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1. Now the auxiliaries which were sent to assist the people of
Sepphoris, being a thousand horsemen, and six thousand footmen,
under Placidus the tribune, pitched their camp in two bodies in
the great plain. The foot were put into the city to be a guard to
it, but the horse lodged abroad in the camp. These last, by
marching continually one way or other, and overrunning the parts
of the adjoining country, were very troublesome to Josephus and
his men; they also plundered all the places that were out of the
city's liberty, and intercepted such as durst go abroad. On this
account it was that Josephus marched against the city, as hoping
to take what he had lately encompassed with so strong a wall,
before they revolted from the rest of the Galileans, that the
Romans would have much ado to take it; by which means he proved
too weak, and failed of his hopes, both as to the forcing the
place, and as to his prevailing with the people of Sepphoris to
deliver it up to him. By this means he provoked the Romans to
treat the country according to the law of war; nor did the
Romans, out of the anger they bore at this attempt, leave off,
either by night or by day, burning the places in the plain, and
stealing away the cattle that were in the country, and killing
whatsoever appeared capable of fighting perpetually, and leading
the weaker people as slaves into captivity; so that Galilee was
all over filled with fire and blood; nor was it exempted from any
kind of misery or calamity, for the only refuge they had was
this, that when they were pursued, they could retire to the
cities which had walls built them by Josephus.
2. But as to Titus, he sailed over from Achaia to Alexandria, and
that sooner than the winter season did usually permit; so he took
with him those forces he was sent for, and marching with great
expedition, he came suddenly to Ptolemais, and there finding his
father, together with the two legions, the fifth and the tenth,
which were the most eminent legions of all, he joined them to
that fifteenth legion which was with his father; eighteen cohorts
followed these legions; there came also five cohorts from
Cesarea, with one troop of horsemen, and five other troops of
horsemen from Syria. Now these ten cohorts had severally a
thousand footmen, but the other thirteen cohorts had no more than
six hundred footmen apiece, with a hundred and twenty horsemen.
There were also a considerable number of auxiliaries got
together, that came from the kings Antiochus, and Agrippa, and
Sohemus, each of them contributing one thousand footmen that were
archers, and a thousand horsemen. Malchus also, the king of
Arabia, sent a thousand horsemen, besides five thousand footmen,
the greatest part of which were archers; so that the whole army,
including the auxiliaries sent by the kings, as well horsemen as
footmen, when all were united together, amounted to sixty
thousand, besides the servants, who, as they followed in vast
numbers, so because they had been trained up in war with the
rest, ought not to be distinguished from the fighting men; for as
they were in their masters' service in times of peace, so did
they undergo the like dangers with them in times of war, insomuch
that they were inferior to none, either in skill or in strength,
only they were subject to their masters.
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