relations of such as were in prison for robbery, and had been
laid there, either by the senate of every city, or by the former
procurators, to redeem them for money; and no body remained in
the prisons as a malefactor but he who gave him nothing. At this
time it was that the enterprises of the seditious at Jerusalem
were very formidable; the principal men among them purchasing
leave of Albinus to go on with their seditious practices; while
that part of the people who delighted in disturbances joined
themselves to such as had fellowship with Albinus; and every one
of these wicked wretches were encompassed with his own band of
robbers, while he himself, like an arch-robber, or a tyrant, made
a figure among his company, and abused his authority over those
about him, in order to plunder those that lived quietly. The
effect of which was this, that those who lost their goods were
forced to hold their peace, when they had reason to show great
indignation at what they had suffered; but those who had escaped
were forced to flatter him that deserved to be punished, out of
the fear they were in of suffering equally with the others. Upon
the Whole, nobody durst speak their minds, but tyranny was
generally tolerated; and at this time were those seeds sown which
brought the city to destruction.

2. And although such was the character of Albinus, yet did
Gessius Florus (18) who succeeded him, demonstrate him to have
been a most excellent person, upon the comparison; for the former
did the greatest part of his rogueries in private, and with a
sort of dissimulation; but Gessius did his unjust actions to the
harm of the nation after a pompons manner; and as though he had
been sent as an executioner to punish condemned malefactors, he
omitted no sort of rapine, or of vexation; where the case was