desirous to have it laid waste; saying, "What benefit will it
bring to the soldiers to have a salutation from the Jews? or what
amendment of your affairs will it bring you, if you do not now go
out to meet them? and that if they saluted them civilly, all
handle would be cut off from Florus to begin a war; that they
should thereby gain their country, and freedom from all further
sufferings; and that, besides, it would be a sign of great want
of command of themselves, if they should yield to a few seditious
persons, while it was fitter for them who were so great a people
to force the others to act soberly."

5. By these persuasions, which they used to the multitude and to
the seditious, they restrained some by threatenings, and others
by the reverence that was paid them. After this they led them
out, and they met the soldiers quietly, and after a composed
manner, and when they were come up with them, they saluted them;
but when they made no answer, the seditious exclaimed against
Florus, which was the signal given for falling upon them. The
soldiers therefore encompassed them presently, and struck them
with their clubs; and as they fled away, the horsemen trampled
them down, so that a great many fell down dead by the strokes of
the Romans, and more by their own violence in crushing one
another. Now there was a terrible crowding about the gates, and
while every body was making haste to get before another, the
flight of them all was retarded, and a terrible destruction there
was among those that fell down, for they were suffocated, an
broken to pieces by the multitude of those that were uppermost;
nor could any of them be distinguished by his relations in order
to the care of his funeral; the soldiers also who beat them, fell
upon those whom they overtook, without showing them any mercy,