before Caesar the cause of certain excellent priests whom Felix, then
procurator of Judaea, had put in bonds on a trivial pretext. I was
desirous to procure deliverance for them, not only because they were of
my own friends, but because I heard that they sustained their piety
towards God under their afflictions, and that they simply subsisted on
figs and nuts.

Our voyage was an adventurous one, for the ship was wrecked in the
Adriatic Sea, and we that were in it, being about six hundred in number,
swam all night for our lives. I and about eighty others were saved by a
ship of Cyrene. When I had thus escaped, and was come to Puteoli, I
became acquainted with an actor named Alityrus, much beloved by Nero,
but a Jew by birth. Through his interest I became known to Poppaea,
Caesar's wife, and having, through her, procured the liberty of the
priests, besides receiving from her many presents, I returned to
Jerusalem.

Now I perceived that many innovations were begun, and that many were
cherishing hopes of a revolt from the Romans.


_II.--The Prelude to the Great Crisis_


So I retired to the inner court of the Temple. Yet I went out of the
Temple again, after Menahem and the chief members of the band of robbers
were put to death, and abode among the high-priests and the chief of the
Pharisees. But no small fear seized upon us when we saw the people in
arms, while we were not able to restrain the seditious. We hoped that
Gessius Floras would speedily arrive with great forces. But on his