tronius
with an army to Jerusalem, to place his statues in the temple, [11] and
commanded him that, in case the Jews would not admit of them, he should
slay those that opposed it, and carry all the rest of the nation into
captivity: but God concerned himself with these his commands. However,
Petronius marched out of Antioch into Judea, with three legions, and
many Syrian auxiliaries. Now as to the Jews, some of them could not
believe the stories that spake of a war; but those that did believe them
were in the utmost distress how to defend themselves, and the terror
diffused itself presently through them all; for the army was already
come to Ptolemais.

2. This Ptolemais is a maritime city of Galilee, built in the great
plain. It is encompassed with mountains: that on the east side, sixty
furlongs off, belongs to Galilee; but that on the south belongs to
Carmel, which is distant from it a hundred and twenty furlongs; and that
on the north is the highest of them all, and is called by the people of
the country, The Ladder of the Tyrians, which is at the distance of a
hundred furlongs. The very small river Belus [12] runs by it, at the
distance of two furlongs; near which there is Menmon's monument, [13]
and hath near it a place no larger than a hundred cubits, which deserves
admiration; for the place is round and hollow, and affords such sand
as glass is made of; which place, when it hath been emptied by the many
ships there loaded, it is filled again by the winds, which bring into
it, as it were on purpose, that sand which lay remote, and was no more
than bare common sand, while this mine presently turns it into glassy
sand. And what is to me still more wonderful, that glassy sand which is
superfluous, and is once removed out of the place, becomes bare common
sand again. And this is the nature of the place we are speaking of.

3. But now the Jews got together in great numbers with their wives and
children into that plain that was by Ptolemais, and made supplication to
Petronius, first for their laws, and, in the next place, for themselves.
So he was prevailed upon by the multitude of the supplicants, and by
their supplications, and left his army and the statues at Ptolemais, and
then went forward into Galilee, and called together the multitude
and all the men of note to Tiberias, and showed them the power of the
Romans, and the threatenings of Caesar; and, besides this, proved
that their petition was unreasonable, becaus