Danger for the Jews of Antioch

While Titus was staying at Caesarea, he celebrated his brother’s birthday in splendid style, dedicating much of the Jews’ punishment to his honor. The number of those killed fighting wild beasts, burned alive, or made to kill one another exceeded 2,500. Yet to the Romans all this, though the Jews were dying in ten thousand ways, seemed too light a punishment. After this Caesar came to Berytus, a city in Phoenicia and a Roman colony. He stayed there longer and celebrated his father’s birthday with still greater splendor, both in costly shows and in all the other expense he devised. And a multitude of prisoners perished in the same way as before. [a]

About this time it happened also that the Jews remaining in Antioch came under accusation and in danger of destruction, for the city of Antioch was stirred up against them, both by the slanders brought against them at the time and by what had happened not long before. I must tell of these things briefly first, so that the account of what followed will be clear. [c]

The Jewish race is spread thickly among the native peoples all over the inhabited world, but it is mixed most with Syria, because the countries are neighbors, and it was especially numerous at Antioch, because of the size of the city. The kings after Antiochus above all gave them a secure home there. For although Antiochus called Epiphanes sacked Jerusalem and plundered the temple, those who succeeded him on the throne gave back to the Jews of Antioch all the votive offerings that were made of bronze, dedicating them in their synagogue, and granted them a share in the city on equal terms with the Greeks. The later kings treated them the same way, and so they grew in number and made their sanctuary splendid with the elaborate and costly offerings in it. They were always drawing a great many Greeks to their worship, and had in some measure made them part of themselves. [d]

But when the war had been declared, and Vespasian had lately landed in Syria, and hatred of the Jews was everywhere at its height, a certain Antiochus came forward. He was one of the Jews themselves and highly honored because of his father, who was the chief magistrate of the Jews at Antioch. While the people of Antioch were in assembly, he came into the theater and informed against his own father and the others, accusing them of having resolved to burn the whole city in one night; and he handed over some Jews from abroad as accomplices in the plot. When the people heard this they could not contain their rage. They ordered fire brought for those who had been handed over, and all of them were burned alive in the theater on the spot. Then they rushed on the mass of the Jews, thinking that by punishing them quickly they would save their own city.

Antiochus inflamed their anger still further. Thinking to give proof of his own change of allegiance and of his hatred of the Jews’ customs, he offered sacrifice as is the custom among the Greeks. He urged them to compel the rest to do the same, for those who refused would be exposed as the plotters. When the people of Antioch put this to the test, a few gave in, and those who would not were killed. Antiochus then got soldiers from the Roman commander and became a harsh master over his own fellow citizens. He would not let them rest on the seventh day, but forced them to do everything they did on other days. He made the compulsion so severe that the seventh-day rest was abolished not only at Antioch, but, the thing having started there, in the other cities as well for a short time.

After these misfortunes had befallen the Jews of Antioch at that time, a second disaster fell on them, and it is to tell of this that I have gone through what came before. The square marketplace burned, together with the record offices, the archive and the royal basilicas, and the fire, sweeping violently on toward the whole city, was barely stopped. Antiochus accused the Jews of the deed. Even if the people of Antioch had not been hostile to them before, they were quickly carried away by the slander in the confusion of the disaster; and because of what had already happened, he made them far readier still to believe what he said, as though they had all but seen the Jews setting the fire themselves. Like men gone mad, in a great frenzy, they all rushed on the accused. [h]

With difficulty a legate named Gnaeus Collega held back their attack, asking that Caesar be informed of what had happened; for Vespasian had already sent out Caesennius Paetus as governor of Syria, but he had not yet arrived. Collega made a careful inquiry and found out the truth. Not one of the Jews whom Antiochus blamed had any part in it. The whole thing was the work of some wretches who, driven by their debts, thought that if they burned the marketplace and the public records they would be rid of the demands for payment. So the Jews, with the charges still hanging over them, waited in grievous fear for what was to come.