d for
throwing of stones, and a great part of the instruments of war. So the
Jews went on pursuing the Romans as far as Antipatris; after which,
seeing they could not overtake them, they came back, and took the
engines, and spoiled the dead bodies, and gathered the prey together
which the Romans had left behind them, and came back running and singing
to their metropolis; while they had themselves lost a few only, but had
slain of the Romans five thousand and three hundred footmen, and three
hundred and eighty horsemen. This defeat happened on the eighth day of
the month Dius, [Marchesvan,] in the twelfth year of the reign of Nero.

CHAPTER 9.

Cestius Sends Ambassadors To Nero. The People Of Damascus
Slay Those Jews That Lived With Them. The People Of
Jerusalem After They Had [Left Off] Pursuing Cestius, Return
To The City And Get Things Ready For Its Defense And Make A
Great Many Generals For Their Armies And Particularly
Josephus The Writer Of These Books. Some Account Of His
Administration.

1. After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent
of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to
sink; Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were brethren, together with
Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was the commander of king Agrippa's
forces, ran away from the city, and went to Cestius. But then how
Antipas, who had been besieged with them in the king's palace, but would
not fly away with them, was afterward slain by the seditious, we shall
relate hereafter. However, Cestius sent Saul and his friends, at their
own desire, to Achaia, to Nero, to inform him of the great distress they
were in, and to lay the blame of their kindling the war upon Florus, as
hoping to alleviate his own danger, by provoking his indignation against
Florus.

2. In the mean time, the people of Damascus, when they were informed
of the destruction of the Romans, set about the slaughter of those Jews
that were among them; and as they had them already cooped up together in
the place of public exercises, which they had done out of the suspicion
they had of them, they thought they should meet with no difficulty in
the attempt; yet did they distrust their own wives, which were almost
all of them addicted to the Jewish religion; on which account it was
that their greatest concern was, how they might conceal these things
from them; so they came upon the Jews, and cut their t