The Antiquities of the Jews (1)

by Flavius Josephus




Translated by William Whiston




PREFACE.

1. Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive,
take that trouble on one and the same account, but for many
reasons, and those such as are very different one from another.
For some of them apply themselves to this part of learning to
show their skill in composition, and that they may therein
acquire a reputation for speaking finely: others of them there
are, who write histories in order to gratify those that happen to
be concerned in them, and on that account have spared no pains,
but rather gone beyond their own abilities in the performance:
but others there are, who, of necessity and by force, are driven
to write history, because they are concerned in the facts, and so
cannot excuse themselves from committing them to writing, for the
advantage of posterity; nay, there are not a few who are induced
to draw their historical facts out of darkness into light, and to
produce them for the benefit of the public, on account of the
great importance of the facts themselves with which they have