city Sepphoris should be subordinate to the city Tiberias; that
they had not lost this preeminence even under Agrippa the father,
but had retained it until Felix was procurator of Judea. But he
told them, that now they had been so unfortunate as to be made a
present by Nero to Agrippa, junior; and that, upon Sepphoris's
submission of itself to the Romans, that was become the capital
city of Galilee, and that the royal library and the archives were
now removed from them." When he had spoken these things, and a
great many more, against king Agrippa, in order to provoke the
people to a revolt, he added that "this was the time for them to
take arms, and join with the Galileans as their confederates
(whom they might command, and who would now willingly assist
them, out of the hatred they bare to the people of Sepphoris;
because they preserved their fidelity to the Romans), and to
gather a great number of forces, in order to punish them." And as
he said this, he exhorted the multitude, [to go to war;] for his
abilities lay in making harangues to the people, and in being too
hard in his speeches for such as opposed him, though they advised
what was more to their advantage, and this by his craftiness and
his fallacies, for he was not unskilful in the learning of the
Greeks; and in dependence on that skill it was, that he undertook
to write a history of these affairs, as aiming, by this way of
haranguing, to disguise the truth. But as to this man, and how
ill were his character and conduct of life, and how he and his
brother were, in great measure, the authors of our destruction, I
shall give the reader an account in the progress of my narration.
So when Justus had, by his persuasions, prevailed with the
citizens of Tiberias to take arms, nay, and had forced a great
many so to do against their wills, he went out, and set the
villages that belonged to Gadara and Hippos on fire; which