|
It was not now long before Vespasian came to Tyre, and king
Agrippa with him; but the Tyrians began to speak reproachfully of
the king, and called him an enemy to the Romans. For they said
that Philip, the general of his army, had betrayed the royal
palace and the Roman forces that were in Jerusalem, and that it
was done by his command. When Vespasian heard of this report, he
rebuked the Tyrians for abusing a man who was both a king and a
friend to the Romans; but he exhorted the king to send Philip to
Rome, to answer for what he had done before Nero. But when Philip
was sent thither, he did not come into the sight of Nero, for he
found him very near death, on account of the troubles that then
happened, and a civil war; and so he returned to the king. But
when Vespasian was come to Ptolemais, the chief men of Decapolis
of Syria made a clamor against Justus of Tiberias, because he had
set their villages on fire: so Vespasian delivered him to the
king, to he put to death by those under the king's jurisdiction;
yet did the king only put him into bonds, and concealed what he
had done from Vespasian, as I have before related. But the people
of Sepphoris met Vespasian, and saluted him, and had forces sent
him, with Placidus their commander: he also went up with them, as
I also followed them, till Vespasian came into Galilee. As to
which coming of his, and after what manner it was ordered, and
how he fought his first battle with me near the village
Taricheae, and how from thence they went to Jotapata, and how I
was taken alive, and bound, and how I was afterward loosed, with
all that was done by me in the Jewish war, and during the siege
of Jerusalem, I have accurately related them in the books
concerning the War of the Jews. However, it will, I think, he fit
for me to add now an account of those actions of my life which I
have not related in that book of the Jewish war.
|
|