s, he endured all,
until the enemy took notice of that divine courage that was within him,
and remitted of their attacks; and when they pressed less zealously upon
him, he retired, though without showing his back to them till he was
gotten out of the walls of the city. Now a great number of the Romans
fell in this battle, among whom was Ebutius, the decurion, a man who
appeared not only in this engagement, wherein he fell, but every where,
and in former engagements, to be of the truest courage, and one that had
done very great mischief to the Jews. But there was a centurion whose
name was Gallus, who, during this disorder, being encompassed about,
he and ten other soldiers privately crept into the house of a certain
person, where he heard them talking at supper, what the people intended
to do against the Romans, or about themselves [for both the man himself
and those with him were Syrians]. So he got up in the night time, and
cut all their throats, and escaped, together with his soldiers, to the
Romans.

6. And now Vespasian comforted his army, which was much dejected by
reflecting on their ill success, and because they had never before
fallen into such a calamity, and besides this, because they were greatly
ashamed that they had left their general alone in great dangers. As to
what concerned himself, he avoided to say any thing, that he might by
no means seem to complain of it; but he said that "we ought to bear
manfully what usually falls out in war, and this, by considering what
the nature of war is, and how it can never be that we must conquer
without bloodshed on our own side; for there stands about us that
fortune which is of its own nature mutable; that while they had killed
so many ten thousands of the Jews, they had now paid their small share
of the reckoning to fate; and as it is the part of weak people to be too
much puffed up with good success, so is it the part of cowards to be too
much aftrighted at that which is ill; for the change from the one to the
other is sudden on both sides; and he is the best warrior who is of a
sober mind under misfortunes, that he may continue in that temper, and
cheerfully recover what had been lost formerly; and as for what had now
happened, it was neither owing to their own effeminacy, nor to the valor
of the Jews, but the difficulty of the place was the occasion of their
advantage, and of our disappointment. Upon reflecting on which matter
one might blame your zeal as perfec