Felix, then
procurator of Judaea, had put in bonds on a trivial pretext. I was
desirous to procure deliverance for them, not only because they were of
my own friends, but because I heard that they sustained their piety
towards God under their afflictions, and that they simply subsisted on
figs and nuts.

Our voyage was an adventurous one, for the ship was wrecked in the
Adriatic Sea, and we that were in it, being about six hundred in number,
swam all night for our lives. I and about eighty others were saved by a
ship of Cyrene. When I had thus escaped, and was come to Puteoli, I
became acquainted with an actor named Alityrus, much beloved by Nero,
but a Jew by birth. Through his interest I became known to Poppaea,
Caesar's wife, and having, through her, procured the liberty of the
priests, besides receiving from her many presents, I returned to
Jerusalem.

Now I perceived that many innovations were begun, and that many were
cherishing hopes of a revolt from the Romans.

_II.--The Prelude to the Great Crisis_

So I retired to the inner court of the Temple. Yet I went out of the
Temple again, after Menahem and the chief members of the band of robbers
were put to death, and abode among the high-priests and the chief of the
Pharisees. But no small fear seized upon us when we saw the people in
arms, while we were not able to restrain the seditious. We hoped that
Gessius Floras would speedily arrive with great forces. But on his
arrival he was defeated with great loss.

The disgrace that fell upon him became the calamity of our whole nation,
for it elevated the hopes of conquering the Romans on the part of those
who desired war. But another cause of the revolt arose in Syria from the
cruel treatment of the Jews in many cities, where they showed not the
least disposition towards rebellion. About 13,000 were treacherously
slain in Scythopolis, and the Jews in Damascus underwent many miseries;
but of these events accounts are given in the books of the Jewish War.

I was now sent, together with two other priests, Joazar and Judas, by
the principal men of Jerusalem, to Galilee, to persuade the ill men
there to lay down their arms, and to teach them that it were better for
us all to wait to see what the Romans would do. I came into Galilee, and
found the people of Sepphoris in no small agony about their country, by
reason that the Galileans had resolved to plunder it, because of their
friendship with the Romans, and beca