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1. Now the Jews, after they had beaten Cestius, were so much
elevated with their unexpected success, that they could not
govern their zeal, but, like people blown up into a flame by
their good fortune, carried the war to remoter places.
Accordingly, they presently got together a great multitude of all
their most hardy soldiers, and marched away for Ascalon. This is
an ancient city that is distant from Jerusalem five hundred and
twenty furlongs, and was always an enemy to the Jews; on which
account they determined to make their first effort against it,
and to make their approaches to it as near as possible. This
excursion was led on by three men, who were the chief of them
all, both for strength and sagacity; Niger, called the Persite,
Silas of Babylon, and besides them John the Essene. Now Ascalon
was strongly walled about, but had almost no assistance to be
relied on [near them], for the garrison consisted of one cohort
of footmen, and one troop of horsemen, whose captain was
Antonius.
2. These Jews, therefore, out of their anger, marched faster than
ordinary, and, as if they had come but a little way, approached
very near the city, and were come even to it; but Antonius, who
was not unapprized of the attack they were going to make upon the
city, drew out his horsemen beforehand, and being neither daunted
at the multitude, nor at the courage of the enemy, received their
first attacks with great bravery; and when they crowded to the
very walls, he beat them off. Now the Jews were unskillful in
war, but were to fight with those who were skillful therein; they
were footmen to fight with horsemen; they were in disorder, to
fight those that were united together; they were poorly armed, to
fight those that were completely so; they were to fight more by
their rage than by sober counsel, and were exposed to soldiers
that were exactly obedient; and did every thing they were bidden
upon the least intimation. So they were easily beaten; for as
soon as ever their first ranks were once in disorder, they were
put to flight by the enemy's cavalry, and those of them that came
behind such as crowded to the wall fell upon their own party's
weapons, and became one another's enemies; and this so long till
they were all forced to give way to the attacks of the horsemen,
and were dispersed all the plain over, which plain was wide, and
all fit for the horsemen; which circumstance was very commodious
for the Romans, and occasioned the slaughter of the greatest
number of the Jews; for such as ran away, they could overrun
them, and make them turn back; and when they had brought them
back after their flight, and driven them together, they ran them
through, and slew a vast number of them, insomuch that others
encompassed others of them, and drove them before them
whithersoever they turned themselves, and slew them easily with
their arrows; and the great number there were of the Jews seemed
a solitude to themselves, by reason of the distress they were in,
while the Romans had such good success with their small number,
that they seemed to themselves to be the greater multitude. And
as the former strove zealously under their misfortunes, out of
the shame of a sudden flight, and hopes of the change in their
success, so did the latter feel no weariness by reason of their
good fortune; insomuch that the fight lasted till the evening,
till ten thousand men of the Jews' side lay dead, with two of
their generals, John and Silas, and the greater part of the
remainder were wounded, with Niger, their remaining general, who
fled away together to a small city of Idumea, called Sallis. Some
few also of the Romans were wounded in this battle.
3. Yet were not the spirits of the Jews broken by so great a
calamity, but the losses they had sustained rather quickened
their resolution for other attempts; for, overlooking the dead
bodies which lay under their feet, they were enticed by their
former glorious actions to venture on a second destruction; so
when they had lain still so little a while that their wounds were
not yet thoroughly cured, they got together all their forces, and
came with greater fury, and in much greater numbers, to Ascalon.
But their former ill fortune followed them, as the consequence of
their unskilfulness, and other deficiencies in war; for Antonius
laid ambushes for them in the passages they were to go through,
where they fell into snares unexpectedly, and where they were
encompassed about with horsemen, before they could form
themselves into a regular body for fighting, and were above eight
thousand of them slain; so all the rest of them ran away, and
with them Niger, who still did a great many bold exploits in his
flight. However, they were driven along together by the enemy,
who pressed hard upon them, into a certain strong tower belonging
to a village called Bezedeh However, Antonius and his party, that
they might neither spend any considerable time about this tower,
which was hard to be taken, nor suffer their commander, and the
most courageous man of them all, to escape from them, they set
the wall on fire; and as the tower was burning, the Romans went
away rejoicing, as taking it for granted that Niger was
destroyed; but he leaped out of the tower into a subterraneous
cave, in the innermost part of it, and was preserved; and on the
third day afterward he spake out of the ground to those that with
great lamentation were searching for him, in order to give him a
decent funeral; and when he was come out, he filled all the Jews
with an unexpected joy, as though he were preserved by God's
providence to be their commander for the time to come.
4. And now Vespasian took along with him his army from Antioch,
(which is the metropolis of Syria, and without dispute deserves
the place of the third city in the habitable earth that was under
the Roman empire, both in magnitude, and other marks of
prosperity,) where he found king Agrippa, with all his forces,
waiting for his coming, and marched to Ptolemais. At this city
also the inhabitants of Sepphoris of Galilee met him, who were
for peace with the Romans. These citizens had beforehand taken
care of their own safety, and being sensible of the power of the
Romans, they had been with Cestius Gallus before Vespasian came,
and had given their faith to him, and received the security of
his right hand, and had received a Roman garrison; and at this
time withal they received Vespasian, the Roman general, very
kindly, and readily promised that they would assist him against
their own countrymen. Now the general delivered them, at their
desire, as many horsemen and footmen as he thought sufficient to
oppose the incursions of the Jews, if they should come against
them. And indeed the danger of losing Sepphoris would be no small
one, in this war that was now beginning, seeing it was the
largest city of Galilee, and built in a place by nature very
strong, and might be a security of the whole nation's [fidelity
to the Romans].
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