THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book II: Chapter 14
FESTUS SUCCEEDS FELIX WHO IS SUCCEEDED BY ALBINUS
AS HE IS BY FLORUS; WHO BY THE BARBARITY OF HIS
GOVERNMENT FORCES THE JEWS INTO THE WAR.
1. NOW it was that Festus succeeded Felix as
procurator, and made it his business to correct those
that made disturbances in the country. So he caught
the greatest part of the robbers, and destroyed a
great many of them. But then Albinus, who succeeded
Festus, did not execute his office as the other had
done; nor was there any sort of wickedness that could
be named but he had a hand in it. Accordingly, he did
not only, in his political capacity, steal and plunder
every one’s substance, nor did he only burden the
whole nation with taxes, but he permitted the
relations of such as were in prison for robbery, and
had been laid there, either by the senate of every
city, or by the former procurators, to redeem them for
money; and no body remained in the prisons as a
malefactor but he who gave him nothing. At this time
it was that the enterprises of the seditious at
Jerusalem were very formidable; the principal men
among them purchasing leave of Albinus to go on with
their seditious practices; while that part of the
people who delighted in disturbances joined themselves
to such as had fellowship with Albinus; and every one
of these wicked wretches were encompassed with his own
band of robbers, while he himself, like an
arch-robber, or a tyrant, made a figure among his
company, and abused his authority over those about
him, in order to plunder those that lived quietly. The
effect of which was this, that those who lost their
goods were forced to hold their peace, when they had
reason to show great indignation at what they had
suffered; but those who had escaped were forced to
flatter him that deserved to be punished, out of the
fear they were in of suffering equally with the
others. Upon the Whole, nobody durst speak their
minds, but tyranny was generally tolerated; and at
this time were those seeds sown which brought the city
to destruction.
2. And although such was the character of Albinus,
yet did Gessius Florus18 who succeeded him,
demonstrate him to have been a most excellent
person, upon the comparison; for the former did the
greatest part of his rogueries in private, and with a
sort of dissimulation; but Gessius did his unjust
actions to the harm of the nation after a pompons
manner; and as though he had been sent as an
executioner to punish condemned malefactors, he
omitted no sort of rapine, or of vexation; where the
case was really pitiable, he was most barbarous, and
in things of the greatest turpitude he was most
impudent. Nor could any one outdo him in disguising
the truth; nor could any one contrive more subtle ways
of deceit than he did. He indeed thought it but a
petty offense to get money out of single persons; so
he spoiled whole cities, and ruined entire bodies of
men at once, and did almost publicly proclaim it all
the country over, that they had liberty given them to
turn robbers, upon this condition, that he might go
shares with them in the spoils they got. Accordingly,
this his greediness of gain was the occasion that
entire toparchies were brought to desolation, and a
great many of the people left their own country, and
fled into foreign provinces.
3. And truly, while Cestius Gallus was president of
the province of Syria, nobody durst do so much as send
an embassage to him against Florus; but when he was
come to Jerusalem, upon the approach of the feast of
unleavened bread, the people came about him not fewer
in number thanthree millions 19 these besought him to
commiserate the calamities of their nation, and cried
out upon Florus as the bane of their country. But as
he was present, and stood by Cestius, he laughed at
their words. However, Cestius, when he had quieted the
multitude, and had assured them that he would take
care that Florus should hereafter treat them in a more
gentle manner, returned to Antioch. Florus also
conducted him as far as Cesarea, and deluded him,
though he had at that very time the purpose of showing
his anger at the nation, and procuring a war upon
them, by which means alone it was that he supposed he
might conceal his enormities; for he expected that if
the peace continued, he should have the Jews for his
accusers before Caesar; but that if he could procure
them to make a revolt, he should divert their laying
lesser crimes to his charge, by a misery that was so
much greater; he therefore did every day augment their
calamities, in order to induce them to a rebellion.
4. Now at this time it happened that the Grecians
at Cesarea had been too hard for the Jews, and had
obtained of Nero the government of the city,
and had brought the judicial determination: at the
same time began the war, in the twelfth year of the
reign of Nero, and the seventeenth of the reign of
Agrippa, in the month of Artemisins [Jyar.] Now the
occasion of this war was by no means proportionable to
those heavy calamities which it brought upon us. For
the Jews that dwelt at Cesarea had a synagogue near
the place, whose owner was a certain Cesarean Greek:
the Jews had endeavored frequently to have purchased
the possession of the place, and had offered many
times its value for its price; but as the owner
overlooked their offers, so did he raise other
buildings upon the place, in way of affront to them,
and made working-shops of them, and left them but a
narrow passage, and such as was very troublesome for
them to go along to their synagogue. Whereupon the
warmer part of the Jewish youth went hastily to the
workmen, and forbade them to build there; but as
Florus would not permit them to use force, the great
men of the Jews, with John the publican, being in the
utmost distress what to do, persuaded Florus, with the
offer of eight talents, to hinder the work. He then,
being intent upon nothing but getting money, promised
he would do for them all they desired of him, and then
went away from Cesarea to Sebaste, and left the
sedition to take its full course, as if he had sold a
license to the Jews to fight it out.
5. Now on the next day, which was the seventh day
of the week, when theJews were crowding apace to their
synagogue, a certain man of Cesarea, of a seditious
temper, got an earthen vessel, and set it with the
bottom upward, at the entrance of that synagogue, and
sacrificed birds. This thing provoked the Jews to an
incurable degree, because their laws were affronted,
and the place was polluted. Whereupon the sober and
moderate part of the Jews thought it proper to have
recourse to their governors again, while the seditious
part, and such as were in the fervor of their youth,
were vehemently inflamed to fight. The seditions also
among the Gentiles of Cesarea stood ready for the same
purpose; for they had, by agreement, sent the man to
sacrifice beforehand [as ready to support him;] so
that it soon came to blows. Hereupon Jucundus, the
master of the horse, who was ordered to prevent the
fight, came thither, and took away the earthen vessel,
and endeavored to put a stop to the sedition; but
when20 he was overcome by the violence of the people
of Cesarea, the Jews caught up their books of the law,
and retired to Narbata, which was a place
to them belonging, distant from Cesarea sixty
furlongs. But John, and twelve of the principal men
with him, went to Florus, to Sebaste, and made a
lamentable complaint of their case, and besought him
to help them; and with all possible decency, put him
in mind of the eight talents they had given him; but
he had the men seized upon, and put in prison, and
accused them for carrying the books of the law out of
Cesarea. [PICTURE: DESECRATION OF THE S YNAGOGUE AT
CESAREA] 6. Moreover, as to the citizens of Jerusalem,
although they took thismatter very ill, yet did they
restrain their passion; but Florus acted herein as if
he had been hired, and blew up the war into a flame,
and sent some to take seventeen talents out of the
sacred treasure, and pretended that Caesar wanted
them. At this the people were in confusion
immediately, and ran together to the temple, with
prodigious clamors, and called upon Caesar by name,
and besought him to free them from the tyranny of
Florus. Some also of the seditious cried out upon
Florus, and cast the greatest reproaches upon him, and
carried a basket about, and begged some spills of
money for him, as for one that was destitute of
possessions, and in a miserable condition. Yet was not
he made ashamed hereby of his love of money, but was
more enraged, and provoked to get still more; and
instead of coming to Cesarea, as he ought to have
done, and quenching the flame of war, which was
beginning thence, and so taking away the occasion of
any disturbances, on which account it was that he had
received a reward [of eight talents], he marched
hastily with an army of horsemen and footmen against
Jerusalem, that he might gain his will by the arms of
the Romans, and might, by his terror, and by his
threatenings, bring the city into subjection.
7. But the people were desirous of making Florus
ashamed of his attempt,and met his soldiers with
acclamations, and put themselves in order to receive
him very submissively. But he sent Capito, a
centurion, beforehand, with fifty soldiers, to bid
them go back, and not now make a show of receiving him
in an obliging manner, whom they had so foully
reproached before; and said that it was incumbent on
them, in case they had generous souls, and were free
speakers, to jest upon him to his face, and appear to
be lovers of liberty, not only in words, but with
their weapons also. With this message was the
multitude amazed; and upon the
coming of Capito’s horsemen into the midst of them,
they were dispersed before they could salute Florus,
or manifest their submissive behavior to him.
Accordingly, they retired to their own houses, and
spent that night in fear and confusion of face.
8. Now at this time Florus took up his quarters at
the palace; and on the next day he had his tribunal set
before it, and sat upon it, when the high priests, and
the men of power, and those of the greatest eminence
in the city, came all before that tribunal; upon which
Florus commanded them to deliver up to him those that
had reproached him, and told them that they should
themselves partake of the vengeance to them belonging,
if they did not produce the criminals; but these
demonstrated that the people were peaceably disposed,
and they begged forgiveness for those that had spoken
amiss; for that it was no wonder at all that in so
great a multitude there should be some more daring
than they ought to be, and, by reason of their younger
age, foolish also; and that it was impossible to
distinguish those that offended from the rest, while
every one was sorry for what he had done, and denied
it out of fear of what would follow: that he ought,
however, to provide for the peace of the nation, and
to take such counsels as might preserve the city for
the Romans, and rather for the sake of a great number
of innocent people to forgive a few that were guilty,
than for the sake of a few of the wicked to put so
large and good a body of men into disorder.
9. Florus was more provoked at this, and called out
aloud to the soldiers to plunder that which was called
the Upper Market-place, and to slay such as they met
with. So the soldiers, taking this exhortation of
their commander in a sense agreeable to their desire
of gain, did not only plunder the place they were sent
to, but forcing themselves into every house, they slew
its inhabitants; so the citizens fled along the narrow
lanes, and the soldiers slew those that they caught,
and no method of plunder was omitted; they also caught
many of the quiet people, and brought them before
Florus, whom he first chastised with stripes, and then
crucified. Accordingly, the whole number of those that
were destroyed that day, with their wives and
children, (for they did not spare even the infants
themselves,) was about three thousand and six hundred.
And what made this calamity the heavier was this new
method of Roman barbarity; for Florus ventured then to
do what no one had done before, that is, to have
1454 men of the equestrian order whipped 21 and
nailed to the cross before his tribunal; who, although
they were by birth Jews, yet were they of Roman
dignity notwithstanding.
|
