them all utterly, with those that sojourned there also. So they
ran upon them, and set their houses on fire, as finding them
without inhabitants; for the men, out of fear, ran together to
the citadel. So the Galileans carried off every thing, and
omitted no kind of desolation which they could bring upon their
countrymen. When I saw this, I was exceedingly troubled at it,
and commanded them to leave off, and put them in mind that it was
not agreeable to piety to do such things to their countrymen: but
since they neither would hearken to what I exhorted, nor to what
I commanded them to do, (for the hatred they bore to the people
there was too hard for my exhortations to them,) I bade those my
friends, who were most faithful to me, and were about me, to give
on reports, as if the Romans were falling upon the other part of
the city with a great army; and this I did, that, by such a
report being spread abroad, I might restrain the violence of the
Galileans, and preserve the city of Sepphoris. And at length this
stratagem had its effect; for, upon hearing this report, they
were in fear for themselves, and so they left off plundering and
ran away; and this more especially, because they saw me, their
general, do the same also; for, that I might cause this report to
be believed, I pretended to be in fear as well as they. Thus were
the inhabitants of Sepphoris unexpectedly preserved by this
contrivance of mine.

68. Nay, indeed, Tiberias had like to have been plundered by the
Galileans also upon the following occasion: - The chief men of
the senate wrote to the king, and desired that he would come to
them, and take possession of their city. The king promised to
come, and wrote a letter in answer to theirs, and gave it to one
of his bed-chamber, whose name was Crispus, and who was by birth