|
1 Now after the death of Herod, king of Chalcis, Claudius set
Agrippa, the son of Agrippa, over his uncle's kingdom, while
Cumanus took upon him the office of procurator of the rest, which
was a Roman province, and therein he succeeded Alexander; under
which Cureanus began the troubles, and the Jews' ruin came on;
for when the multitude were come together to Jerusalem, to the
feast of unleavened bread, and a Roman cohort stood over the
cloisters of the temple, (for they always were armed, and kept
guard at the festivals, to prevent any innovation which the
multitude thus gathered together might make,) one of the soldiers
pulled back his garment, and cowering down after an indecent
manner, turned his breech to the Jews, and spake such words as
you might expect upon such a posture. At this the whole multitude
had indignation, and made a clamor to Cumanus, that he would
punish the soldier; while the rasher part of the youth, and such
as were naturally the most tumultuous, fell to fighting, and
caught up stones, and threw them at the soldiers. Upon which
Cumanus was afraid lest all the people should make an assault
upon him, and sent to call for more armed men, who, when they
came in great numbers into the cloisters, the Jews were in a very
great consternation; and being beaten out of the temple, they ran
into the city; and the violence with which they crowded to get
out was so great, that they trod upon each other, and squeezed
one another, till ten thousand of them were killed, insomuch that
this feast became the cause of mourning to the whole nation, and
every family lamented their own relations.
2. Now there followed after this another calamity, which arose
from a tumult made by robbers; for at the public road at
Beth-boron, one Stephen, a servant of Caesar, carried some
furniture, which the robbers fell upon and seized. Upon this
Cureanus sent men to go round about to the neighboring villages,
and to bring their inhabitants to him bound, as laying it to
their charge that they had not pursued after the thieves, and
caught them. Now here it was that a certain soldier, finding the
sacred book of the law, tore it to pieces, and threw it into the
fire. Hereupon the Jews were in great disorder, as if their
whole country were in a flame, and assembled themselves so many
of them by their zeal for their religion, as by an engine, and
ran together with united clamor to Cesarea, to Cumanus, and made
supplication to him that he would not overlook this man, who had
offered such an affront to God, and to his law; but punish him
for what he had done. Accordingly, he, perceiving that the
multitude would not be quiet unless they had a comfortable answer
from him, gave order that the soldier should be brought, and
drawn through those that required to have him punished, to
execution, which being done, the Jews went their ways.
3. After this there happened a fight between the Galileans and
the Samaritans; it happened at a village called Geman, which is
situate in the great plain of Samaria; where, as a great number
of Jews were going up to Jerusalem to the feast [of tabernacles,]
a certain Galilean was slain; and besides, a vast number of
people ran together out of Galilee, in order to fight with the
Samaritans. But the principal men among them came to Cumanus, and
besought him that, before the evil became incurable, he would
come into Galilee, and bring the authors of this murder to
punishment; for that there was no other way to make the multitude
separate without coming to blows. However, Cumanus postponed
their supplications to the other affairs he was then about, and
sent the petitioners away without success.
4. But when the affair of this murder came to be told at
Jerusalem, it put the multitude into disorder, and they left the
feast; and without any generals to conduct them, they marched
with great violence to Samaria; nor would they be ruled by any of
the magistrates that were set over them, but they were managed by
one Eleazar, the son of Dineus, and by Alexander, in these their
thievish and seditious attempts. These men fell upon those that
were ill the neighborhood of the Acrabatene toparchy, and slew
them, without sparing any age, and set the villages on fire.
5. But Cumanus took one troop of horsemen, called the troop of
Sebaste, out of Cesarea, and came to the assistance of those that
were spoiled; he also seized upon a great number of those that
followed Eleazar, and slew more of them. And as for the rest of
the multitude of those that went so zealously to fight with the
Samaritans, the rulers of Jerusalem ran out clothed with
sackcloth, and having ashes on their head, and begged of them to
go their ways, lest by their attempt to revenge themselves upon
the Samaritans they should provoke the Romans to come against
Jerusalem; to have compassion upon their country and temple,
their children and their wives, and not bring the utmost dangers
of destruction upon them, in order to avenge themselves upon one
Galilean only. The Jews complied with these persuasions of
theirs, and dispersed themselves; but still there were a great
number who betook themselves to robbing, in hopes of impunity;
and rapines and insurrections of the bolder sort happened over
the whole country. And the men of power among the Samaritans came
to Tyre, to Ummidius Quadratus, the president of Syria, and
desired that they that had laid waste the country might be
punished: the great men also of the Jews, and Jonathan the son of
Ananus the high priest, came thither, and said that the
Samaritans were the beginners of the disturbance, on account of
that murder they had committed; and that Cumanus had given
occasion to what had happened, by his unwillingness to punish the
original authors of that murder.
6. But Quadratus put both parties off for that time, and told
them, that when he should come to those places, he would make a
diligent inquiry after every circumstance. After which he went to
Cesarea, and crucified all those whom Cumanus had taken alive;
and when from thence he was come to the city Lydda, he heard the
affair of the Samaritans, and sent for eighteen of the Jews, whom
he had learned to have been concerned in that fight, and beheaded
them; but he sent two others of those that were of the greatest
power among them, and both Jonathan and Ananias, the high
priests, as also Artanus the son of this Ananias, and certain
others that were eminent among the Jews, to Caesar; as he did in
like manner by the most illustrious of the Samaritans. He also
ordered that Cureanus [the procurator] and Celer the tribune
should sail to Rome, in order to give an account of what had been
done to Caesar. When he had finished these matters, he went up
from Lydda to Jerusalem, and finding the multitude celebrating
their feast of unleavened bread without any tumult, he returned
to Antioch.
7. Now when Caesar at Rome had heard what Cumanus and the
Samaritans had to say, (where it was done in the hearing of
Agrippa, who zealously espoused the cause of the Jews, as in like
manner many of the great men stood by Cumanus,) he condemned the
Samaritans, and commanded that three of the most powerful men
among them should be put to death; he banished Cumanus, and sent
Color bound to Jerusalem, to be delivered over to the Jews to be
tormented; that he should be drawn round the city, and then
beheaded.
8. After this Caesar sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to
be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea, and removed
Agrippa from Chalcis unto a greater kingdom; for he gave him the
tetrarchy which had belonged to Philip, which contained Batanae,
Trachonitis, and Gaulonitis: he added to it the kingdom of
Lysanias, and that province [Abilene] which Varus had governed.
But Claudius himself, when he had administered the government
thirteen years, eight months, and twenty days, died, and left
Nero to be his successor in the empire, whom he had adopted by
his Wife Agrippina's delusions, in order to be his successor,
although he had a son of his own, whose name was Britannicus, by
Messalina his former wife, and a daughter whose name was Octavia,
whom he had married to Nero; he had also another daughter by
Petina, whose name was Antonia.
|
|