ey had paints
under their eyes, and imitated not only the ornaments, but also the
lusts of women, and were guilty of such intolerable uncleanness, that
they invented unlawful pleasures of that sort. And thus did they roll
themselves up and down the city, as in a brothel-house, and defiled it
entirely with their impure actions; nay, while their faces looked like
the faces of women, they killed with their right hands; and when their
gait was effeminate, they presently attacked men, and became warriors,
and drew their swords from under their finely dyed cloaks, and ran every
body through whom they alighted upon. However, Simon waited for such as
ran away from John, and was the more bloody of the two; and he who had
escaped the tyrant within the wall was destroyed by the other that lay
before the gates, so that all attempts of flying and deserting to the
Romans were cut off, as to those that had a mind so to do.

11. Yet did the army that was under John raise a sedition against him,
and all the Idumeans separated themselves from the tyrant, and attempted
to destroy him, and this out of their envy at his power, and hatred of
his cruelty; so they got together, and slew many of the zealots, and
drove the rest before them into that royal palace that was built by
Grapte, who was a relation of Izates, the king of Adiabene; the Idumeans
fell in with them, and drove the zealots out thence into the temple, and
betook themselves to plunder John's effects; for both he himself was in
that palace, and therein had he laid up the spoils he had acquired by
his tyranny. In the mean time, the multitude of those zealots that were
dispersed over the city ran together to the temple unto those that fled
thither, and John prepared to bring them down against the people and the
Idumeans, who were not so much afraid of being attacked by them [because
they were themselves better soldiers than they] as at their madness,
lest they should privately sally out of the temple and get among them,
and not only destroy them, but set the city on fire also. So they
assembled themselves together, and the high priests with them, and took
counsel after what manner they should avoid their assault. Now it was
God who turned their opinions to the worst advice, and thence they
devised such a remedy to get themselves free as was worse than the
disease itself. Accordingly, in order to overthrow John, they determined
to admit Simon, and earnestly to desire the introduction