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1. While Titus was at Cesarea, he solemnized the birthday of his
brother Domitian] after a splendid manner, and inflicted a great
deal of the punishment intended for the Jews in honor of him; for
the number of those that were now slain in fighting with the
beasts, and were burnt, and fought with one another, exceeded two
thousand five hundred. Yet did all this seem to the Romans, when
they were thus destroyed ten thousand several ways, to be a
punishment beneath their deserts. After this Caesar came to
Berytus, which is a city of Phoenicia, and a Roman colony,
and staid there a longer time, and exhibited a still more pompous
solemnity about his father's birthday, both in the magnificence
of the shows, and in the other vast expenses he was at in his
devices thereto belonging; so that a great multitude of the
captives were here destroyed after the same manner as before.
2. It happened also about this time, that the Jews who remained
at Antioch were under accusations, and in danger of perishing,
from the disturbances that were raised against them by the
Antiochians; and this both on account of the slanders spread
abroad at this time against them, and on account of what pranks
they had played not long before; which I am obliged to describe
without fail, though briefly, that I may the better connect my
narration of future actions with those that went before.
3. For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the
habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much
intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighborhood, and had
the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of
the city, wherein the kings, after Antiochus, had afforded them a
habitation with the most undisturbed tranquillity; for though
Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, laid Jerusalem waste, and
spoiled the temple, yet did those that succeeded him in the
kingdom restore all the donations that were made of brass to the
Jews of Antioch, and dedicated them to their synagogue, and
granted them the enjoyment of equal privileges of citizens with
the Greeks themselves; and as the succeeding kings treated them
after the same manner, they both multiplied to a great number,
and adorned their temple gloriously by fine ornaments, and with
great magnificence, in the use of what had been given them. They
also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually,
and thereby after a sort brought them to be a portion of their
own body. But about this time when the present war began, and
Vespasian was newly sailed to Syria, and all men had taken up a
great hatred against the Jews, then it was that a certain person,
whose name was Antiochus, being one of the Jewish nation, and
greatly respected on account of his father, who was governor of
the Jews at Antioch came upon the theater at a time when the
people of Antioch were assembled together, and became an informer
against his father, and accused both him and others that they had
resolved to burn the whole city in one night; he also delivered
up to them some Jews that were foreigners, as partners in their
resolutions. When the people heard this, they could not refrain
their passion, but commanded that those who were delivered up to
them should have fire brought to burn them, who were accordingly
all burnt upon the theater immediately. They did also fall
violently upon the multitude of the Jews, as supposing that by
punishing them suddenly they should save their own city. As for
Antiochus, he aggravated the rage they were in, and thought to
give them a demonstration of his own conversion, arm of his
hatred of the Jewish customs, by sacrificing after the manner of
the Greeks; he persuaded the rest also to compel them to do the
same, because they would by that means discover who they were
that had plotted against them, since they would not do so; and
when the people of Antioch tried the experiment, some few
complied, but those that would not do so were slain. As for
Ailtiochus himself, he obtained soldiers from the Roman
commander, and became a severe master over his own citizens, not
permitting them to rest on the seventh day, but forcing them to
do all that they usually did on other days; and to that degree of
distress did he reduce them in this matter, that the rest of the
seventh day was dissolved not only at Antioch, but the same thing
which took thence its rise was done in other cities also, in like
manner, for some small time.
4. Now, after these misfortunes had happened to the Jews at
Antioch, a second calamity befell them, the description of which
when we were going about we premised the account foregoing; for
upon this accident, whereby the four-square market-place was
burnt down, as well as the archives, and the place where the
public records were preserved, and the royal palaces, (and it was
not without difficulty that the fire was then put a stop to,
which was likely, by the fury wherewith it was carried along, to
have gone over the whole city,) Antiochus accused the Jews as the
occasion of all the mischief that was done. Now this induced the
people of Antioch, who were now under the immediate persuasion,
by reason of the disorder they were in, that this calumny was
true, and would have been under the same persuasion, even though
they had not borne an ill-will at the Jews before, to believe
this man's accusation, especially when they considered what had
been done before, and this to such a degree, that they all fell
violently upon those that were accused, and this, like madmen, in
a very furious rage also, even as if they had seen the Jews in a
manner setting fire themselves to the city; nor was it without
difficulty that one Cneius Collegas, the legate, could prevail
with them to permit the affairs to be laid before Caesar; for as
to Cesennius Petus, the president of Syria, Vespasian had already
sent him away; and so it happened that he was not yet come back
thither. But when Collegas had made a careful inquiry into the
matter, he found out the truth, and that not one of those Jews
that were accused by Antiochus had any hand in it, but that all
was done by some vile persons greatly in debt, who supposed that
if they could once set fire to the market-place, and burn the
public records, they should have no further demands made upon
them. So the Jews were under great disorder and terror, in the
uncertain expectations of what would be the upshot of these
accusations against them.
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