The Army Gathers at Ptolemais

The relief force that Vespasian had sent to the people of Sepphoris, a thousand horsemen and six thousand foot soldiers under the tribune Placidus, encamped in the Great Plain and then divided. The infantry were quartered in the city to guard it, and the cavalry lodged in the camp. Sallying out continually from both places and overrunning the country round about, they did great harm to Josephus and his men, though he himself made no move. They plundered the lands outside the towns and beat back the townsmen whenever they dared to sally out. Josephus did march against the city, hoping to take it, though before it broke away from the Galileans he had himself walled it so strongly that even the Romans would find it hard to capture. For that very reason he failed in his hope, proving too weak either to take the place by force or to win the people of Sepphoris back. Instead he only brought the war down harder on the countryside. In their anger at the attempt the Romans did not stop, night or day, ravaging the plains and plundering the property in the country, always killing those fit to fight and enslaving the weak. All Galilee was filled with fire and blood, and there was no suffering or calamity it did not taste. The one refuge for the hunted was the cities Josephus had walled. [a]

Titus crossed over from Achaia to Alexandria faster than the winter season usually allows. He took over the force he had been sent for, marched with all speed, and quickly reached Ptolemais. There he found his father with the two legions he had with him, the most distinguished of all, the fifth and the tenth, and joined to them the fifteenth, which he had brought. Eighteen cohorts followed these legions. Five more cohorts came from Caesarea, with one squadron of horse, and five other squadrons of Syrian cavalry. Ten of the cohorts had a thousand infantry each; the remaining thirteen had six hundred infantry and a hundred and twenty horsemen apiece. A large auxiliary force was also gathered from the kings. Antiochus, Agrippa and Sohaemus each provided two thousand foot archers and a thousand horsemen. Malchus the Arab sent a thousand horsemen besides five thousand foot soldiers, most of them archers. So the whole force, counting the kings’ troops, horse and foot together, came to about sixty thousand, not counting the servants. These followed in huge numbers, and because they had been trained for war along with the soldiers, they could not be set apart from the fighting force. In peacetime they always took part in their masters’ exercises, and in war they shared their dangers, so that in experience and strength they fell short of no one except their masters. [c]