Jerusalem Prepares for War

So the disturbances in Galilee came to an end, and the people, ceasing from their civil strife, turned to preparing for the war with the Romans. In Jerusalem, Ananus the high priest, and those of the powerful men who did not favor the Romans, repaired the wall and got ready a great many engines of war. All over the city arrows and suits of armor were being forged. The mass of young men were busy with disorderly drilling, and everything was full of tumult. Among the moderate people there was terrible dejection, and many who foresaw the disasters to come lamented them. There were prophecies that sounded ill-omened to those who loved peace, while those who had kindled the war improvised them on the spot to suit their own liking. Even before the Romans came against it, the city had the look of a place doomed to perish. Ananus’s aim was to draw back little by little from the preparations for war and to bend the rebels, and the folly of those called zealots, toward what was good for them. But he was overpowered by their violence, and what end he came to we will show later. [a]

In the toparchy of Acrabbene, Simon son of Gioras gathered many of those bent on revolution and took to plunder. He not only ransacked the houses of the rich but abused their persons as well, and it was plain that he was already, well in advance, setting out to make himself a tyrant. When Ananus and the magistrates sent an army against him, he fled with his band to the robbers at Masada. He stayed there, plundering Idumea along with them, until Ananus and his other enemies had been killed. In the end the rulers of that nation, because of the number of people murdered and the constant plundering, raised an army and kept garrisons in the villages. Such was the state of affairs in Idumea. [d]