads of their owners, and, after much desolation and grief, rivers flowing not over cultivated land or providing drink for men or cattle but through a country ablaze from end to end. For this is what the Jews had condemned themselves to suffer by making war.

The artistry and grandeur of these constructions showed to those who had not witnessed the events as if they were present at them then. On each platform was stationed the commander of the captured city, positioned exactly as he had been when he was taken. Many ships followed as well. The rest of the spoils were carried along in a jumbled mass, but conspicuous above all were the things taken from the temple in Jerusalem: a golden table weighing many talents, and a lampstand, likewise made of gold, though its design differed from those we ordinarily use. Its central shaft was fixed to a base, and from it extended slender branches arranged like the prongs of a trident, each ending in a wrought bronze lamp. There were seven of these, signifying the honor paid among the Jews to the number seven.

After these came the law of the Jews, carried last among the spoils. Following them marched many men bearing images of Victory, all of them fashioned from ivory and gold. Behind this Vespasian rode first, with Titus following, while Domitian rode alongside on horseback, himself splendidly arrayed and mounted on a horse that was a sight to see.

The end of the procession was at the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where they came and stopped, for it was an ancient custom to wait there until someone announced the death of the enemy's commander. This was Simon, son of Gioras, who had just been led in the procession among the captives; a rope was now thrown around him and he was dragged, amid the blows of those escorting him, to the place in the Forum where it is the Roman custom to execute those condemned to death for crimes. When word came that he was dead and the whole crowd cried out in acclamation, they began the sacrifices, and once they had offered these with the customary prayers and obtained favorable omens, they withdrew to the palace. Some of the guests they entertained themselves at a banquet, while for everyone else lavish provisions for feasting had been prepared according to custom. For on this day the city of Rome was celebrating the victory over its enemies, the end of its civil miseries, and the beginning of its hopes for prosperity.

After the triumphs, and once the rule of the Romans had been most firmly established, Vespasian resolved to build a Temple of Peace. It was completed with astonishing speed, faster than anyone could have imagined. Drawing on the vast wealth fortune had given him, he also adorned it with works of painting and sculpture that had long been celebrated as masterpieces; for into that temple were gathered and deposited all the works of art for the sight of which people had once wandered over the whole inhabited world, longing to see now one masterpiece, now another, wherever each happened to be kept. There he also dedicated the golden vessels from the temple of the Jews, taking pride in them, but he ordered that their law and the purple curtains of the sanctuary be kept, stored away in the palace.

Meanwhile a legate, Lucilius Bassus, was sent to Judea; taking over the army from Cerealius Vetilianus, he first secured the surrender of the fortress at Herodium along with its garrison. After this he assembled the whole of the military force, much of which was scattered in detachments, together with the Tenth Legion, and resolved to march against Machaerus. It was quite necessary to reduce this fortress, lest its strength encourage many into rebellion; for the nature of the place was well suited to give those who held it a firm hope of safety, and to give those attacking it hesitation and fear. The fortified height itself is a rocky hill rising to a very great elevation, which makes it difficult to capture on that account alone, but nature has also contrived to make it virtually unapproachable: it is surrounded on every side by ravines of a depth impossible to gauge, which cannot easily be crossed and are altogether impossible to fill in. The ravine on the west side runs for sixty stadia and ends at the Dead Sea; it is at this point that Machaerus itself has its highest peak towering above. The ravines on the north and south, though smaller than the one just described, are equally impossible to attack. The ravine to the east has a depth of no less than a hundred cubits, and ends at a mountain lying opposite Machaerus.

When King Alexander of the Jews recognized the nature of the site, he was the first to build a fortress on it, which was later demolished by Gabinius in his war against Aristobulus. When Herod became king, he judged it more deserving of care and the strongest possible fortification than any other place, especially because of its proximity to the Arabs, since it lies in a strategic position looking out toward their territory. He therefore enclosed a large area with walls and towers and founded a town there, from which a road led up to the summit itself. He also built a wall around the summit itself and raised towers at each corner, sixty cubits high. In the middle of the enclosure he built a palace, magnificent in the size and beauty of its rooms, and he constructed many cisterns in the most convenient places to hold water and provide an abundant supply, as though competing with nature itself, so that he might surpass by his own artificial defenses the natural impregnability of the place. He also stored there a great quantity of missiles and engines, and devised everything capable of enabling its inhabitants to hold out through the longest siege with contempt for the danger.

In the palace grounds there grew a rue plant of a size worth marveling at, for it fell short of no fig tree in height and thickness. The story went that it had survived since the time of Herod, and it might perhaps have lasted much longer still, had it not been cut down by the Jews who took possession of the place. In the ravine on the north side that surrounds the town there is a place called Baaras, which produces a root bearing the same name. This root resembles flame in color, and toward evening it gives off a radiant glow to those approaching; it is not easily seized, for it shrinks away and will not stay still until someone pours a woman's urine or menstrual blood upon it. Yet even then, death is certain for those who touch it, unless one carries that very root itself suspended from the hand. There is, however, another way of taking it without danger, which is as follows.

They dig a trench all around it, until only the smallest part of the root remains covered. Then they tie a dog to it, and when the dog, straining to follow the one who tied it, rushes forward, the root is pulled up easily, but the dog dies at once, as though offered in the place of the person who intends to remove the plant; for after that, whoever takes it up has nothing to fear. It is sought after at the cost of so much danger for a single power it possesses: what are called demons — that is, the spirits of wicked men that enter the living and kill those who receive no help — this root drives out quickly, the moment it is merely brought near the sick. There are also springs of hot water flowing in that region that differ greatly from one another in taste, some of them bitter, others lacking nothing in sweetness.

There are also many outlets of cold water, not only in the lower ground, where their springs run alongside the hot ones, but — and this is even more remarkable — nearby there is a cave, shallow in depth but sheltered by an overhanging rock, above which two mounds rise a short distance apart, like breasts, one giving off an extremely cold spring, the other an extremely hot one. When these mix, they make a most pleasant bath, a remedy for diseases and especially effective for restoring the sinews. The place also has mines of sulfur and alum.

Bassus, after surveying the site, decided to make his approach by filling in the eastern ravine, and set to work, hastening to raise the earthwork as quickly as possible so as to make the siege an easy matter. Meanwhile the Jews trapped inside separated themselves from the foreign refugees among them, and, regarding them merely as a useless crowd, forced them to remain in the lower town and be the first to face the danger, while they themselves seized and held the upper fortress, both because of the strength of its defenses and out of concern for their own safety, supposing they would obtain a pardon if they handed the place over to the Romans. But first they wished to test, by experience, their hopes of escaping the siege altogether. For this reason they made sorties eagerly every day, and in clashes with those working on the earthworks many of them died, but they also killed many of the Romans. Fortune always gave the greater share of success to one side or the other according to the moment — to the Jews when they fell upon less guarded troops, to the Romans stationed on the earthworks when they anticipated and met the sortie fully prepared.

Yet it was not by such means that the siege was destined to reach its conclusion; rather, an event that occurred by an unforeseen coincidence forced the Jews into surrendering the fortress. Among the besieged was a young man bold in daring and vigorous in action, named Eleazar, who had distinguished himself in the sorties by urging many to go out and hinder the earthworks, and by inflicting great and terrible losses on the Romans in the fighting; to those daring to charge out with him he made the attack seem easy and the withdrawal safe, since he was always the last to retreat. Once, when a battle had been broken off and both sides had withdrawn, he, out of contempt and supposing that none of the enemy would renew the fighting at that time, remained outside the gates conversing with the men on the wall, and everyone's attention was fixed on that exchange.

A certain Rufus, an Egyptian by birth, serving in the Roman camp, saw his opportunity, and, when no one expected it, suddenly ran up with some companions, seized him bodily along with his weapons before those watching from the walls could recover from their shock, and carried the man off to the Roman camp. When the commander ordered him stripped naked and set in the most conspicuous place in view of those looking on from the city, to be scourged, the Jews were thrown into terrible distress over the young man's suffering, the whole city cried out as one, and the lamentation was greater than for the loss of a single man. Seeing this, Bassus began to devise a stratagem against the enemy, and, wishing to intensify their anguish so as to force them to surrender the fortress in exchange for the man's life, his hope was not disappointed.

He ordered a cross set up, as though he were about to hang Eleazar on it at once, and when those in the fortress saw this, an even greater grief fell upon them, and they cried out in prolonged lamentation, declaring the suffering unbearable. Eleazar himself now begged them not to let him endure the most pitiable of deaths while there was a way to secure their own safety by yielding to the strength and fortune of the Romans, since everyone else had already been subdued. Moved by his pleas, and with many inside interceding on his behalf — for he came from a large and very numerous family — they yielded to compassion against their own nature, and quickly sent men to negotiate the surrender of the fortress, asking that they be allowed to depart unharmed once they had recovered Eleazar.

When the Romans and their commander accepted these terms, the crowd in the lower town, learning of the agreement the Jews above had reached on their own, resolved to slip away secretly by night. But when they opened their gates, word of it reached Bassus through those who had made the agreement — whether out of resentment at the others' escape, or from fear that they themselves would be blamed for it. Of those going out, the bravest managed to break through and escape, but of those left behind, more than seventeen hundred men were killed, and the women and children were sold into slavery. Considering himself bound to honor the terms he had made with those who had surrendered the fortress, Bassus released them and gave back Eleazar.

Having settled these matters, he hastened to lead his army toward the forest called Jardes, for it was reported that many who had earlier fled from the sieges of Jerusalem and Machaerus had gathered there. When he arrived at the place and found the report to be true, he first surrounded the entire area with his cavalry, so that any Jews who dared to break out would find flight impossible because of the horsemen, and he ordered the infantry to cut down the woods into which the Jews had taken refuge. Driven by this necessity, the Jews were compelled to attempt some bold action, hoping perhaps even to break through by a desperate struggle, and, massing together with a shout, they charged and fell upon those surrounding them.

The Romans received them with firm resistance, and since both sides fought on, the one out of desperation, the other out of stubborn resolve, the battle dragged on for no little time, but its outcome was not the same for both sides that fought it. Of the Romans, only twelve in all fell, with a few wounded, but of the Jews not one escaped from this battle: numbering no fewer than three thousand, all of them died, including their commander Judas, son of Ari, of whom we spoke earlier, saying that while commanding a unit during the siege of Jerusalem he had escaped notice by slipping away through some of the tunnels.

At about this same time Caesar wrote to Bassus and to Laberius Maximus, who was the procurator, ordering that all the land

of the Jews. He did not settle a city of his own there to hold the territory, but gave land for a settlement to eight hundred men only, discharged from the army, in a place called Emmaus, thirty stadia from Jerusalem. On all Jews, wherever they lived, he imposed a tax of two drachmas each, to be paid every year to the Capitol, just as they had previously paid it to the temple in Jerusalem. That was the condition of the Jews at that time.

By now Vespasian was in the fourth year of his reign when Antiochus, king of Commagene, fell into great misfortune along with his whole household, for the following reason. Caesennius Paetus, then governor of Syria — whether he was telling the truth or acting out of personal hostility toward Antiochus is not entirely clear — sent a dispatch to Caesar claiming that Antiochus and his son Epiphanes had decided to revolt from Rome, having made an agreement with the king of the Parthians, and that it was necessary to act against them before they could strike first and throw the whole Roman empire into war.

Caesar was not inclined to disregard a report of this kind once it reached him, for the proximity of the two kingdoms made the matter worthy of greater concern: Samosata, the largest city of Commagene, lies on the Euphrates, so that if the Parthians had any such design, it would give them both an easy crossing and a secure landing. Paetus, having gained Caesar's trust and authority to act as he saw fit, wasted no time. While Antiochus and his people expected nothing of the kind, he suddenly invaded Commagene, leading the sixth legion together with some cohorts and squadrons of cavalry.

He was joined in the campaign by two allied kings, Aristobulus of Chalcidice and Sohaemus of Emesa. They met no resistance at all in their invasion, for none of the people of the country was willing to lift a hand against them. When word of this reached Antiochus without warning, he had no thought whatever of making war on the Romans. Instead he resolved to leave his whole kingdom just as it was and withdraw quietly with his wife and children, thinking that in this way he would show the Romans he was innocent of the charge brought against him. He went out from the city a hundred and twenty stadia and made camp on the plain. Paetus sent men to seize Samosata, and through them took the city, while he himself with the rest of his force pressed on against Antiochus.

The king, even under this compulsion, would not be moved to take any hostile action against the Romans, but bewailed his fortune and resigned himself to suffer whatever must come, without a fight. His sons, young men experienced in war and outstanding in bodily strength, could not so easily bear the disaster without resistance, and so Epiphanes and Callinicus turned to arms. The battle that followed was fierce and lasted the whole day; the brothers displayed conspicuous courage, and when it broke off at evening their own force had suffered no loss. But Antiochus, even though the battle had gone this way, thought it intolerable to remain, and taking his wife and daughters made his escape with them into Cilicia.

By this act he broke the spirit of his own soldiers, for they took it that he had condemned his kingdom by his flight, and they deserted and went over to the Romans; the despair of the whole army was plain for all to see. So before they were left entirely without allies, Epiphanes and his companions had no choice but to save themselves from the enemy, and a party of ten horsemen in all, with them, crossed the Euphrates, from where they made their way safely to Vologeses, king of the Parthians, and were received there — not treated with contempt as fugitives, but honored in every way, as men who still possessed their former good fortune. As for Antiochus, when he reached Tarsus in Cilicia, Paetus sent a centurion after him and had him put in chains and sent to Rome.

But Vespasian could not bear to have the king brought before him in that condition, judging it right to show more regard for their old friendship than to keep an implacable anger on the pretext of the war. He therefore ordered that while Antiochus was still on the road his chains be removed, and that instead of continuing on to Rome he should for the present take up residence at Sparta, granting him at the same time a large income, so that he might live not merely in comfort but in royal style.

When Epiphanes and his companions learned of this, the great and troubling anxiety they had felt over their father was lifted from their hearts. They too gained hope of reconciliation with Caesar, since Vologeses wrote to Caesar on their behalf — for even in their prosperity they could not bear to live outside the rule of Rome. Caesar granted them safe passage with kindness, and they came to Rome, where, their father having arrived there directly from Sparta, they were received with every honor and remained.

As for the nation of the Alans — that they are Scythians dwelling by the Tanais and the Maeotic Lake we have already shown earlier — at about this time they resolved to break into Media and the country beyond it for plunder, and opened negotiations to that end with the king of Hyrcania, for he is master of the pass which King Alexander closed with iron gates.

Once he had granted them passage, they fell upon the Medes in a body while they suspected nothing, and plundered a populous country full of every kind of livestock, with no one daring to stand against them. Pacorus, the king of that land, fled in terror to the rough country, abandoning everything else, and barely managed to ransom his wife and concubines from their captors by paying a hundred talents.

So with great ease, meeting no resistance, the Alans carried off their plunder and pressed on as far as Armenia, ravaging everything as they went. Tiridates ruled that country; he came out to meet them and gave battle, and in the fighting he very nearly was taken alive, for someone cast a noose around him and would have dragged him off had he not cut the cord with his sword in time and made his escape.

Made still more savage by that encounter, the Alans laid the country waste, and carrying off a great number of people and the rest of their plunder from both kingdoms, withdrew again to their own land.

In Judea, after the death of Bassus, Flavius Silva succeeded to the command, and seeing the whole country already subdued by the war except for a single fortress still holding out, he gathered all the forces in the region and marched against it. The fortress is called Masada. At the head of the sicarii who held it was a capable man named Eleazar, a descendant of that Judas who, as we have shown earlier, had persuaded no small number of Jews not to submit to the census when Quirinius was sent as censor into Judea.

For it was then that the sicarii banded together against those Jews willing to obey Rome, and treated them in every way as enemies, plundering and driving off their property and setting fire to their houses. They claimed such people were no better than foreigners, so basely had they abandoned the freedom for which Jews should fight to the death, choosing instead servitude under Rome and openly professing it. But this was, in truth, only a pretext they used to cloak their own cruelty and greed, as they made plain enough by their deeds.

Some indeed shared with them in the revolt and helped in the war against Rome, and yet suffered still worse outrages from them; and when their pretense of righteousness was exposed as a lie, they only mistreated more harshly those who reproached their wickedness by appeal to justice. That period was somehow prolific in every kind of wickedness among the Jews, so that no deed of vice was left undone, nor could anyone, however he tried to invent something, have found anything more novel to devise. So sick were they, both individually and as a body, that they vied with one another in impiety toward God and in wrongdoing toward their neighbors, the powerful oppressing the masses and the masses eager to destroy the powerful — for the one group lusted to tyrannize, the other to use violence and plunder the property of the wealthy.

The sicarii were the first to begin this lawlessness and this cruelty even against their own kin, leaving no word of outrage unspoken and no deed of destruction untried against those they plotted against. Yet even they were shown to be more moderate than John, who not only killed everyone who gave advice that was just and useful, treating such men as his bitterest personal enemies among the citizens, but also filled his whole country with countless evils — such as a man was bound to do who had already dared to be impious even toward God. He set an unlawful table and abandoned the customary and ancestral purity, so that it should no longer be any wonder that a man so mad in his impiety toward God did not keep faith and fellowship with his fellow men.

Again, what evil did Simon son of Gioras leave undone? Or from what outrage against free men's persons did those who set him up as tyrant hold back? What friendship, what kinship restrained them from daily murders growing ever bolder? For they held it a mean and base kind of wickedness to do harm to strangers, but thought it a brilliant display to show cruelty against their very closest kin. The madness of the Idumaeans rivaled even this frenzy: those most polluted men slaughtered the high priests, so that not even a remnant of reverence toward God should be preserved, and cut away whatever trace of civil order still remained,

and brought in the most complete lawlessness of all, in which the group called the Zealots flourished — men who made their name true to their deeds, for they imitated every work of wickedness, and left nothing unattempted that memory records as having existed before them, though they took their name from what is properly striven for in the name of good, whether mocking those they wronged out of their own brutish nature, or reckoning the greatest evils to be goods. In any case, each of these groups met the end appropriate to it, as God apportioned to them all the punishment they deserved: for every affliction human nature can endure fell upon them, down to the very last moment of life, which they met dying amid manifold torments. Yet one might say they suffered less than what they had done, since in their case exact justice was not fully paid. But it would not suit the present occasion to lament, as they deserve, those who fell victim to that cruelty; so I return again to the remaining part of the narrative.

The Roman commander marched his forces against Eleazar and the sicarii who held Masada with him, and at once made himself master of the whole region, stationing garrisons at its most important points; he threw a wall around the entire fortress, so that none of the besieged could easily escape, and posted men to guard it. He himself pitched camp at the spot he judged most suitable for the siege, where the rocks of the fortress come close to the neighboring hill — though otherwise a difficult place for supplies, since not only was food carried from far off, at great hardship to the Jews assigned to that task, but even water had to be brought into the camp, as the place had no spring nearby.

Having made these preparations beforehand, Silva turned to the siege, which required great skill and hardship because of the strength of the fortress, whose nature was as follows. A rock of no small circuit and considerable height is enclosed on every side by deep ravines, precipitous from an invisible base and inaccessible to any living creature's foothold, except that at two points the rock allows an ascent, though not an easy one.

Of the paths, one comes from the Dead Sea toward the rising sun, and the other from the west, where the going is easier. The former they call the Snake, comparing it to that creature for its narrowness and its constant windings; for it bends around the projections of the cliffs, and after running back on itself again and again, and then gradually lengthening out once more, scarcely gains any ground ahead. Whoever walks it must plant each foot in turn, alternating, and sure destruction lies on either side, for on both sides a chasm gapes beneath, deep enough in its terror to overwhelm the boldest courage.

After going by this path for thirty stadia, one at last reaches the summit, which does not narrow to a sharp point but forms a level plateau. On this the high priest Jonathan first built a fortress and named it Masada; later King Herod devoted great effort to the development of the site.

He raised a wall around the whole circuit of the summit, seven stadia in length, built of white stone, twelve cubits high and eight cubits thick, with thirty-seven towers fifty cubits high standing along it, from which one could pass into chambers built along the whole inside of the wall. The summit itself, rich in soil and softer than any plain, the king left open for cultivation, so that if ever there should be a shortage of food from outside, those who had entrusted their safety to the fortress should not want for that either. He also built a palace there on the western ascent, below the walls of the citadel and inclining toward the north.

The wall of the palace was great in height and strong, with four sixty-cubit towers at its corners. The furnishing of the chambers within, the porticoes, and the baths was elaborate and costly in every way, with columns of single stones standing throughout, and the walls and floors of the rooms adorned with a mosaic of stone. At every place of habitation, both above and around the palace and in front of the wall, he had cut many great cisterns in the rock as reservoirs for water, contriving a supply as ample as that enjoyed by those who have springs at hand.

A hidden road, cut through the rock, led up from the palace to the very top of the summit, invisible to those outside. Nor indeed could the visible roads easily be used by an enemy: the eastern one, as we said before, is impassable by nature, while the western one—

On the west side, at the narrowest point, he built across it a great tower, no less than a thousand cubits from the citadel—a tower that could neither be bypassed nor easily taken; even those who walked to it without fear found it hard to get out of. In this way the fortress was made secure against enemy assault, both by nature and by human craft. But what was stored inside would have astonished one even more with its splendor and its power to last.

Grain lay stored in great quantity, enough to last a long time; there was also much wine and oil, and every kind of pulse, and heaps of dates. Eleazar, when he seized the fortress by treachery together with the sicarii, found all of this still fresh, no worse than goods newly laid in—though nearly a hundred years had passed between the time of its storing and the capture of the place by the Romans. Even the Romans found the remaining produce uncorrupted. One would not be wrong in supposing the cause of this durability to be the height of the air around the citadel, unmixed with any earthy or turbid vapor. There was also found a great quantity of weapons of every kind, stored away by the king, enough to arm ten thousand men, as well as raw iron, bronze, and lead, since this store had been laid in for weighty reasons.

It is said that Herod prepared this fortress as a refuge for himself, fearing a double danger: one from the Jewish populace, in case they should depose him and restore to power the kings who had ruled before him; the other, greater and more serious, from Cleopatra, who then ruled Egypt. For she made no secret of her intention, but repeatedly urged Antony to kill Herod and grant her the kingdom of the Jews. And one might be even more astonished that Antony, in thrall as he was to his passion for her, had never yet obeyed her demands—not that he expected any ill effect from refusing her. It was from fears such as these that Herod had prepared Masada, which he was to leave to the Romans as the last task of their war against the Jews.

For once the Roman commander had, as we said before, already walled off the whole place from outside, and taken the most careful precautions that no one should escape, he set about the siege, having found only one spot capable of receiving an earthwork. Beyond the tower that walled off the road leading from the west to the palace and to the summit, there was a broad spur of rock, jutting out a great distance, three hundred cubits below the height of Masada; they called it the White Rock. Silva climbed up onto it, and once he had secured it, ordered his troops to bring up earth. Working eagerly with a large force, they raised a solid ramp two hundred cubits high. Even so, this height did not seem stable or sufficient as a platform for the siege engines, so on top of it they built a platform of great fitted stones, fifty cubits both in width and height. The construction of the other engines was much like those devised earlier by Vespasian, and later by Titus, for their sieges, and a tower sixty cubits high was built, entirely sheathed in iron; from it the Romans, shooting with many bolt-throwers and stone-throwers, quickly drove back the defenders fighting from the wall and kept them from showing themselves. At the same time Silva had a great battering ram built, and ordering it to strike the wall again and again, at last, though with difficulty, broke through and brought down part of it.

But the sicarii moved quickly and built another wall inside, one that was not going to suffer the same fate from the engines; for they built it to be soft and able to absorb the force of the blows, in the following way. They laid large beams lengthwise, end to end, side by side. These formed two parallel rows set apart by a distance equal to the thickness of the wall, and between the two rows they piled in earth. And so that the earth would not spill out as the mound rose higher, they bound the lengthwise beams together again with other beams laid crosswise. The result looked much like ordinary masonry, but the blows of the engines, striking against a yielding surface, lost their force, and the shaking only made the structure settle and grow firmer. When Silva saw this, he decided he would take the wall by fire instead, and ordered his soldiers to hurl burning torches at it all together. Being made mostly of wood, the wall quickly caught fire, and because it was so loosely packed, it burned right through and sent up a great blaze.

At first, while the fire was just starting, a north wind was blowing that frightened the Romans, for it turned the flame back from above and drove it toward them, and they had almost given up their engines for lost, expecting them to burn as well. Then, suddenly, as if by divine providence, the wind shifted to the south and blew hard the other way, driving the flame against the wall until the whole structure was ablaze right through. The Romans, having enjoyed this help from God, withdrew rejoicing to their camp, resolved to attack the enemy at daybreak, and kept a closer watch by night, lest any of the defenders slip away unnoticed.

But Eleazar himself had no thought of flight, nor was he going to allow anyone else to attempt it. Seeing the wall consumed by fire, and finding no other means of safety or resistance, and setting before his own eyes what the Romans would do to them, their children, and their wives if they took the fortress, he resolved on death for them all. Judging this the best course open to them, he gathered the most courageous of his comrades and urged them to the deed with words like these:

"Long ago, my brave men, we resolved to serve neither the Romans nor anyone else, but God alone—for he alone is the true and just master of men. Now the time has come that demands we prove that resolve true in deed. Let us not now disgrace ourselves before him—we who in the past would not even endure safe slavery, and who now, if we fall alive into Roman hands, would suffer slavery joined with unbearable torments. For we were the first of all to revolt, and we are the last still fighting them. And I believe this too is a gift granted us by God: the power to die nobly and as free men, which was not given to others who were overpowered against all expectation. For us, capture at daybreak is certain, but the choice of a noble death together with those we love best remains free. This the enemy cannot prevent, however much they wish to take us alive, and we for our part can no longer hope to defeat them in battle. Perhaps we ought to have seen this from the very beginning, when we chose to fight for our freedom and everything turned out harshly, both from our own people and, still worse, from the enemy: we ought to have guessed God's purpose and recognized that the nation of the Jews, once beloved by him, now stood condemned. For had he remained favorable to us, or even only moderately displeased, he would not have looked on while so many people perished, nor abandoned his most holy city to fire and the enemy's demolition. And did we alone, of the whole Jewish nation, hope to survive by holding on to our freedom—as if we had committed no sin against God and had shared in none of the guilt, we who taught the rest? See, then, how he exposes the vanity of our expectations, bringing upon us in our extremity a necessity harsher than our hopes. Even the natural strength of this fortress, impregnable as it is, has done nothing to save us; even with abundant food, a great store of weapons, and every other supply to spare, we have been stripped, manifestly by God himself, of any hope of deliverance. For the fire that was heading toward the enemy did not turn back on the wall we built by mere chance; this is the wrath owed for the many wrongs which, in our madness, we dared to commit against our own countrymen. For these let us pay the penalty not to our bitterest enemies, the Romans, but to God, by our own hands—a penalty gentler than theirs would be. Let our wives die unviolated, our children untouched by slavery. And after them, let us grant each other the noble favor of a fine burial shroud: the freedom we have kept. But first let us destroy our possessions and the fortress itself by fire; the Romans, I know well, will be grieved to gain neither our persons nor any plunder. Only the food let us leave standing; for once we are dead, it will testify that we were not overcome through want, but chose death before slavery, exactly as we resolved from the beginning."

Such were Eleazar's words. But they did not land the same way on the minds of all present: some were eager to obey, filled with something close to pleasure at the thought that death was a fine thing, while others, softer in spirit, were overcome with pity for their wives and children, and, looking at each other and at their own plainly foreseeable end, showed by their tears how unwilling they were.

Seeing them losing heart and their spirits bending under the weight of the proposal, Eleazar feared that their wailing and tears would soften even those who had heard his words with resolve. So he did not let up his exhortation, but rousing himself and filling himself with great spirit, he turned to loftier arguments about the immortality of the soul, and with a great cry of protest, staring fixedly at those who were weeping, he said:

"How greatly I was deceived in believing I was joining brave men in the struggle for freedom, men resolved to live nobly or else to die. But you are no different from ordinary men, neither in courage nor in daring—you who fear even the death that would free you from the greatest evils, when for this you ought neither to hesitate nor to wait for anyone's advice. From the very first stirrings of understanding, the teachings of our fathers and our sacred teachings have instructed us, confirmed by the deeds and convictions of our ancestors, that life, not death, is the calamity for men. For death gives the soul its freedom and lets it depart to its own pure home, to be free of every calamity, untouched thereafter; whereas so long as souls are bound within a mortal body and share in its afflictions, in the truest sense of the word, they are already dead. For fellowship between the divine and the mortal is unfitting. Great, indeed, is the power of the soul even while it is bound to the body, for it turns the body into an instrument of perception, moving it invisibly and, through its actions, carrying it beyond the limits of its mortal nature. But once it is released from the weight that drags it down and clings to it toward the earth, and regains its own proper place, then it partakes of blessed strength and power unhindered on every side, remaining invisible to human eyes, just as God himself is. Indeed, even while the soul is in the body it cannot be seen: it arrives unseen and departs again unseen, having a single incorruptible nature of its own, yet becoming the cause of change in the body. Whatever the soul touches lives and flourishes; whatever it leaves withers and dies—so great is the measure of immortality that belongs to it. Let sleep serve you as the clearest proof of what I say: in sleep, when the body no longer distracts them, souls enjoy their sweetest rest, being left to themselves, and, communing with God by kinship, they range everywhere and foretell many things that are yet to come. Why, then, should we fear death, when we love the rest that comes in sleep? And how is it not senseless, while pursuing freedom in this life, to begrudge ourselves the everlasting kind? Trained as we are at home in such things, we ought to be an example to others of readiness for death. But if we need confirmation from foreigners as well, let us look to the Indians, who profess to practice wisdom. For those men, good men that they are, endure the span of their lives unwillingly, as a kind of service owed to nature, but hasten to free their souls from their bodies; and though no pressing evil drives or expels them, out of longing for the immortal way of life they announce to the others beforehand that they mean to depart, and no one tries to stop them—rather, everyone counts them fortunate and gives them letters, each for their own dead relatives. Such is their confidence that the fellowship of souls with one another beyond is a sure and truest way of life. And once they have listened to the messages entrusted to them, they give their body to the fire, so as to release the soul from the body in its purest state, and die amid hymns of praise. Their dearest kin send them off to death more easily than other people send their fellow citizens on the longest of journeys; they weep for themselves, but count those departing blessed, now that they are receiving their place among the immortals. Are we then not ashamed to think worse than the Indians, and through our own cowardice to disgrace the laws of our fathers, laws that all mankind envies? But even if from the start we had been taught the opposite doctrine—that life is the greatest good for men and death a calamity—still the present moment calls on us to bear it bravely, dying by God's will and under compulsion. For it seems that long ago God cast this vote against the whole community of the Jewish nation, that we should be freed from life since we were not going to make right use of it. So do not blame yourselves for this, and do not give the Romans the credit of having destroyed us all in this war; it was not their strength that brought this about, but a greater cause that made it merely appear they had won. For by what Roman weapons did the Jews living in Caesarea die? They had not even considered revolting from Rome, but while they were in the midst of keeping the Sabbath, the mass of the people of Caesarea fell upon them and slaughtered them together with their wives and children, though they raised no hand in resistance—and this without the least regard even for the Romans themselves, who counted only those in revolt as their enemies. But someone will say that the people of Caesarea always had a quarrel with the Jews among them, and simply seized the occasion to satisfy an old hatred. What, then, shall we say of the people of Scythopolis? They dared to make war on us for the sake of the Greeks, rather than stand with our own kinsmen against the Romans. And much good their goodwill and loyalty toward the Greeks did them! They were butchered by them, whole households at once, and this was the reward they got for their alliance. The very harm they had kept the Greeks from suffering at our hands, they themselves suffered, exactly as they had once wished to inflict it. It would take too long now to go through each case individually; for you know that there is not one city in Syria whose resident Jews...

has never killed the Jews living within it, though we are enemies of Rome more than they are. Yet the people of Damascus, without even being able to invent a plausible pretext, filled their city with the foulest bloodshed, slaughtering eighteen thousand Jews together with their wives and children. As for Egypt, we hear that the number of those killed there with torture comes to something over sixty thousand. Those people, perhaps, died as they did on foreign soil, where they found no strength to match their enemies.

But for us, who took up war against Rome on our own soil, did we lack anything that could have given a firm hope of victory? We had weapons, walls, fortresses built to resist capture, and a spirit unbending before the dangers we faced for freedom — all of these emboldened everyone toward revolt. But these advantages, sufficient for only a short time and raising our hopes, proved to be the beginning of greater evils. Everything was taken, everything fell to the enemy, as though it had all been prepared not for the safety of those who made it but for the greater glory of their conquest.

Those who died in battle deserve to be called fortunate, for they died defending themselves and never surrendering their freedom. But who could fail to pity the multitude who fell into Roman hands? Who would not hurry to die rather than suffer what they suffered? Some of them died under torture, racked by fire and whips; others, half-eaten by wild beasts, were kept alive to be devoured a second time, providing laughter and sport for their enemies. Of those people, the most wretched must be reckoned the ones still alive, who have often prayed for death and cannot obtain it.

And where is that great city now, the mother-city of the whole Jewish nation, fortified by so many rings of walls, defended by so many strongholds and towers of such size, scarcely able to contain the preparations made for war, and holding so many tens of thousands of men who fought for her? Where has she gone, the city we believed had God himself as her founder? She has been torn up root and branch from her foundations, and the only monument left to her is the camp of her killers, still living among her ruins.

Wretched old men sit by the ashes of the sanctuary, and a few women, kept alive by the enemy for the most shameful outrage. Who among us, weighing all this in his mind, could bear to go on looking at the sun, even if he could live free of danger? Who is so much an enemy of his country, or so unmanly and in love with his own life, as not to regret having lived until now?

If only we had all died before we saw that holy city torn down by enemy hands, before we saw the sacred temple so impiously dug out of the ground! But since a hope not ignoble deceived us, that we might perhaps be able to avenge her against our enemies, and that hope has now vanished and left us alone in our extremity, let us hasten to die well. Let us have mercy on ourselves, on our children, and on our wives, while it is still in our power to receive mercy from our own hands.

We were born for death, and so were the children we brought into the world, and even the most fortunate cannot escape it. But outrage and slavery, and the sight of our wives being led away to shame together with their children — these are not evils that nature forces upon men. Rather, men endure them through their own cowardice, when they refuse to die though death lay open to them beforehand. We, who prided ourselves greatly on our courage, revolted from Rome, and now, at the last, when they call us to come over and be saved, we have refused to obey them.

Who, then, can fail to see plainly what their rage will be, if they take us alive? Wretched will be the young men, whose bodily strength will hold out through many torments; wretched too the old, whose age cannot bear such misfortunes. A man will watch his wife dragged off by force; he will hear his child's voice crying out for its father, his own hands bound. But while they are still free and still hold the sword, let them render us one last, noble service. Let us die unenslaved by our enemies, and go out of life as free men, together with our children and our wives.

This is what our laws command us; this is what our wives and children beg of us; God has sent this necessity upon us, and it is the very opposite of what the Romans want — for they are afraid that any of us might die before the city is taken. Let us hasten, then, to leave them, instead of the satisfaction they hope to gain over us, astonishment at our death and wonder at our courage.

While he was still willing to go on urging them, all of them cut him short and rushed to the deed, filled with an irrepressible impulse, and went off as though possessed, each one eager to outstrip the other, thinking it a proof of courage and good judgment not to be seen among the last. So great was the passion that seized them for killing their wives, their children, and themselves. And indeed, contrary to what one might expect, they were not softened as they came to the act itself, but kept the same firm resolve they had held while listening to the speech — the natural affection of love for their families remaining with them all, while reason, having judged what was best, prevailed over their dearest attachments.

For at one and the same moment they embraced their wives and took their children into their arms, clinging to them with final kisses and weeping, and yet, as though carried out by hands not their own, they went through with the plan, holding as their one consolation for the necessity of killing the thought of the evils they would suffer if they fell alive into enemy hands. And in the end, not one was found wanting in the face of so terrible a deed; all of them went through it with those closest to them, wretched in their necessity — men to whom killing their own wives and children with their own hands seemed the lightest of evils.

Unable to bear the pain of what they had done any longer, and thinking it wrong to the dead to outlive them even a little while, they quickly gathered all their possessions into one heap and set fire to it. Then, choosing ten men from among themselves by lot to be the killers of all the rest, each man lay down beside his wife and children as they lay dead, threw his arms around them, and offered his throat ready for the sacrifice to those charged with this miserable task.

When these ten had killed all the others without flinching, they fixed the same rule of lot among themselves, so that the one chosen should kill the other nine and then, last of all, take his own life. All of them trusted each other so completely that neither in the doing nor in the suffering did one differ from another. In the end nine offered their throats, and the last man, the one alone remaining, surveyed the mass of the fallen to see whether, amid so much slaughter, anyone was still left needing his hand; and when he saw that all were dead, he set a great fire to the palace and drove his sword with his whole strength clean through his own body, falling beside his family.

So they died, believing they had left nothing alive to fall into Roman hands. But an old woman and another woman, a relative of Eleazar, who surpassed most women in intelligence and learning, escaped notice by hiding in the underground channels that carried water, along with five children, while the others were absorbed in the killing. In all, the number that perished was nine hundred and sixty, women and children included in the count. This tragedy took place on the fifteenth of the month of Xanthicus.

The Romans, still expecting a fight, armed themselves at dawn and, bridging the approaches from their earthworks with gangways, launched an assault. Seeing none of the enemy, but on every side a terrible desolation, fire within, and silence, they were at a loss to make sense of what had happened, and finally shouted aloud, as if to draw out a volley, to see whether any of those inside would show themselves. The women heard the shouting, came up out of the underground channels, and reported to the Romans exactly what had happened, the one woman explaining clearly everything that had been said and how it had been carried out.

The Romans found it hard to credit her at first, disbelieving the magnitude of the deed; they set about putting out the fire, and quickly cutting a path through it, made their way inside the palace. Coming upon the mass of the slain, they took no pleasure in it as they would over an enemy, but marveled at the nobility of their resolve and the utter disregard for death they had shown in carrying it out, unshaken amid so much suffering.

After the fortress had been taken in this fashion, the general left a garrison there and himself withdrew with his forces to Caesarea. No enemy remained anywhere in the country; the whole land had at last, after the long war, been thoroughly subdued, giving even to many who lived far away a sense of the danger and disorder it had caused.

Some time afterward it also happened that many Jews died around Alexandria in Egypt. Those of the sicarii faction who had managed to escape there were not content simply to be safe; they set about stirring up new troubles again, persuading many of those who had taken them in to claim their freedom, to regard the Romans as no better than themselves, and to hold God alone as master.

When some of the more prominent Jews opposed them, they killed some and pressed the rest, urging them toward revolt. Seeing their recklessness, the leading men of the council no longer thought it safe to overlook it; they gathered all the Jews into an assembly and denounced the madness of the sicarii, declaring them responsible for all the troubles.

They said that even now, since these men had no secure hope of safety even in flight — for they would be put to death at once if recognized by the Romans — they were involving those who had taken no part in their crimes in the disaster that properly belonged to them alone. They urged the people, therefore, to guard against ruin coming from these men, and to clear themselves before the Romans by handing them over. Recognizing the magnitude of the danger, the people were persuaded by what was said, and rushed upon the sicarii with great violence, seizing them.

Of these, six hundred were captured at once; those who fled into Egypt and to Thebes there were before long seized as well and brought back. In their case, there was no one who did not marvel at their endurance and at what one might call either their obstinacy or their strength of purpose. For though every kind of torture and bodily torment was devised against them, for this one purpose alone — that they should acknowledge Caesar as master — not one gave in or was even about to say it, but all of them kept their resolve superior to the compulsion laid upon them, receiving the tortures and the fire as though their bodies felt nothing, while their souls all but rejoiced.

But it was above all the age of the children that astonished those who watched, for not one of them, either, could be compelled to call Caesar master. So far did the strength of their daring surpass the weakness of their bodies. Lupus, who then governed Alexandria, wrote at once to Caesar about this uprising.

Caesar, suspicious of the Jews' unceasing propensity for revolution and fearing that they might again gather together in a body and draw others along with them, ordered Lupus to demolish the temple of the Jews called the temple of Onias. This temple is in Egypt, and it came to be built, and got its name, for the following reason.

Onias, son of Simon, one of the chief priests in Jerusalem, fleeing from Antiochus, the king of Syria, who was at war with the Jews, came to Alexandria; and since Ptolemy received him kindly, because of his own hostility toward Antiochus, Onias told him he could make the Jewish nation his ally, if he would be persuaded by what he had to propose.

When the king agreed to do what he could, Onias asked to be allowed to build a temple somewhere in Egypt and to worship God according to the customs of his fathers. He argued that this would make the Jews still more hostile to Antiochus, who had pillaged their temple in Jerusalem, and would win their goodwill toward Ptolemy himself, drawing many of them to his side, free to practice their religion.

Ptolemy, persuaded by these arguments, gave him a district a hundred and eighty stadia from Memphis, in the nome called Heliopolite. There Onias built a fortress and constructed his temple, not like the one in Jerusalem but resembling a tower, built of great stones and rising to sixty cubits.

He modeled the design of the altar on that of the temple at home and adorned it in the same way with offerings, except for the construction of the lampstand: instead of a lampstand, he had a golden lamp made and hung it by a golden chain, giving off its own light. The whole precinct was walled around with baked brick and had gates of stone.

The king also granted a large tract of land for revenue, so that there would be abundance for the priests and ample means for the worship of God. Onias, however, did not act from a wholly sound motive in all this; he bore a grudge against the Jews of Jerusalem, remembering his anger at having been forced to flee, and thought that by building this temple he would draw the people away from them. There had also been an old prophecy, made some six hundred years before, by a man named Isaiah, foretelling that this very temple would be built in Egypt by a Jewish man.

Such, then, was the manner in which the temple came to be built. Lupus, the governor of Alexandria, upon receiving Caesar's letter, went to the temple, carried off some of the offerings, and closed it. After Lupus died shortly afterward, Paulinus, who succeeded him in the governorship, left none of the offerings behind, threatening the priests severely unless they brought out everything, and did not allow anyone wishing to worship to approach the precinct; he shut the gates and made it entirely inaccessible, so that not even a trace was left in the place of the service once offered to God. The time from the building of the temple to its closing came to three hundred and forty-three years.

The madness of the sicarii, like a disease, also touched the cities around Cyrene. A certain Jonathan, a most depraved man by trade a weaver, made his way there and persuaded a considerable number of the poor to follow him, leading them out into the desert and promising to show them signs and apparitions.

After a thorough search was conducted throughout the whole region, he was caught and brought before the governor. There he tried every device to secure his own release from punishment, and in doing so gave Catullus an opening for wrongdoing. For Jonathan, lying, claimed that the wealthiest of the Jews had put him up to the plot, and Catullus eagerly seized on these accusations, building the affair up into something enormous with grand theatrical flourishes, so that he too might appear to have brought a Jewish war to a successful end.

But worse than this: not only did Catullus believe the charges too readily, he actually became a teacher to the sicarii in the art of lying. He ordered Jonathan to name a certain Jew, Alexander, with whom he had long been at odds and against whom he had openly declared his hatred, and to implicate that man's wife, Berenice, in the charges as well. These two he put to death first, and after them he slaughtered about a thousand men distinguished by their wealth, thinking he could do this safely, since he was appropriating their property for Caesar's revenues.

And so that no Jews elsewhere might be able to expose his injustice, he extended the lie still further, persuading Jonathan and some of those arrested along with him to bring a charge of sedition against the most eminent Jews of Alexandria and of Rome. One of those falsely accused in this conspiracy was Josephus, the author of this history.

The scheme, however, did not turn out as Catullus had hoped. He came to Rome bringing Jonathan and his associates in chains, believing that the false accusations made against himself and through his agency would settle the matter once and for all. But Vespasian, suspecting the truth of the affair, investigated it, and on discovering that the charge brought against these men was unjust, released them from the accusations, Titus having urged this, and inflicted on Jonathan the punishment he deserved: he was burned alive, after first being tortured.

As for Catullus, at that time the emperors' clemency spared him from suffering anything worse than condemnation. But not long afterward he was seized by a disease of many forms, hard to cure, and died a painful death — and it was not only his body that was afflicted, for the sickness of his soul was heavier still. He was thrown into terror by nightmares and cried out repeatedly that he saw before him the ghosts of those he had murdered, standing over him. Unable to control himself, he would leap from his bed as though torture and fire were being applied to him. As the disease steadily worsened, his bowels rotted away and fell out, and so he died — as clear a proof as any that the providence of God inflicts punishment on the wicked.

Here I bring my history to its conclusion, the history which I promised to hand down with complete accuracy to those who wished to learn how this war was fought between the Romans and the Jews. As for how well it has been composed, I leave that to the judgment of my readers; but as to its truthfulness, I would not hesitate to declare with confidence that this alone has been my aim throughout the entire narrative.

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