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The Wars of the Jews; or the history of the destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus
page 282 of 753 (37%)

1. After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most
eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when
it was going to sink; Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were
brethren, together with Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was the
commander of king Agrippa's forces, ran away from the city, and
went to Cestius. But then how Antipas, who had been besieged with
them in the king's palace, but would not fly away with them, was
afterward slain by the seditious, we shall relate hereafter.
However, Cestius sent Saul and his friends, at their own desire,
to Achaia, to Nero, to inform him of the great distress they were
in, and to lay the blame of their kindling the war upon Florus,
as hoping to alleviate his own danger, by provoking his
indignation against Florus.

2. In the mean time, the people of Damascus, when they were
informed of the destruction of the Romans, set about the
slaughter of those Jews that were among them; and as they had
them already cooped up together in the place of public exercises,
which they had done out of the suspicion they had of them, they
thought they should meet with no difficulty in the attempt; yet
did they distrust their own wives, which were almost all of them
addicted to the Jewish religion; on which account it was that
their greatest concern was, how they might conceal these things
from them; so they came upon the Jews, and cut their throats, as
being in a narrow place, in number ten thousand, and all of them
unarmed, and this in one hour's time, without any body to disturb
them.

3. But as to those who had pursued after Cestius, when they were
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