s to please you,
you may if you please punish your benefactor."

4. Hereupon the people of Taricheae loudly commended him; but those of
Tiberias, with the rest of the company, gave him hard names, and
threatened what they would do to him; so both sides left off quarrelling
with Josephus, and fell on quarrelling with one another. So he grew bold
upon the dependence he had on his friends, which were the people of
Taricheae, and about forty thousand in number, and spake more freely to
the whole multitude, and reproached them greatly for their rashness; and
told them, that with this money he would build walls about Taricheae,
and would put the other cities in a state of security also; for that
they should not want money, if they would but agree for whose benefit it
was to be procured, and would not suffer themselves to be irritated
against him who procured it for them.

5. Hereupon the rest of the multitude that had been deluded retired;
but yet so that they went away angry, and two thousand of them made an
assault upon him in their armor; and as he was already gone to his own
house, they stood without and threatened him. On which occasion Josephus
again used a second stratagem to escape them; for he got upon the top of
his house, and with his right hand desired them to be silent, and said
to them, "I cannot tell what you would have, nor can hear what you say,
for the confused noise you make;" but he said that he would comply with
all their demands, in case they would but send some of their number
in to him that might talk with him about it. And when the principal of
them, with their leaders, heard this, they came into the house. He then
drew them to the most retired part of the house, and shut the door of
that hall where he put them, and then had them whipped till every one of
their inward parts appeared naked. In the mean time the multitude stood
round the house, and supposed that he had a long discourse with those
that were gone in about what they claimed of him. He had then the doors
set open immediately, and sent the men out all bloody, which so terribly
aftrighted those that had before threatened him, that they threw away
their arms and ran away.

6. But as for John, his envy grew greater [upon this escape of
Josephus], and he framed a new plot against him; he pretended to be
sick, and by a letter desired that Josephus would give him leave to use
the hot baths that were at Tiberias, for the recovery of his health.