had their metropolis called them to her assistance against
foreigners. What can a man call this procedure of yours but the
sport of fortune, when he sees a whole nation coming to protect a
sink of wicked wretches? I have for a good while been in doubt
what it could possibly be that should move you to do this so
suddenly; because certainly you would not take on your armor on
the behalf of robbers, and against a people of kin to you,
without some very great cause for your so doing. But we have an
item that the Romans are pretended, and that we are supposed to
be going to betray this city to them; for some of your men have
lately made a clamor about those matters, and have said they are
come to set their
metropolis free. Now we cannot but admire at these wretches in
their devising such a lie as this against us; for they knew there
was no other way to irritate against us men that were naturally
desirous of liberty, and on that account the best disposed to
fight against foreign enemies, but by framing a tale as if we
were going to betray that most desirable thing, liberty. But you
ought to consider what sort of people they are that raise this
calumny, and against what sort of people that calumny is raised,
and to gather the truth of things, not by fictitious speeches,
but out of the actions of both parties; for what occasion is
there for us to sell ourselves to the Romans, while it was in our
power not to have revolted from them at the first, or when we had
once revolted, to have returned under their dominion again, and
this while the
neighboring countries were not yet laid waste? whereas it is
not an easy thing to be reconciled to the Romans, if we were
desirous of it, now they have subdued Galilee, and are
thereby become proud and insolent; and to endeavor to