THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book II: Chapter 16
CESTIUS SENDS NEOPOLITANUS THE TRIBUNE TO SEE IN
WHAT CONDITION THE AFFAIRS OF THE JEWS WERE. AGRIPPA
MAKES A SPEECH TO THE PEOPLE OF THE JEWS THAT HE MAY
DIVERT THEM FROM THEIR INTENTIONS OF MAKING WAR WITH
THE ROMANS.
1. HOWEVER, Florus contrived another way
to oblige the Jews to begin the war, and sent to
Cestius, and accused the Jews falsely of revolting
[from the Roman government], and imputed the beginning
of the former fight to them, and pretended they had
been the authors of that disturbance, wherein they
were only the sufferers. Yet were not the governors of
Jerusalem silent upon this occasion, but did
themselves write to Cestius, as did Bernice also,
about the illegal practices of which Florus had been
guilty against the city; who, upon reading both
accounts, consulted with his captains [what he should
do]. Now some of them thought it best for Cestius to
go up with his army, either to punish the revolt, if
it was real, or to settle the Roman affairs on a surer
foundation, if the Jews continued quiet under them;
but he thought it best himself to send one of his
intimate friends beforehand, to see the state of
affairs, and to give him a faithful account of the
intentions of the Jews. Accordingly, he sent one of
his tribunes, whose name was Neopolitanus, who met
with king Agrippa as he was returning from Alexandria,
at Jamnia, and told him who it was that sent him, and
on what errands he was sent.
2. And here it was that the high priests, and men
of power among the Jews, as well as the sanhedrim, came
to congratulate the king [upon his safe return]; and
after they had paid him their respects, they lamented
their own calamities, and related to him what
barbarous treatment they had met with from Florus. At
which barbarity Agrippa had great indignation, but
transferred, after a subtle manner, his anger towards
those Jews whom he really pitied, that he might beat
down their high thoughts of themselves, and would have
them believe that they had not been so unjustly
treated, in order to dissuade them from avenging
themselves. So these great men, as of better
understanding than the rest, and desirous of peace,
because of the
possessions they had, understood that this rebuke
which the king gave them was intended for their good;
but as to the people, they came sixty furlongs out of
Jerusalem, and congratulated both Agrippa and
Neopolitanus; but the wives of those that had been
slain came running first of all and lamenting. The
people also, when they heard their mourning, fell into
lamentations also, and besought Agrippa to assist
them: they also cried out to Neopolitanus, and
complained of the many miseries they had endured under
Florus; and they showed them, when they were come into
the city, how the market-place was made desolate, and
the houses plundered. They then persuaded
Neopolitanus, by the means of Agrippa, that he would
walk round the city, with one only servant, as far as
Siloam, that he might inform himself that the Jews
submitted to all the rest of the Romans, and were only
displeased at Florus, by reason of his exceeding
barbarity to them. So he walked round, and had
sufficient experience of the good temper the people
were in, and then went up to the temple, where he
called the multitude together, and highly commended
them for their fidelity to the Romans, and earnestly
exhorted them to keep the peace; and having performed
such parts of Divine worship at the temple as he was
allowed to do, he returned to Cestius.
3. But as for the multitude of the Jews, they
addressed themselves to the king, and to the high
priests, and desired they might have leave to send
ambassadors to Nero against Florus, and not by their
silence afford a suspicion that they had been the
occasions of such great slaughters as had been made,
and were disposed to revolt, alleging that they should
seem to have been the first beginners of the war, if
they did not prevent the report by showing who it was
that began it; and it appeared openly that they would
not be quiet, if any body should hinder them from
sending such an embassage. But Agrippa, although he
thought it too dangerous a thing for them to appoint
men to go as the accusers of Florus, yet did he not
think it fit for him to overlook them, as they were in
a disposition for war. He therefore called the
multitude together into a large gallery, and placed
his sister Bernice in the house of the Asamoneans,
that she might be seen by them, (which house was over
the gallery, at the passage to the upper city, where
the bridge joined the temple to the gallery,) and
spake to them as follows:
4.24 “Had I perceived that you were all zealously
disposed to go to war with the Romans, and that the
purer and more sincere part of the people did not
propose to live in peace, I had not come out to you,
nor been so bold as to give you counsel; for all
discourses that tend to persuade men to do what they
ought to do are superfluous, when the hearers are
agreed to do the contrary. But because some are
earnest to go to war because they are young, and
without experience of the miseries it brings, and
because some are for it out of an unreasonable
expectation of regaining their liberty, and because
others hope to get by it, and are therefore earnestly
bent upon it, that in the confusion of your affairs
they may gain what belongs to those that are too weak
to resist them, I have thought proper to get you all
together, and to say to you what I think to be for
your advantage; that so the former may grow wiser, and
change their minds, and that the best men may come to
no harm by the ill conduct of some others. And let not
any one be tumultuous against me, in case what they
hear me say do not please them; for as to those that
admit of no cure, but are resolved upon a revolt, it
will still be in their power to retain the same
sentiments after my exhortation is over; but still my
discourse will fall to the ground, even with a
relation to those that have a mind to hear me, unless
you will all keep silence. I am well aware that many
make a tragical exclamation concerning the injuries
that have been offered you by your procurators, and
concerning the glorious advantages of liberty; but
before I begin the inquiry, who you are that must go
to war, and who they are against whom you must fight,
I shall first separate those pretenses that are by
some connected together; for if you aim at avenging
yourselves on those that have done you injury, why do
you pretend this to be a war for recovering your
liberty? but if you think all servitude intolerable,
to what purpose serve your complaint against your
particular governors? for if they treated you with
moderation, it would still be equally an unworthy
thing to be in servitude. Consider now the several
cases that may be supposed, how little occasion there
is for your going to war. Your first occasion is the
accusations you have to make against your procurators;
now here you ought to be submissive to those in
authority, and not give them any provocation; but when
you reproach men greatly for small offenses, you
excite those whom you reproach to be your adversaries;
for this will only make them leave off hurting you
privately, and with some degree of modesty, and to lay
what you have waste openly. Now nothing so much damps
the force of strokes as bearing them with patience;
and the quietness of those who are injured diverts the
injurious persons from afflicting. But let us take it
for granted that the Roman ministers are injurious to
you, and are incurably severe; yet are they not all
the Romans who thus injure you; nor hath Caesar,
against whom you are going to make war, injured you:
it is not by their command that any wicked governor is
sent to you; for they who are in the west cannot see
those that are in the east; nor indeed is it easy for
them there even to hear what is done in these parts.
Now it is absurd to make war with a great many for the
sake of one, to do so with such mighty people for a
small cause; and this when these people are not able
to know of what you complain: nay, such crimes as we
complain of may soon be corrected, for the same
procurator will not continue for ever; and probable it
is that the successors will come with more moderate
inclinations. But as for war, if it be once begun, it
is not easily laid down again, nor borne without
calamities coming therewith. However, as to the desire
of recovering your liberty, it is unseasonable to
indulge it so late; whereas you ought to have labored
earnestly in old time that you might never have lost
it; for the first experience of slavery was hard to be
endured, and the struggle that you might never have
been subject to it would have been just; but that
slave who hath been once brought into subjection, and
then runs away, is rather a refractory slave than a
lover of liberty; for it was then the proper time for
doing all that was possible, that you might never have
admitted the Romans [into your city], when Pompey came
first into the country. But so it was, that our
ancestors and their kings, who were in much better
circumstances than we are, both as to money, and
strong bodies, and [valiant] souls, did not bear the
onset of a small body of the Roman army. And yet you,
who have now accustomed yourselves to obedience from
one generation to another, and who are so much
inferior to those who first submitted, in your
circumstances will venture to oppose the entire empire
of the Romans. While those Athenians, who, in order to
preserve the liberty of Greece, did once set fire to
their own city; who pursued Xerxes, that proud prince,
when he sailed upon the land, and walked upon the sea,
and could not be contained by the seas, but conducted
such an army as was too broad for Europe; and made him
run away like a fugitive in a single ship, and brake
so great a part of Asia at the Lesser Salamis; are yet
at this time servants to the Romans; and those
injunctions which are sent from Italy become laws to
the principal governing city of Greece. Those
Lacedemonians also who got the great victories at
Thermopylae. and Platea, and had Agesilaus [for their
king], and searched every corner of Asia, are
contented to admit the same lords. Those Macedonians
also, who still fancy what great men their Philip and
Alexander were, and see that the latter had promised
them the empire over the world, these bear so great a
change, and pay their obedience to those whom fortune
hath advanced in their stead. Moreover, ten thousand
ether nations there are who had greater reason than we
to claim their entire liberty, and yet do submit. You
are the only people who think it a disgrace to be
servants to those to whom all the world hath
submitted. What sort of an army do you rely on? What
are the arms you depend on? Where is your fleet, that
may seize upon the Roman seas? and where are those
treasures which may be sufficient for your
undertakings? Do you suppose, I pray you, that you are
to make war with the Egyptians, and with the Arabians?
Will you not carefully reflect upon the Roman empire?
Will you not estimate your own weakness? Hath not your
army been often beaten even by your neighboring
nations, while the power of the Romans is invincible
in all parts of the habitable earth? nay, rather they
seek for somewhat still beyond that; for all Euphrates
is not a sufficient boundary for them on the east
side, nor the Danube on the north; and for their
southern limit, Libya hath been searched over by them,
as far as countries uninhabited, as is Cadiz their
limit on the west; nay, indeed, they have sought for
another habitable earth beyond the ocean, and have
carried their arms as far as such British islands as
were never known before. What therefore do you pretend
to? Are you richer than the Gauls, stronger than the
Germans, wiser than the Greeks, more numerous than all
men upon the habitable earth? What confidence is it
that elevates you to oppose the Romans? Perhaps it
will be said, It is hard to endure slavery. Yes; but
how much harder is this to the Greeks, who were
esteemed the noblest of all people under the sun!
These, though they inhabit in a large country, are in
subjection to six bundles of Roman rods. It is the
same case with the Macedonians, who have juster reason
to claim their liberty than you have. What is the case
of five hundred cities of Asia? Do they not submit to
a single governor, and to the consular bundle of rods?
What need I speak of the Henlochi, and Colchi and the
nation of Tauri, those that inhabit the Bosphorus, and
the nations about Pontus, and Meotis, who formerly
knew not so much as a Lord of their own, but are now
subject to three thousand armed men, and where forty
long ships keep the sea in peace, which before was not
navigable, and very tempestuous? How strong a plea may
Bithynia, and Cappadocia, and the people of Pamphylia,
the Lycians, and Cilicians, put in for liberty! But
they are made tributary without an army. What are the
circumstances of the Thracians, whose country extends
in breadth five days’ journey, and in length seven,
and is of a much more harsh constitution, and much
more defensible, than yours, and by the rigor of its
cold sufficient to keep off armies from attacking
them? do not they submit to two thousand men of the
Roman garrisons? Are not the Illyrlans, who inhabit
the country adjoining, as far as Dalmatia and the
Danube, governed by barely two legions? by which also
they put a stop to the incursions of the Daeians. And
for the Dalmatians, who have made such frequent
insurrections in order to regain their liberty, and
who could never before be so thoroughly subdued, but
that they always gathered their forces together again,
revolted, yet are they now very quiet under one Roman
legion. Moreover, if eat advantages might provoke any
people to revolt, the Gauls might do it best of all,
as being so thoroughly walled round by nature; on the
east side by the Alps, on the north by the river
Rhine, on the south by the Pyrenean mountains, and on
the west by the ocean. Now although these Gauls have
such obstacles before them to prevent any attack upon
them, and have no fewer than three hundred and five
nations among them, nay have, as one may say, the
fountains of domestic happiness within themselves, and
send out plentiful streams of happiness over almost
the whole world, these bear to be tributary to the
Romans, and derive their prosperous condition from
them; and they undergo this, not because they are of
effeminate minds, or because they are of an ignoble
stock, as having borne a war of eighty years in order
to preserve their liberty; but by reason of the great
regard they have to the power of the Romans, and their
good fortune, which is of greater efficacy than their
arms. These Gauls, therefore, are kept in servitude by
twelve hundred soldiers, which are hardly so many as
are their cities; nor hath the gold dug out of the
mines of Spain been sufficient for the support of a
war to preserve their liberty, nor could their vast
distance from the Romans by land and by sea do it; nor
could the martial tribes of the Lusitanians and
Spaniards escape; no more could the ocean, with its
tide, which yet was terrible to the ancient
inhabitants. Nay, the Romans have extended their arms
beyond the pillars of Hercules, and have walked among
the clouds, upon the Pyrenean mountains, and have
subdued these nations. And one legion is a sufficient
guard for these people, although they were so hard to
be conquered, and at a distance so remote from Rome.
Who is there among you that hath not heard of the
great number of the Germans? You have, to be sure,
yourselves seen them to be strong and tall, and that
frequently, since the Romans have them among their
captives every where; yet these Germans, who dwell in
an immense country, who have minds greater than their
bodies, and a soul that despises death, and who are in
rage more fierce than wild beasts, have the Rhine for
the boundary of their enterprises, and are tamed by
eight Roman legions. Such of them as were taken
captive became their servants; and the rest of the
entire nation were obliged to save themselves by
flight. Do you also, who depend on the walls of
Jerusalem, consider what a wall the Britons had; for
the Romans sailed away to them, an subdued them while
they were encompassed by the ocean, and inhabited an
island that is not less than the [continent of this]
habitable earth; and four legions are a sufficient
guard to so large all island And why should I speak
much more about this matter, while the Parthians, that
most warlike body of men, and lords of so many
nations, and encompassed with such mighty forces, send
hostages to the Romans? whereby you may see, if you
please, even in Italy, the noblest nation of the East,
under the notion of peace, submitting to serve them.
Now when almost all people under the sun submit to the
Roman arms, will you be the only people that make war
against them? and this without regarding the fate of
the Carthaginians, who, in the midst of their brags of
the great Hannibal, and the nobility of their
Phoenician original, fell by the hand of Scipio. Nor
indeed have the Cyrenians, derived from the
Lacedemonians, nor the Marmaridite, a nation extended
as far as the regions uninhabitable for want of water,
nor have the Syrtes, a place terrible to such as
barely hear it described, the Nasamons and Moors, and
the immense multitude of the Numidians, been able to
put a stop to the Roman valor. And as for the third
part of the habitable earth, [Akica,] whose nations
are so many that it is not easy to number them, and
which is bounded by the Atlantic Sea and the pillars
of Hercules, and feeds an innumerable multitude of
Ethiopians, as far as the Red Sea, these have the
Romans subdued entirely. And besides the annual fruits
of the earth, which maintain the multitude of the
Romans for eight months in the year, this, over and
above, pays all sorts of tribute, and affords revenues
suitable to the necessities of the government. Nor do
they, like you, esteem such injunctions a disgrace to
them, although they have but one Roman legion that
abides among them. And indeed what occasion is there
for showing you the power of the Romans over remote
countries, when it is so easy to learn it from Egypt,
in your neighborhood? This country is extended as far
as the Ethiopians, and Arabia the Happy, and borders
upon India; it hath seven millions five hundred
thousand men, besides the inhabitants of Alexandria,
as may be learned from the revenue of the poll tax;
yet it is not ashamed to submit to the Roman
government, although it hath Alexandria as a grand
temptation to a revolt, by reason it is so full of
people and of riches, and is besides exceeding large,
its length being thirty furlongs, and its breadth no
less than ten; and it pays more tribute to the Romans
in one month than you do in a year; nay, besides what
it pays in money, it sends corn to Rome that supports
it for four months [in the year]: it is also walled
round on all sides, either by almost impassable
deserts, or seas that have no havens, or by rivers, or
by lakes; yet have none of these things been found too
strong for the Roman good fortune; however, two
legions that lie in that city are a bridle both for
the remoter parts of Egypt, and for the parts
inhabited by the more noble Macedonians. Where then
are those people whom you are to have for your
auxiliaries? Must they come from the parts of the
world that are uninhabited? for all that are in the
habitable earth are [under the] Romans. Unless any of
you extend his hopes as far as beyond the Euphrates,
and suppose that those of your own nation that dwell
in Adiabene will come to your assistance; but
certainly these will not embarrass themselves with an
unjustifiable war, nor, if they should follow such ill
advice, will the Parthians permit them so to do; for
it is their concern to maintain the truce that is
between them and the Romans, and they will be supposed
to break the covenants between them, if any under
their government march against the Romans. What
remains, therefore, is this, that you have recourse to
Divine assistance; but this is already on the side of
the Romans; for it is impossible that so vast an
empire should be settled without God’s providence.
Reflect upon it, how impossible it is for your zealous
observations of your religious customs to be here
preserved, which are hard to be observed even when you
fight with those whom you are able to conquer; and how
can you then most of all hope for God’s assistance,
when, by being forced to transgress his law, you will
make him turn his face from you? and if you do observe
the custom of the sabbath days, and will not be
revealed on to do any thing thereon, you will easily
be taken, as were your forefathers by Pompey, who was
the busiest in his siege on those days on which the
besieged rested. But if in time of war you transgress
the law of your country, I cannot tell on whose
account you will afterward go to war; for your concern
is but one, that you do nothing against any of your
forefathers; and how will you call upon God to assist
you, when you are voluntarily transgressing against
his religion? Now all men that go to war do it either
as depending on Divine or on human assistance; but
since your going to war will cut off both those
assistances, those that are for going to war choose
evident destruction. What hinders you from slaying
your children and wives with your own hands, and
burning this most excellent native city of yours? for
by this mad prank you will, however, escape the
reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O my
friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in
the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and not to
set sail out of the port into the middle of the
hurricanes; for we justly pity those who fall into
great misfortunes without fore-seeing them; but for
him who rushes into manifest ruin, he gains reproaches
[instead of commiseration]. But certainly no one can
imagine that you can enter into a war as by agreement,
or that when the Romans have got you under their
power, they will use you with moderation, or will not
rather, for an example to other nations, burn your
holy city, and utterly destroy your whole nation; for
those of you who shall survive the war will not be
able to find a place whither to flee, since all men
have the Romans for their lords already, or are afraid
they shall have hereafter. Nay, indeed, the danger
concerns not those Jews that dwell here only, but
those of them which dwell in other cities also; for
there is no people upon the habitable earth which have
not some portion of you among them, whom your enemies
will slay, in case you go to war, and on that account
also; and so every city which hath Jews in it will be
filled with slaughter for the sake of a few men, and
they who slay them will be pardoned; but if that
slaughter be not made by them, consider how wicked a
thing it is to take arms against those that are so
kind to you. Have pity, therefore, if not on your
children and wives, yet upon this your metropolis, and
its sacred walls; spare the temple, and preserve the
holy house, with its holy furniture, for yourselves;
for if the Romans get you under their power, they will
no longer abstain from them, when their former
abstinence shall have been so ungratefully requited. I
call to witness your sanctuary, and the holy angels of
God, and this country common to us all, that I have
not kept back any thing that is for your preservation;
and if you will follow that advice which you ought to
do, you will have that peace which will be common to
you and to me; but if you indulge four passions, you
will run those hazards which I shall be free from.” 5.
When Agrippa had spoken thus, both he and his sister
wept, and by their tears repressed a great deal of the
violence of the people; but still they cried out, that
they would not fight against the Romans, but against
Florus, on account of what they had suffered by his
means. To which Agrippa replied, that what they had
already done was like such as make war against the
Romans; “for you have not paid the tribute which is
due to Caesar 25 and you have cut off the cloisters [of
the temple] from joining to the tower Antonia. You
will therefore prevent any occasion of revolt if you
will but join these together again, and if you will
but pay your tribute; for the citadel does not now
belong to Florus, nor are you to pay the tribute money
to Florus.”
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