Josephus Takes Command in Galilee

After Cestius’s disaster many of the prominent Jews swam away from the city as from a sinking ship. Costobarus and Saul, who were brothers, together with Philip son of Jacimus, the commander of King Agrippa’s army, slipped out of the city and went to Cestius. Antipas, who had been besieged with them in the royal palace, scorned to flee; how he was later killed by the rebels we shall tell further on. At their own request Cestius sent Saul and his companions to Nero in Achaia, to explain the straits they were in and to lay the blame for the war on Florus. He hoped to lighten his own danger by turning Nero’s anger against Florus. [a]

Meanwhile the people of Damascus, when they heard of the destruction of the Romans, set about killing the Jews who lived among them. Since they had long since gathered them together in the gymnasium, a step they had taken out of suspicion, they thought the attempt would be very easy. What they feared was their own wives, who, all but a few, had been won over to the Jewish religion, so their greatest concern was to keep it secret from them. They fell on the Jews, packed as they were into a narrow space, ten thousand five hundred of them and all unarmed, and cut their throats in a single hour without fear of anyone. [b]

When those who had pursued Cestius returned to Jerusalem, they won over those who still favored the Romans, some by force and some by persuasion. They assembled in the temple and appointed a number of generals for the war. Joseph son of Gorion and Ananus the high priest were chosen, with full power over all affairs in the city, and with a special charge to build up the city walls. They did not put Eleazar son of Simon in charge, even though he had got into his own hands the plunder taken from the Romans, the money seized from Cestius, and a great part of the public treasury besides. They saw that he was a tyrant by nature, and that the zealots under him behaved like his bodyguards. Little by little, however, their need of his money and Eleazar’s cunning won the people over, so that they obeyed him in everything. [c]

For Idumea they chose other generals: Jesus son of Sapphas, one of the high priests, and Eleazar, son of the high priest Neus. Niger, then governor of Idumea, whose family came from Perea beyond the Jordan, so that he was called the Perean, they ordered to obey these generals. Nor did they neglect the rest of the country. Joseph son of Simon was sent as general to Jericho, Manasseh to Perea, and John the Essene to the district of Thamna, with Lydda, Joppa and Emmaus assigned to him as well. John son of Ananias was made commander of the districts of Gophna and Acrabetta, and Josephus son of Matthias of both the Galilees. Gamala, the strongest city in that region, was also added to his command. [e]

Each of the other generals managed his charge with whatever zeal and intelligence he had. But Josephus, when he came into Galilee, made it his first concern to win the goodwill of the people of the country, knowing that in this way he would succeed in most things, even if he failed in others. He saw that he would make the powerful men his own by sharing his authority with them, and the whole people if he gave most of his orders through men of their own country whom they knew. So he chose seventy of the most prudent older men of the nation and made them rulers of all Galilee, and in each city he appointed seven judges for the lesser disputes. Greater matters and cases of bloodshed he ordered to be referred to himself and the seventy. [h]

When he had settled the laws by which the people of each city were to deal with one another, he turned to their safety from enemies outside. Knowing that the Romans would strike at Galilee first, he fortified the places best suited for defense: Jotapata, Bersabe and Selame; Caphareccho, Japha and Sigoph; the mountain called Tabor; Tarichaeae and Tiberias. Besides these he walled the caves near the lake of Gennesaret in what is called Lower Galilee, and in Upper Galilee the place called the Rock of the Achabari, Seph, Jamnith and Mero. In the Gaulanitis he fortified Seleucia, Sogane and Gamala. Only the people of Sepphoris did he allow to build a wall for themselves, because he saw that they were wealthy and eager for war without needing orders. In the same way John son of Levi walled Gischala on his own, at Josephus’s bidding. At all the other strongholds Josephus was present in person, laboring with the builders and giving the orders. He also raised an army from Galilee of more than a hundred thousand young men, and armed them all with old weapons that he collected and refitted. [i]

He saw that the power of the Romans had become unconquerable above all through their readiness to obey and their constant practice with arms. Training that only comes with use he gave up as hopeless; but seeing that their readiness to obey came from the great number of their officers, he divided his army more in the Roman manner and appointed more officers. He made different grades of soldiers and put them under officers over ten and officers over a hundred, then under officers over a thousand, and over these he set commanders who led larger units. He taught them to pass on signals, to sound the trumpet for the charge and the retreat, to attack with the wings and wheel them around, and how the part that was winning must turn to help the part that was hard pressed and share in its struggle. He described to them everything that makes for firmness of soul or endurance of body. Above all he trained them for war by describing at every point the discipline of the Romans, and telling them that they would be fighting men who, by strength of body and firmness of soul, ruled almost the whole inhabited world. He said he would test their discipline in war even before they went into battle, by whether they kept away from their usual crimes: theft, robbery and plunder, cheating their own countrymen, and counting the harm done to their closest neighbors as their own gain. For wars are best fought, he said, where all who serve have a good conscience; but those who are wicked at home have as their enemy not only the foes who attack them but God himself. [k]

He kept on giving them advice of this kind. The force he had made ready for battle was sixty thousand foot soldiers and three hundred and fifty horsemen, and besides these about four thousand five hundred mercenaries, on whom he relied most; around himself he kept six hundred picked men as a bodyguard. Apart from the mercenaries, the cities easily supported the rest of the army. Each city sent half of the men it had enrolled to the army and kept the rest at home to provide them with supplies. So one part was set to arms and the other to work, and those who sent the grain were repaid by the soldiers with security. [l]