of running hazards;
but Philostephanus, the camp-master, put great courage into them, and
ordered them to pass the river, which was between their camps. Nor did
Alexander think fit to hinder their passage over it; for he thought,
that if the enemy had once gotten the river on their back, that he
should the easier take them prisoners, when they could not flee out
of the battle: in the beginning of which, the acts on both sides, with
their hands, and with their alacrity, were alike, and a great
slaughter was made by both the armies; but Alexander was superior, till
Philostephanus opportunely brought up the auxiliaries, to help those
that were giving way; but as there were no auxiliaries to afford help
to that part of the Jews that gave way, it fell out that they fled, and
those near them did no assist them, but fled along with them. However,
Ptolemy's soldiers acted quite otherwise; for they followed the Jews,
and killed them, till at length those that slew them pursued after them
when they had made them all run away, and slew them so long, that their
weapons of iron were blunted, and their hands quite tired with the
slaughter; for the report was, that thirty thousand men were then slain.
Timagenes says they were fifty thousand. As for the rest, they were
part of them taken captives, and the other part ran away to their own
country.

6. After this victory, Ptolemy overran all the country; and when night
came on, he abode in certain villages of Judea, which when he found full
of women and children, he commanded his soldiers to strangle them, and
to cut them in pieces, and then to cast them into boiling caldrons, and
then to devour their limbs as sacrifices. This commandment was given,
that such as fled from the battle, and came to them, might suppose their
enemies were cannibals, and eat men's flesh, and might on that account
be still more terrified at them upon such a sight. And both Strabo and
Nicholaus [of Damascus] affirm, that they used these people after this
manner, as I have already related. Ptolemy also took Ptolemais by force,
as we have declared elsewhere.

CHAPTER 13. How Alexander, upon the League of Mutual Defense Which
Cleopatra Had Agreed with Him, Made an Expedition Against Coelesyria,
and Utterly Overthrew the City of Gaza; and How He Slew Many Ten
Thousands of Jews That Rebelled Against Him. Also Concerning Antiochus
Grypus, Seleucus Antiochus Cyziceius, and Antiochus Pius, and Others.

1. Whe