And now the commanders joined in their approbation of what Vespasian
had said, and it was soon discovered how wise an opinion he had given.
And indeed many there were of the Jews that deserted every day, and fled
away from the zealots, although their flight was very difficult, since
they had guarded every passage out of the city, and slew every one that
was caught at them, as taking it for granted they were going over to the
Romans; yet did he who gave them money get clear off, while he only that
gave them none was voted a traitor. So the upshot was this, that the
rich purchased their flight by money, while none but the poor were
slain. Along all the roads also vast numbers of dead bodies lay in
heaps, and even many of those that were so zealous in deserting at
length chose rather to perish within the city; for the hopes of burial
made death in their own city appear of the two less terrible to them.
But these zealots came at last to that degree of barbarity, as not to
bestow a burial either on those slain in the city, or on those that lay
along the roads; but as if they had made an agreement to cancel both the
laws of their country and the laws of nature, and, at the same time
that they defiled men with their wicked actions, they would pollute the
Divinity itself also, they left the dead bodies to putrefy under the
sun; and the same punishment was allotted to such as buried any as
to those that deserted, which was no other than death; while he that
granted the favor of a grave to another would presently stand in need
of a grave himself. To say all in a word, no other gentle passion was so
entirely lost among them as mercy; for what were the greatest objects of
pity did most of all irritate these wretches, and they transferred their
rage from the living to those that had been slain, and from the dead
to the living. Nay, the terror was so very great, that he who survived
called them that were first dead happy, as being at rest already; as did
those that were under torture in the prisons, declare, that, upon
this comparison, those that lay unburied were the happiest. These men,
therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men, and laughed at the laws
of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them as
the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets foretell many things
concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which
when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those
very pro