but it was all overthrown by so long
a war. Yet did this war afford disturbances and dangerous disorders even
in places very far remote from Judea; for still it came to pass that
many Jews were slain at Alexandria in Egypt; for as many of the Sicarii
as were able to fly thither, out of the seditious wars in Judea, were
not content to have saved themselves, but must needs be undertaking to
make new disturbances, and persuaded many of those that entertained
them to assert their liberty, to esteem the Romans to be no better than
themselves, and to look upon God as their only Lord and Master. But when
part of the Jews of reputation opposed them, they slew some of them, and
with the others they were very pressing in their exhortations to revolt
from the Romans; but when the principal men of the senate saw what
madness they were come to, they thought it no longer safe for themselves
to overlook them. So they got all the Jews together to an assembly, and
accused the madness of the Sicarii, and demonstrated that they had been
the authors of all the evils that had come upon them. They said also
that "these men, now they were run away from Judea, having no sure hope
of escaping, because as soon as ever they shall be known, they will be
soon destroyed by the Romans, they come hither and fill us full of those
calamities which belong to them, while we have not been partakers with
them in any of their sins." Accordingly, they exhorted the multitude to
have a care, lest they should be brought to destruction by their means,
and to make their apology to the Romans for what had been done,
by delivering these men up to them; who being thus apprized of the
greatness of the danger they were in, complied with what was proposed,
and ran with great violence upon the Sicarii, and seized upon them; and
indeed six hundred of them were caught immediately: but as to all those
that fled into Egypt [18] and to the Egyptian Thebes, it was not long
ere they were caught also, and brought back, whose courage, or whether
we ought to call it madness, or hardiness in their opinions, every body
was amazed at. For when all sorts of torments and vexations of their
bodies that could be devised were made use of to them, they could not
get any one of them to comply so far as to confess, or seem to confess,
that Caesar was their lord; but they preserved their own opinion, in
spite of all the distress they were brought to, as if they received
these torments and the f