assurances they had given these their fellow citizens and
confederates, and slew them all, being in number many ten
thousands [13,000]. The like miseries were undergone by those
Jews that were the inhabitants of Damascus. But we have given a
more accurate account of these things in the books of the Jewish
war. I only mention them now, because I would demonstrate to my
readers, that the Jews' war with the Romans was not voluntary,
but that, for the main, they were forced by necessity to enter
into it.

7. So when Gessius had been beaten, as we have said already, the
principal men of Jerusalem, seeing that the robbers and
innovators had arms in great plenty, and fearing lest they, while
they were unprovided of arms, should be in subjection to their
enemies, which also came to be the case afterward; and, being
informed that all Galilee had not yet revolted from the Romans,
but that some part of it was still quiet; they sent me and two
others of the priests, who were men of excellent characters,
Joazar and Judas, in order to persuade the ill men there to lay
down their arms, and to teach them this lesson, - That it were
better to have those arms reserved for the most courageous men
that the nation had [than to be kept there]; for that it had been
resolved, That those our best men should always have their arms
ready against futurity; but still so, that they should wait to
see what the Romans would do.

8. When I had therefore received these instructions, I came into
Galilee, and found the people of Sepphoris in no small agony
about their country, by reason that the Galileans had resolved to
plunder it, on account of the friendship they had with the