body for
fighting, and were above eight thousand of them slain; so all the rest
of them ran away, and with them Niger, who still did a great many bold
exploits in his flight. However, they were driven along together by the
enemy, who pressed hard upon them, into a certain strong tower belonging
to a village called Bezedeh However, Antonius and his party, that they
might neither spend any considerable time about this tower, which was
hard to be taken, nor suffer their commander, and the most courageous
man of them all, to escape from them, they set the wall on fire; and as
the tower was burning, the Romans went away rejoicing, as taking it for
granted that Niger was destroyed; but he leaped out of the tower into a
subterraneous cave, in the innermost part of it, and was preserved; and
on the third day afterward he spake out of the ground to those that with
great lamentation were searching for him, in order to give him a decent
funeral; and when he was come out, he filled all the Jews with an
unexpected joy, as though he were preserved by God's providence to be
their commander for the time to come.

4. And now Vespasian took along with him his army from Antioch, [which
is the metropolis of Syria, and without dispute deserves the place of
the third city in the habitable earth that was under the Roman empire,
[2] both in magnitude, and other marks of prosperity,] where he found
king Agrippa, with all his forces, waiting for his coming, and marched
to Ptolemais. At this city also the inhabitants of Sepphoris of
Galilee met him, who were for peace with the Romans. These citizens had
beforehand taken care of their own safety, and being sensible of the
power of the Romans, they had been with Cestius Gallus before Vespasian
came, and had given their faith to him, and received the security of his
right hand, and had received a Roman garrison; and at this time withal
they received Vespasian, the Roman general, very kindly, and readily
promised that they would assist him against their own countrymen.
Now the general delivered them, at their desire, as many horsemen and
footmen as he thought sufficient to oppose the incursions of the Jews,
if they should come against them. And indeed the danger of losing
Sepphoris would be no small one, in this war that was now beginning,
seeing it was the largest city of Galilee, and built in a place by
nature very strong, and might be a security of the whole nation's
[fidelity to the Romans].