to obey Florus till Caesar
should send someone to succeed him, the more seditious cast reproaches
on him, and got the king excluded from the city; nay, some had the
impudence to fling stones at him. At the same time they excited the
people to go to war, and some laid siege to the Roman garrison in the
Antonio; others made an assault on a certain fortress called Masada.
They took it by treachery, and slew the Romans. One, Menahem, a
Galilean, became leader of the sedition, and went to Masada and broke
open Herod's armoury, and gave arms not only to his own people, but to
other robbers, also. These he made use of for a bodyguard, and returned
in state to Jerusalem, and gave orders to continue the siege of the
Antonio.

The tower was undermined, and fell, and many soldiers were slain. Next
day the high-priest Ananias, and his brother Hezekiah, were slain by the
robbers. By these successes Menahem was puffed up and became barbarously
cruel; but he was slain, as were also the captains under him, in an
attack led on by Eleazar, a bold youth who was governor of the Temple.

_II.--The Gathering of Great Storms_

And now great calamities and slaughters came on the Jews. On the very
same day two dreadful massacres happened. In Jerusalem the Jews fell on
Netilius and the band of Roman soldiers whom he commanded after they had
made terms and had surrendered, and all were killed except the commander
himself, who supplicated for mercy, and even agreed to submit to
circumcision. On that very day and hour, as though Providence had
ordained it, the Greeks in Caesarea rose, and in a single hour slew over
20,000 Jews, and so the city was emptied of its Jewish inhabitants. For
Florus caught those who escaped, and sent them to the galleys. By this
tragedy the whole nation was driven to madness. The Jews rose and laid
waste the villages all around many cities in Syria, and they descended
on Gadara, Hippo, and Gaulonitus, and burnt and destroyed many places.
Sebaste and Askelon they seized without resistance, and they razed
Anthedon and Gaza to the ground, pillaging the villages all around, with
great slaughter.

When thus the disorder in all Syria had become terrible, Cestius Gallus,
the Roman commander at Antioch, marched with an army to Ptolemais and
overran all Galilee and invested Jerusalem, expecting that it would be
surrendered by means of a powerful party within the walls. But the plot
was discovered, and the conspirators were