The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

When I understood this state of things, I was greatly provoked, and went down to Tiberias and took care of all the royal furniture that could be recovered from such as had plundered it. Next I committed it to ten of the chief senators. From thence I and my fellow-delegates went to Gischala to John, to learn his designs, and soon discovered that he was for innovations, for he wished me to give him authority to carry off the corn that belonged to Caesar, and to lay it in the villages of Upper Galilee. Though I refused, he corrupted my colleagues with money, and so I, being out-voted, held my tongue. By various other cunning contrivances which I could not prevent, John gained vast sums of money. But when I had dismissed my fellow-delegates I took care to have arms provided and the cities fortified. My first care was to keep Galilee in peace, so I made friends of seventy of the principal men, and took them on my journeys as companions, and set them to judge causes.

I was now about thirty years of age, in which time of life it is difficult to escape from the calumnies of the envious. Yet did I preserve every woman free from injury; I despised and refused presents; nor would I take the tithes due to me as a priest. When I twice took Sepphoris by force, and Tiberias four times, and Gadara once, and when I had subdued and captured John, who had laid treacherous snares for me, I did not punish with death either him or others. And on this account I suppose it was that God, Who is never unacquainted with those that do as they ought to do, delivered me still out of the hands of my enemies, and afterwards preserved me when I fell into many perils.

At this time, when my abode was at Cana, a village of Galilee, John came to Tiberias and stirred a revolt against me, so that my life was in danger. I escaped only by fleeing down the lake in a ship to Taricheae, whence I proceeded to Sepphoris. John returned to Gischala, where he continued to cultivate bitter hatred against me. Through the machinations of himself and Simon, a chief man in Gadara, all Galilee was filled with rumours that their country was about to be betrayed by me to the Romans.

Hereby I again incurred extreme peril, but I took a bold course. Dressed in a black garment, with my sword hung at my neck, I went to face, in the hippodrome, a multitude of the citizens of Taricheae, and addressed them in such terms that, though some wished to kill me, these were overcome by the rest.

Although the multitude returned to their homes, yet the robbers and other authors of the tumult, afraid lest I might punish them, took six hundred armed men and came to burn the house where I abode. Thinking it ignoble to run away, I resolved to expose myself to danger; so I shut myself up in an upper room, and asked that one of them should be sent up to me, by whom I would send out to them money from the spoils I had taken.

When they had sent in one of their boldest, I had him whipped severely, and commanded one of his hands to be cut off and hung about his neck. In this case he was put out, and those who had sent him, affrighted at the supposition that I had more armed men about me than they had, immediately fled.

I dealt in like manner with Clitus, a young man of Tiberias, who was the author of a fresh sedition in that city. Since I thought it not agreeable to piety to put one of my own people to death, I called to Clitus himself, and said to him, "Since thou deservest to lose both thy hands for thine ingratitude to me, be thou thine own executioner, lest by refusal to do so thou undergo a worse punishment."

When he earnestly begged me to spare one of his hands, it was with difficulty that I granted it. So, in order to prevent the loss of both his hands, he willingly took his sword and cut off his own left hand; and this put an end to the sedition.

IV.--The Failure of His Foes

The people of Gamala wrote to me, asking that I would send them an armed force, and also workmen to raise up the walls of their city, and I acceded to each of their requests. I also built walls about many villages and cities in Upper and Lower Galilee, besides laying up in them much corn. But the hatred of John of Gischala grew more violent by reason of my prosperity. He sent his brother Simon to Jerusalem with a hundred armed men to induce the Sanhedrin to deprive me of my commission; but this was not an easy thing to do, for Ananus, one of the chief priests, demonstrated that many of the people bore witness that I had acted like an excellent general.

Yet Ananus and some of his friends, corrupted by bribes, secretly agreed to expel me out of Galilee, without making the rest of the citizens acquainted with what they were doing. Accordingly they sent four men of distinction down to Galilee to seek to supersede me in ruling the province.