fraid of loss in such troubles; for the
Jews hoped that all of their nation which were beyond Euphrates would
have raised an insurrection together with them. The Gauls also, in the
neighborhood of the Romans, were in motion, and the Geltin were
not quiet; but all was in disorder after the death of Nero. And the
opportunity now offered induced many to aim at the royal power; and the
soldiery affected change, out of the hopes of getting money. I thought
it therefore an absurd thing to see the truth falsified in affairs of
such great consequence, and to take no notice of it; but to suffer those
Greeks and Romans that were not in the wars to be ignorant of these
things, and to read either flatteries or fictions, while the Parthians,
and the Babylonians, and the remotest Arabians, and those of our nation
beyond Euphrates, with the Adiabeni, by my means, knew accurately both
whence the war begun, what miseries it brought upon us, and after what
manner it ended.

3. It is true, these writers have the confidence to call their accounts
histories; wherein yet they seem to me to fail of their own purpose,
as well as to relate nothing that is sound. For they have a mind to
demonstrate the greatness of the Romans, while they still diminish and
lessen the actions of the Jews, as not discerning how it cannot be that
those must appear to be great who have only conquered those that were
little. Nor are they ashamed to overlook the length of the war, the
multitude of the Roman forces who so greatly suffered in it, or the
might of the commanders, whose great labors about Jerusalem will be
deemed inglorious, if what they achieved be reckoned but a small matter.

4. However, I will not go to the other extreme, out of opposition to
those men who extol the Romans nor will I determine to raise the actions
of my countrymen too high; but I will prosecute the actions of both
parties with accuracy. Yet shall I suit my language to the passions I am
under, as to the affairs I describe, and must be allowed to indulge some
lamentations upon the miseries undergone by my own country. For that it
was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed it, and that they were
the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who
unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple,
Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, daring the
entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and
did often