THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book III: Chapter 1
CONTAINING THE INTERVAL OF ABOUT ONE YEAR. FROM
VESPASIAN’S COMING TO SUBDUE THE JEWS TO THE TAKING OF
GAMALA
VESPASIAN IS SENT INTO SYRIA BY NERO IN ORDER TO
MAKE WAR WITH THE JEWS.
1. WHEN Nero was informed of the Romans’ ill
success in Judea, a concealed consternation and
terror, as is usual in such cases, fell upon him;
although he openly looked very big, and was very
angry, and said that what had happened was rather
owing to the negligence of the commander, than to any
valor of the enemy: and as he thought it fit for him,
who bare the burden of the whole empire, to despise
such misfortunes, he now pretended so to do, and to
have a soul superior to all such sad accidents
whatsoever. Yet did the disturbance that was in his
soul plainly appear by the solicitude he was in [how
to recover his affairs again].
2. And as he was deliberating to whom he should
commit the care of the East, now it was in so great a
commotion, and who might be best able to punish the
Jews for their rebellion, and might prevent the same
distemper from seizing upon the neighboring nations
also, — he found no one but Vespasian equal to the
task, and able to undergo the great burden of so
mighty a war, seeing he was growing an old man already
in the camp, and from his youth had been exercised in
warlike exploits: he was also a man that had long ago
pacified the west, and made it subject to the Romans,
when it had been put into disorder by the Germans;
he had also recovered to them Britain by his arms,
which had been little known before 1 whereby he
procured to his father Claudius to have a triumph
bestowed on him without any sweat or labor of his own.
3. So Nero esteemed these circumstances as
favorable omens, and saw that Vespasian’s age gave him
sure experience, and great skill, and that he had his
sons as hostages for his fidelity to himself, and that
the flourishing age they were in would make them fit
instruments under their father’s prudence. Perhaps
also there was some interposition of Providence, which
was paving the way for Vespasian’s being himself
emperor afterwards. Upon the whole, he sent this man
to take upon him the command of the armies that were
in Syria; but this not without great encomiums and
flattering compellations, such as necessity required,
and such as might mollify him into complaisance. So
Vespasian sent his son Titus from Achaia, where he had
been with Nero, to Alexandria, to bring back with him
from thence the fifth and. the tenth legions, while he
himself, when he had passed over the Hellespont, came
by land into Syria, where he gathered together the
Roman forces, with a considerable number of
auxiliaries from the kings in that neighborhood.
|
